10+10 Fishermen Against the Wind. 16) Silent Night
Johnny "Bowtie" Barstow.
Larry Goldings is really good: a jazz keyboardist in love with Monk, he has worked with people like Scofield, Bley, Metheny…. And quite a few others (I recommend you look for “Saudades” in a trio with Scofield and DeJohnnette, with whom he even won a Grammy).
In short, he's really talented.
One evening – we’re in the mid-90s – Larry goes to the Angry Squire in New York to check out one of those “open mic” nights where “amateurs take the stage.”
Now, I don’t know if it was a coincidence or if Larry had gone specifically for him (who had become a bit of an attraction at those nights), but there, Larry meets “our” Johnny “Bowtie” Barstow.
Johnny is a professional computer programmer (and this – I swear – is all I know about him) and a part-time singer.
He’s a revelation.
Larry brings Johnny to his home studio and, for two years, records and arranges everything he sings.
This results in “A Bowtie Christmas and More,” a collection of Christmas carols and “all time classics” recorded both in studio and live.
It was incredibly difficult to choose what to let you listen to: “Bowtie’s” interpretations are all mind-blowing, and I honestly can’t say whether the effect of Christmas classics is more disorienting or less than a “Girl From Ipanema” or “As Time Goes By.”
But Larry believes in it, and so does Bowtie.
And the more I listen to it, the more I start to believe in it too…
A serious critic like J. Kellman has compared him to Coltrane….
Could it be…