From whence, dear God, comes that stench? Could it really be coming from Spyro Gyra’s 1980 fuzak LP Catching the Sun?
I’m fully cognizant of the fact that as a musical reviewer it’s my responsibility to occasionally take one for the team, but I most certainly did not sign up for this. I am reminded of the abominable frog Jean Paul Sartre, who said, “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” Because I was ear raped whilst listening to this shameless foray into El Blando jazz fusion treacle and I most definitely intend to do something about it, namely fling the album into the trash. After breaking it in half so that I needn’t worry about some poor trash picker happening upon it and accidentally being assaulted too.
Some albums you don’t wish on your friends. Other albums you don’t even wish on your enemies. Catching the Sun is such an album. You’ve heard of Yacht Rock? Well this is Yacht Jazz—perky, overly “bright,” watered down, anodyne, lamentable, loathsome. With the exception of the far too smooth but almost sorta acceptable on the disco level “Philly” and the ersatz funky “Cockatoo,” which I might find bearable on a near lethal dose of heavy tranquilizers, this album is pure schlock for puerile people, which may explain why it rocketed to the top of the Billboard Jazz charts in our Year of the Smooth 1980.
Catching the Sun is proof positive of H.L. Mencken’s famous dictum that “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” Basically what Spyro Gyra did was take an already dumbed-down musical subgenre, jazz fusion, and dumb it down even further. Imagine buying a gram of cocaine that has been cut with baby laxative 43 separate times before you get your snout on it. The results are a sure-fire palliative for people with poor nerves—Thorazine for the ears, as it were.
Does Catching the Sun swing? Does your granny swing? Does it bring the funk? Does Henry Mancini bring the funk? Even the late era Steely Dan would blanch at the unabashed mediocrity of these perfunctory forays into white bread “jass” and funk, and if that doesn’t give you pause it should. This is the kind of music that insists upon driving 35 in a 65 mph zone, and—because it holds no surprises—would never dream of switching lanes without signaling a good 5 miles in advance.
Ah, but I should say something about the songs. “Catching the Sun” is an airy meditation on the vacuous joys of sunbathing and to be frank, I’d prefer a bad case of sunburn any day. “Autumn of Our Love” is a smoothie composed of equally parts bad strings, Kenny G-school sax, and a blindingly bright keyboard sound. “Here Again” constitutes an egregious abuse of the vibraphones—thanks for nothing Dave Samuels—which I tend to avoid anyway. As for Jay Beckenstein’s turn on the alto saxophone, I would like to think it’s cause for immediate government seizure of said alto saxophone. People need to be protected from this kind of thing.
“Laser Material” is a not altogether horrifying stab at funk—its opening is absolutely jarring, and proof that if they wanted to, these guys could probably do better. But they don’t want to do better; they want to prove that they have even less soul than Grover Washington, Jr. Which they do on “Safari,” which boasts some percussion that sounds like it comes not from the wilds of Africa but from a petting zoo.
It’s altogether fitting that this band derived its name from a species of green algae. And not because they grow on you, because they don’t. No, it’s because they’re the kind of thing you might be horrified to discover growing in the grouting in your shower. Over the years they’ve recorded with such guests as Tom Scott, Toots Thielemans, Steve Jordan, and the Brecker Brothers. But green algae has no mind, all I knows how to do is reproduce itself, and all the L.A. sessions guys in the world can’t save slime from itself. So grab your granny and get funky.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D-
