Original image by There Stands the Glass.
I envy Deadheads. Not only are they part of an interactive community open to all like-minded enthusiasts of the Grateful Dead, their single-minded obsessiveness simplifies their leisure time. I fret over whether to invest four hours in a production of Parsifal (the last “major” opera I have yet to see), investigate the new 10-hour William Parker boxed set, luxuriate in Whodini’s "Five Minutes of Funk" or brace for a round of Kansas City punk. Deadheads merely have to decide which vintage show they’d like to hear next.
A fresh slate of old Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey recordings arouses a related form of reassuring nostalgia in me. The first two of the scheduled five albums were released on May 7. The previously unreleased 2008 studio album Winterwood is a cheeky update of Ellingtonian swing and juke-joint boogie-woogie. The Spark That Bled: Tour '05 includes live interpretations of compositions by the Flaming Lips and Charles Mingus, a representative reflection of the ensemble’s sensibilities.
A corresponding 27-minute documentary champions the manic intensity, wild eclecticism and unlikely evolution of the band from Oklahoma. I’ve long flirted with full-on fandom. I interviewed front man Brian Haas for Plastic Sax in 2009. The band’s ambitious concept album Race Riot Suite was my favorite album of 2011. Come to think of it, I could do a lot worse than listen exclusively to Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. Deadhead? No man, but I’m perilously close to becoming a Fredhead.