UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

This week we lost one of the all-time great jazz musicians: pianist, composer and bandleader Chick Corea. He first came to prominence as a sideman in the ’60s, eventually joining Miles Davis’s Lost Quintet around 1968, and very notably playing on the revolutionary fusion album Bitches Brew. In the ’70s he formed his own highly influential jazz fusion band, Return to Forever, and he continued to play a major role in both the fusion and traditional jazz scenes for the rest of his life.

He was also a Scientologist, which… well, I’m just putting it out there.

My introduction to Chick was, sadly, probably the least enduring of his work, the extremely ’80s (in a bad way) Elektric Band. I bought the newly-released fourth Elektric Band CD in high school when I was just discovering jazz, and it did nothing for me, so I kind of ignored Chick for many years, until the classic Return to Forever lineup (Chick, Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White) reunited to tour in the 2000s. I saw them live and was blown away, and then I began to explore Chick’s amazing work from the ’60s and ’70s… all of the RTF albums, plus albums like 1978’s Friends (which featured Smurfs on the cover, before they were “a thing” here in the U.S., at least), Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (1968) and my absolute favorite, Light as a Feather from 1973.

In addition to that Return to Forever show, I also got to see Chick play with Steve Gadd at the Dakota Jazz Club here in Minneapolis in 2017. That show was a lifetime music highlight for me… two of my favorite musicians in an intimate venue. (We were sitting in the mezzanine, directly above and behind Steve Gadd’s drum kit, so I could watch everything he was doing!)

Last year when I was working on my Northern Daydream album, there were two additional tracks I had originally intended to include but abandoned midway through: Freddie Hubbard’s “Red Clay,” and Chick Corea’s “500 Miles High,” from Light as a Feather.

Yesterday I decided I needed to pay tribute to Chick by finishing my recording of “500 Miles High” with an accompanying video. Problem is, I had not started doing video yet when I recorded the fretless bass and electric piano parts (the only parts I had recorded) last year, so I had to start over. Luckily I still had the Logic project file, so I had a head start on doing the re-recording. I managed in one 8-hour blast to record new bass and electric piano parts, as well as the tenor sax and drum parts I had never gotten to the first time around, mix and master the recording, edit together the video, and even add an animated opening title sequence! It was definitely the fastest I’ve ever turned around a project like this, but I wanted to keep the momentum going.

Here it is!

In case you’re wondering about this weird orange space I record in, a bit of the secret is revealed near my sock-feet in the keyboard shot.

Sadly I do not (yet) have a proper recording booth built out in my house, but I do have a freestanding space in the basement, created by hanging four heavy moving blankets from the rafters, to form a 5′ x 5′ “booth” of sorts, with a fifth blanket above as a ceiling. A patchwork of rugs on the floor completes the sound dampening effect. It is most definitely not soundproof, but it is acoustically “dry,” which I have come to realize is more important!

The only downside is it’s right next to the furnace, so I do have to turn the heat off when I’m recording with microphones! But any other noise from upstairs — talking, walking around, etc. — does not get picked up noticeably by the mics.

This is better than the sound booth I created in a small closet at the shop I was renting for several years. I spent several hundred dollars on acoustical foam to cover every inch of the inside of that closet, but it could not compensate for the fact that Pizza Hut’s walk-in freezer was directly on the other side of the wall!

First Contact
Season 4 Episode 15
Original airdate: February 16, 1991

Netflix Synopsis

A surgically altered Riker has been on an acculturation mission for months under an alias. But a serious injury threatens to blow his cover.

My Brief Review

First Contact was the name of the best of the TNG movies, but before that, it was this episode. This one is great to watch after having recently watched the entirety of Enterprise, the prequel series that focuses extensively on Vulcans’ arrival for first contact with Earth.

This is a very compelling episode, both for the inspiringly enlightened approach the Federation takes to first contact, as well as its insightful commentary on humans’ own reluctance to embrace the inevitability of change.

Alien Rando

Most of this episode takes place on the alien planet, so let’s forget all about crew randos this time around. There is a hilarious cameo by Bebe Neuwirth as a lovestruck Malcorian who has always dreamed of “making love to an alien.” She gets her chance with Riker… at least that’s implied. Of course, Riker.

Memorable Moment

When Picard and Troi first beam down and introduce themselves to Mirasta Yale, it turns our human anxiety about the moment of arrival of space aliens on its head.

Distance Rating: 7K

IMDb score: 8.2/10

Clues
Season 4 Episode 14
Original airdate: February 9, 1991

Netflix Synopsis

After passing through a wormhole, the crew uncovers clues that they were unconscious for more than the 30 seconds they were led to believe.

