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Today I want to tell you a story that really happened to me.
I was in one of my favorite record stores and my gaze casually fell on the brochure that my shelf neighbor pulled out from the record he was examining. I barely had time to focus on one of the advertised album covers. It immediately caught my attention because in the foreground was the figure of a naked Black woman, with a sad look staring into space and holding a lit cigarette between her fingers, she was curled up on a chair, the blurred background barely allowing the perception of furniture in a room with an atmosphere suspended in time and space.
Back home, this image kept echoing in my head, I just couldn't shake it off, not knowing the album title or the artist's name, I embarked on a desperate yet futile online search.
But I don't give up. I return to Mario's record store (nothing to do with the one at the Bar) and I give him the clues I have to help me solve this "enigma," unfortunately without result.
At this point, I must surrender, although this "phantom record" continues to haunt me, robbing me of sleep.
Some time later I go to another of the record stores I regularly visit, Filippo's. While sifting through the albums in the Funk - Soul music section, this record slips through my fingers, and I immediately pull it out with astonishment and triumph: here it is, I finally found it.
Filippo puts it on immediately and the acoustic guitar arpeggio of "Dancing Girl" begins, a piece of almost nine minutes that is pervaded by a dreamlike atmosphere enriched with jazz nuances highlighting the soloist's voice that travels through suggestive harmonies rich in color. The record continues with the title track where romance and sweetness triumph, but the simple, harmonious, effective songwriting also emerges: “Is it wrong or is it right? Is it black or is it white? What color is love?”. Following “You Goin' Miss Your Candyman” is characterized by a hypnotic bass line that highlights the composer's deep blues background. Then comes the pure enjoyment amid soulful choirs and the counterpoint of the soloist's voice in “Just As Long As We're In Love,” and it's just the right moment to start making love with the one we love. But there's still room for "Ho Tsing Mee (A Song of the Sun)" with its questions about why the Creator can allow so much horror and violence in the world. And here comes "I'd Rather Be With You" with its autobiographical text being a true declaration of the artist's intent. The delicate “You don’t care” closes this beautiful album with a predominantly instrumental part sustained and made ethereal by a soul choir that repeats ad libitum the song's title.
The folk – soul – jazz album I just described to you is “What Color is Love,” recorded in 1972 for Cadet Records, by the talented and inspired African American guitarist-composer born in 1945 in Chicago, Terry Callier, with production by the great Charles Stepney, who actively participated in the arrangement of the tracks and played the piano. A true battalion of musicians participated in the recording of the album, so I'll just mention the instruments present: in addition to the rhythm section with two guitars, a bass and piano, a drum set and two bongos, there are a viola, a violin and a cello, a harp, an alto saxophone, a flute, a French horn, a trumpet, and to finish in beauty, three backing vocalists in pure Motown style.
After this, his second studio album, Terry Callier released another high-level album before retiring from the scene to dedicate himself to his family and his work as a computer programmer. He returned to music in the second half of the '90s, releasing some very valuable acid jazz albums. He flew away towards new musical horizons in October 2012.
The "moral" of the story I've just told you is this: always buy records that have a beautiful cover, especially if you haven't the slightest idea of what music they contain and who on earth is the author that realized them, simply because a good record always starts with a beautiful cover.
Oh, I almost forgot: the photo of the girl on the cover is by Joel Brodosky, who in his career made over 400 covers, entering legend in the history of music by being the author of the shot of Jim Morrison called "The American Poet," which ended up on the inside cover of the “Greatest Hits” album in 1967.
Happy listening from your DottorJazz.
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