“…So Very Happy”

Quarter after eight. My problem was the heat today. It was already bad by ten o’clock this morning. The high point of the day was playing BS&T on my killer Jazz Bass. I couldn’t think, but I could play. Doing “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” took me back to 1969 and being a 2yo. Although, I think it was 1970 when Mom ordered my copy of the LP from the Columbia Record Club. It was the first album I ever got with much virtuosity. It stood head and shoulders above Herb Alpert and Burt Bacharach, but I liked it all. What set Blood, Sweat & Tears apart for me were the drummer and bass player, plus staggering horns. I couldn’t appreciate it fully at age three, but I continued to listen to the self titled album up to age five. Then after a hiatus I revisited it at 13yo and could marvel at Bobby Colomby’s drumming throughout. It seemed to me that he and Lew Soloff on trumpet were the most outstanding musicians in the band. Jim Fielder on Fender bass made a good complement to Colomby, though. For a nine piece, they were incredibly tight and together… So this forenoon the trailer rocked with some classic rhythm & blues transmuted from my memory to the strings of my bass and sent to the practice amplifier. Aesop just huddled down and endured the noise, as it seemed to him. I don’t know what my neighbors thought of it, but for me it was a reprieve from the heat.

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