My Brief Review

I’ve made it to 50 reviews! Beyond that, I watched this episode 30 years to the day after it originally aired. (My God, has it been that long?) It’s one I remember well.

The episode begins with what seems like a throwaway Holodeck scene where Picard is re-enacting a film noir mystery, with a special visit from Guinan dressed in 1940s garb. Of course this scene has a symbolic relevance to the episode’s main story, which is the crew’s persistent unraveling of a big mystery… if they were only unconscious for 30 seconds, how did Dr. Crusher’s moss samples show a day’s worth of growth? And how did Worf’s wrist get broken and set? And why did Data apparently tamper with the ship’s clock, as well as… lots of other stuff? And why is Troi freaking out?

The mystery was not so exciting for me this time around because I remembered the basic gist of the story, and in retrospect it’s pretty obvious given the pretty blatant clues we’re given. But it’s still fun… Mystery Trek!

Memorable Moment

The whole thing is vaguely memorable, but the scene where Troi screams is stuck pretty firmly in my brain… I remembered her exact lines of dialogue as she was about to say them.

Crew Rando

Is Nurse Alyssa really a rando? This was only her second appearance in the show, but she would go on to be in 14 more episodes over the remainder of the show, including the series finale. She still seems like a bit of a rando at this moment though. There’s also Ensign McKnight at the helm, who is here for the first of three appearances.

Distance Rating: 3K

IMDb score: 8.3/10

Devil’s Due
Season 4 Episode 13
Original airdate: February 2, 1991

Netflix Synopsis

While answering a distress call, Picard finds himself dealing with a person who claims to be the planet’s version of the Devil.

My Brief Review

This is a very memorable episode, if not an exceptionally brilliant one, featuring a woman posing as Ardra, an all-powerful being who “saved” a planet from destroying itself 1000 years ago, with a contract that would enslave the planet’s population after a millennium.

Of course, she’s not really Ardra (who maybe never even really existed), she’s just a con artist, and Picard must prove that, with Data as the impartial arbitrator. (After all, it is against his programming to… do whatever it needs to be against his programming to do for the plot of any given episode.)

Memorable Moment

After Enterprise tracks down Ardra’s (or whoever she really is) cloaked ship and takes control of it, Picard shows off his mastery of all of her tricks — earthquakes, vanishing, transforming into the Klingon devil Fek’lhr. Of course by this time he’s already demonstrated to the leader of the planet that his own people had saved themselves through years of dedicated effort, but that wasn’t enough to persuade him.

Crew Rando

Ensign Kellogg, sitting at Data’s ops station, certainly appeared stunned when he reappeared after Ardra had temporarily taken his place. Gee, if he weren’t a total rando, maybe Picard could have, y’know, asked him where he had been when she made him disappear and they might have tracked down her ship faster.

Distance Rating: 5K

IMDb score: 7.3/10

The Wounded
Season 4 Episode 12
Original airdate: January 26, 1991

Netflix Synopsis

Capt. Picard races against time to find out the facts behind a Cardassian commander’s claim that the Federation attacked one of their outposts.

My Brief Review

I’m not a fan of the Cardassians (or the Kardashians), and have never really gotten into DS9 because of them. (OK, it’s mostly because of the Ferengi, but the Cardassians are annoying too.) Nonetheless, this was a pretty good, suspenseful episode, well acted by all involved, and it was most likely pivotal in setting up the dynamic between the Federation and the Cardassians that carries over into DS9. (That actually makes me a little less enthusiastic about it, because I feel like it kind of only exists for that purpose.)

The best part of the episode is the complexity of the final scene. Picard has removed Captain Maxwell and staved off outright hostilities, but he makes it clear to the Cardassian captain that he knows they were lying about the activities on the outpost Maxwell attacked. So, even though Maxwell was wrong to start hostilities the way he did, he was right that the Cardassians were preparing for war. Kind of a no-win situation.

Memorable Moment

Watching the long-range sensor projection of the Federation ship Phoenix attacking two Cardassian ships looks like something I would have thought was a pretty rad video game back in 1991.

Crew Rando

There’s a new nobody ensign at the helm, but the real rando is Captain Maxwell from the Phoenix, played by Bob Gunton… the warden from The Shawshank Redemption! (3 years before Shawshank, of course.) As soon as I saw him I knew there would be trouble. He was perfect in the role.

Distance Rating: 2K

IMDb score: 8.2/10