The Concept

I have always known I would one day make a jazz album for my father, Neal Weiss. I wanted it to be a gift, tribute, and homage to the man who raised me and my brother. Neal’s sense of purpose comes from his parents and that is to always give back. His mother called him a big shot and warned him he’ll fall flat on his face. It’s become a running family joke, but the underlying truth is that he feels perpetually grateful and is eager to share his gratitude and encourage it in others.

Whether it is coaching kids wrestling, raising money for the YWCA and other organizations, helping the New Bedford Art Museum in a plethora of areas, highlighting the cultural contributions of people who have come before, and creating opportunities for up-and-comers to continue making them, he is always involved in giving back in some way. Neal instilled in us deep and earnest love of adventurous music and I wanted to honor that in a way he would not see coming - the form of his passion - producing a jazz record.

When Covid hit in March of 2020 and it became clear that older people were more vulnerable to the virus, I started thinking we should probably get moving on this record. Better to give a gift while the recipient is still with us rather than after they’ve left this mortal plane (“thanks for nothing, kid!”). Neal’s 75th birthday was approaching in less than two years: a seemingly reasonable timeline to complete this project and, seeing as how he is fond of hosting killer jazz concerts on his big number birthdays, a perfect occasion to present him with this gift.

Among many other things, my dad is President of Whaling City Sound, a (predominately jazz) record label out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. His love of jazz can be traced back to his teen years growing up just outside of Queens, New York where he became hooked on Monk, Miles, Morgan, Mobley, and other luminaries of hard bop and beyond.

Now what does “make a jazz album” mean? I didn’t really know (do I now?) but I knew I’d need some help. Jazz was inescapable in our house growing up, and not just the music. Our dad would bore us with stories of his youthful transgressions - stealing Thelonious Monk’s mailbox label from his apartment, getting John Coltrane’s autograph at a club he was too young to be in (“Stay Cool, Neal”). There was probably jazz on in the other room as I was plinking out notes on our piano, the beginnings of melodies that would become Lazertüth songs. But, I don’t play or write jazz music.

In November 2020 I reached out to my brother Ben (Modality), Marcus Monteiro (MM4, Monteirobots), Brian Cass (Overclock Orchestra) and Kevin Fernandes (Lazertüth) to float some ideas by them, as vague as they might’ve been, and see if they’d be interested in helping. Do we arrange existing Lazertüth songs as jazz songs? Who plays them? Do we take well-known jazz melodies and rework them as space-prog? Could we all combine to be a convincing fusion outfit? These ideas could all be cool. But, it was hard to see a finished product that would be respectful of the jazz tradition, appeal to Neal’s ear, and still be music from my soul. One of my dad’s refrains kept running through my head:

“For my own taste, my needle is stuck between 1958-63. Coltrane and Miles, Cannonball and Wes. Obviously, I like newer stuff, too. But that’s my sweet spot: hard bop, soul jazz. That’s what appeals to me.”

Almost immediately, Ben, Marcus, Cass, and Kevin got back to me with ideas and suggestions and, more importantly, a desire to help; our Secret Jazz Album Committee was born. Marcus offered to reharmonize some Lazertüth tunes as jazz songs so we sent him some tracks and he went to work. And BOY DID HE WORK! By early December, Marcus was sending us a new snippet of a jazz version of a Lazertüth melody DAILY, usually with an exciting question for Kevin and me to stare blankly at “What if we vamped on this one short section and turned it into a minor blues?” “Are you guys married to those bass ostinatos in ‘Butdet Detdep'?” “Is it ok if I don’t transcribe the sprechstimme vocal line?”

Marcus’ reharmonizations really helped snap the entire project into focus. Through the alchemy of music theory and Marcus’s enthusiasm and chops, Lazertüth’s synth-heavy, progressive space-rock was starting to sound like hard bop and early modal jazz. Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Cannonball Adderley, Lee Morgan, Monk – this was Neal’s sound and vibe. Ben and I both knew as soon as we heard Marcus’s work that this was the right direction for the project. Before we knew it, Marcus had reharmonized, recontextualized, and/or fully adapted 8 Lazertüth songs as straight ahead jazz tunes.

We had the vibe, we had the songs, we needed the band. We put together a list of talented musicians who we knew were not only up to the task but would be easy to work with. Jazz musicians are a complex bunch and for a project such as this, we wanted to make sure we found some laid back cats who could grasp the concept and adapt accordingly. We decided on a set quartet with a fifth guest of rotating horns. John Dalton on Drums, Sean Farias on Bass, Nick Sanfilippo on Piano and Marcus on Alto with Billy Buss (trumpet), Kyle Nasser (Tenor and Bass Clarinet) and Angel Subero (trombone) rotating through.

One practice was held Sunday May 2nd in my yard and recording was set for Monday, May 17, 2021. The entire album was recorded in one afternoon by Corey Sherman at PaperRobot Recording Studio in Middleboro, MA. The record was then mixed by Brian Cass and Ben Weiss on Tuesday June 29th, 2021. Ben and I believe we were able to keep all of this a secret from Neal.

The Music

Lazertüth is an arch-concept band. We have written, recorded, and produced a half dozen albums that all tell various stories about a sabertooth tiger, genetically modified to shoot lasers from his teeth, who has escaped his makers’ clutches and becomes self-actualized as he wanders the cosmos. Album and song names describe battle grounds, alien species and their relationship to the titular creature, and other ephemera from our fantastical sci-fi universe. Not exactly the stuff of jazz standards, even if the music itself had been remade appropriately. We needed new titles.

As a tribute to our father, we chose song titles from life lessons he has imparted to us. The first six songs are named after the Big Six: aphorisms Neal would make his wrestling students recite at the start of every practice. These short maxims comprised of rules, reasons for injuries, and good advice, taken wholesale or lightly edited, work really well as jazz song titles. Rule #1 is No wrestling Anytime, Anywhere without an adult willing to supervise (isn’t “Anytime, Anywhere” the name of a Sinatra tune?).

“If you can’t be good, be bad” is something Margie, Neal’s wife and our stepmother, would always say to me when dropping me off somewhere as a youth. Margie is an amazing mother, wife, and human being. Without her, our lives would be much worse off and Neal knows it. She also helped keep this project a secret and for that, even if nothing else, deserves a song named for her. In a similar bit of parting wisdom upon leaving a kid at a destination, T.W.A.B.A. is something Neal’s mom said to him and something he would say to Ben: “There Will Always Be Assholes and you should not be one of them.”

The album starts with wrestling saying “As Goes The Head, So Goes The Man,” the melody of which is taken from the first Lazertüth song ever recorded, “Gears Eat Warms.” Here, this album’s wild concept is at its peak, as this song could be a side A slammer off of Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder or Hank Mobley’s No Room For Squares. Nasser and Monteiro attack the melody with the instinctive ferocity of the space cat the song was written about. Sanfilippo’s piano solo rips with laser focus and pounding enthusiasm. This track is a lead-off triple baby, who’s up next?

“Anytime, Anywhere” is taken from the second half of the same Lazertüth song, and Marcus’s arrangement gives it sauntering hot summer day vibe that differs greatly from the source material. Subero’s trombone solo coasts along like the casual observations of a passenger, as the rhythm section paddles a boatload of sweet beats along a blissful river. Only the slightly jarring ‘Tüthian phrasing (time stamped at around the 3:12 mark) takes you out of your riverine reverie, forcing the realization that you are in fact listening to new music and not some long lost jazz classic.

Where have you gone my ostinatos? Marcus busts out the baritone sax on “You Are What You Eat,” a reharmonization of the aforementioned Butdet Detup, and his horn choice pairs superbly with Buss’s classy brassy trumpet. Farias gets a word in with a killer bass solo and the boys really swing this one out nicely. These boys are staying in shape.

The A side ends with “Report All Injuries,” arranged by Mike Cauldill. I wrote the melody for the original song, “Become the Snake, Pt. III” in 1999, when I was 16 or so. I certainly never imagined, sitting there tinkling the what-have-yous in my post high school stupor, possibly stoned, that the melody I was teasing out would one day be played by serious cats. Yet here we are. The second meeting of Kyle and Marcus kicks as much ass as the first, although perhaps not as aggressively. No injuries reported.

Side B starts things a little further out, with Nasser taking a turn on bass clarinet on the modal opener, “Not Warmed Up, Not in Shape.” John Dalton’s talent for free play is the focus here as he effortlessly moves all around the drum kit, swinging like a straight killer through the changes then taking a solo to the outer limits. Not based on an existing Lazertüth song, this is a tune I wrote with Marcus for this album. I might like to take a crack at reworking this one for the rock band. Full circle.

“Fooling Around,” the other reason for injury, swings out melodies from two different songs on Lazertüth’s 4th album Leon, as elements from both “The Rider” and “White Hot Chariot” are spliced together like a professional fiber installer by Monteiro (with arrangement help from Cauldill again). Billy Buss feels right at home groovin’ along on Trumpet here and his solo is one of the album’s highlights.

With the Big Six wrestling rules laid down, it is on to the saucy “If You Can’t Be Good, Be Bad (Margie’s Theme).” A reharmonized version of the heavy rocker “Ouroboros” off of the album Serpentor, this track features a scorching solo by Monteiro on alto followed by another superb Subero solo on trombone. Not to be outdone is Farias, who dances, plucks, and pounces on his last bass solo of the record.

The final track, “T.W.A.B.A” is another mash up of two Lazertüth songs, “…And Sorrow Swallowed Him Whole,” from Serpentor, and “Kranktroller,” from The Akami, which happens to use the same chord progression from the end of “Om Desperche,” from The Moruvians, our split album with Modality. Keeping up? One element these Lazertüth songs have in common is a long coda. Listen to how the music here plays with that source material, dissipating at the end as this chapter of the Lazertüth saga comes to a close.

I wrote another new tune for this project, but due to stylistic concerns and, perhaps more importantly, space limitations of the vinyl format, decided to keep it off the record. “Ruby And The Duke,” named after Neal’s parents and Duke Ellington, feels a little more early 50s than the rest of the tunes in this collection. It is available via download with the rest of the album.

The record you hold in your hands is the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people, all of them excited and grateful for the opportunity to give something back to Neal Weiss. Happy birthday, Dad.

Ethan (and Ben) Weiss