Rudy’s Desert Island Discs

Every music lover has a list of essential discs that they’d take with them on the proverbial rubber raft out to some deserted island. While most deserted islands have more palm trees, coconuts and sandy beaches than audio equipment (where’s the Professor from Gilligan’s Island when we need ‘im?), we’ll overlook that fact and present a list of recordings that Rudy has played and enjoyed throughout the years. We won’t limit this to any specific number, just to keep the options open. This is a work in progress, so watch this page often for updates. And don’t fret if we only have a few listed here so far!

So here, in no particular order, are Rudy’s Desert Island Discs…

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Donald Fagen: The Nightfly
This was my first exposure to the music of Donald Fagen, having purchased it based on a glowing write-up in Stereo Review. It didn’t disappoint! I played the LP literally a few hundred times, almost daily over the course of two years. This also led me to all of the Steely Dan albums, which I soon purchased and played quite a bit as well.Pat Metheny: Secret Story
I’m a big Pat Metheny fan, and have all of his Group recordings along with a handful of his solo projects. Secret Story, though, taps into a rare emotional element that is both haunting and beautiful. (Word has it that it tells the story of a difficult love affair Metheny was involved in.) The Cambodian chanting at the beginning is only a hint of how different this recording would be; this is also the only Metheny album with strings. Metheny himself noted that while this was probably his most intimate album, it was also his most ambitious and had as many as 80 musicians accompanying him on some of the tracks. In 2007, it was released in a remastered edition with a second bonus disc containing a handful of tracks that were recorded at the same sessions, but only recently finished for this new edition.

Steely Dan: Aja
Arguably the Dan’s finest. The title track is like an extended jazz suite. The rest has the trademark lyrics we expect from the best Steely Dan, along with some of the finest session musician work you’ll hear from this era. A solid listen, end to end. My favorites are “Home At Last”, “Aja” and “Peg”. Careful listeners will also hear Michael McDonald on many of the tracks, and the other musicians are among the best studio musicians available (Steve Gadd, Larry Carlton, Bernard Purdie, and plenty of others). The “Classic Albums” DVD of this album is not to be missed either.

The Police: Synchronicity
Perhaps the finest work by The Police, and Sting for that matter. With this album, The Police turned into more of a “serious” band and recorded multilayered songs that tapped into various emotional and literary levels they had only dabbled with on earlier albums. Despite the depth of side two on the LP, my favorites are the two “Synchronicity” parts. “Every Breath You Take” was the monster smash here–I don’t think many realized what a bitter, jealousy-riddled song it really is, deceiving due to its simple, uncluttered arrangement.

Miles Davis: Kind Of Blue
It is almost a cliché to say that you like this Miles Davis album, as many claim it is their favorite as well. But it deserves this reputation, in spades! This is one of the finest pieces of improvisation jazz out there, with what amounts to an all-start assemblage of players including pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly (Kelly appears on “Freddie Freeloader” only), alto Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane on tenor, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.

Michael Franks: Passionfruit
I’d heard Franks for years on the radio, especially on local station WJZZ. It wasn’t until 1987 when I picked up and fell for his Skin Dive album, that I got hooked. I do like much of his recorded output, but Passionfruit just hits an amazing high point for me. While it has a song or two I don’t identify with, most of them are fantastic. This would have made a great “make-out” album back in my dating days! The effect of the musical arrangements, the picturesque lyrics and unassuming vocals gives the whole album a steamy, lush, dreamy and subtly erotic feeling. “Passion” fruit indeed.

Matt Bianco: Matt’s Mood
While I have been a major fan of Basia since her first album, Matt’s Mood reassembled the original lineup of the group Matt Bianco (Danny White, Mark Reilly), which gives a mild updating to the jazz/Bossa Nova/pop sound they originated in the 80s and that Basia and Danny White continued on her own albums.

Beatles: A Hard Day’s Night (UK version)
I’m not the biggest of Beatles fans, but it seems that one can’t get away from some music discussions without The Beatles coming up. If I had to pick, I’d say I like the earlier sounds of the Fab Four the best, and this semi-soundtrack album features all original compositions.

Herb Alpert: Fandango
As many of my A&M Corner friends could tell you, I’ve been listening to Herb Alpert since I was a wee one. I like all the old TJB albums, and am always hard-pressed to pick a favorite! And even among the solo recordings, I have quite a few I’d consider favorites. But Fandango just has that extra “something” that has made it a favorite since the day it was released. The TJB were very loosely based on the Mexican mariachi tradition, but Fandango brings us to modern-day Mexico, which combines a few Latin flavors with contemporary sounds. “Route 101″ is one dangerously infectious track!

Doobie Brothers: Best Of The Doobies, Vol. 1
While the Doobies have a lot of good early albums, their best is summed up in this 10-song compilation. The Vol. 2 is also one I enjoy regularly, but in recent years I’ve gravitated toward this one.

Peter Gabriel
OK, I’m going to cheat here. This was the title of not one, but four Peter Gabriel albums. So with that in mind, I would like to point out that the first (”car”) and third (”melt”) albums are the favorites here, and this can change from day to day. The first album, more pop/rock oriented, had the buoyant hit “Solisbury Hill”, the Who-like “Modern Love”, and “Humdrum”, where the third album was a masterpiece of chilling and clever songwriting on many fronts. The third album also has “Biko”, his tribute to the fallen novelist who was murdered in South Africa. They’re both very strong albums from end to end.

George Duke: Brazilian Love Affair
Take the funk/jazz keyboardist George Duke and put him in smack dab in the middle of Brazil, and…what you have here is one of his finest albums. Duke is surrounded by many well-known Brazilian talents, and the result is a warm, funky, rhythmic and inviting album that fans of both Duke and Brazilian music in general will like.  Many of Duke’s fans consider it his finest album, and I certainly rank it up among his best as well.

Genesis: A Trick Of The Tail
This album took me by surprise. For years, Duke and Abacab were my favorite Phil Collins/trio-era Genesis albums. They still are favorites, in fact. But once I got the CD version of Trick, it finally hit me how much depth there was to this album, and I “got” it. There is a lot of the old Genesis influence there (this is, after all, Phil’s debut as the group’s full-time lead singer, and Steve Hackett is still aboard), but it also taps into some new territory for the band.

Stevie Wonder: Innervisions
One of Stevie Wonder’s strongest albums, and my personal favorite. Songs In The Key Of Life is a good runner-up, but I can’t say I listen to all of the songs on that set.

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Further Out
Time Out may be the best-selling and best-known of Brubeck’s “time” albums (and is still a great listen), but Time Further Out is my favorite, as it explores time signatures from 3/4 to 9/8, and the tunes memorable. Favorites on this disc are the 7/4 “Unsquare Dance”, “Far More Blues” and its companion “Far More Drums” (both in 5/4), and “Bluette” in 3/4. And if you listen closely, you’ll notice that the meter increases with each song: “Raggy Waltz” in alternating 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4-2/4 patterns, “Bluette” in 3/4, the next in 4/4, the “Far More…” songs in 5/4, and so on, up until the final tune which is in 9/8.

Brian Setzer ‘68 Comeback Special: Ignition!
I’ve always been a Stray Cats fan, and I can thank the Cats and Setzer for turning me onto rockabilly in a big way. The Cats had some great albums, and all three went on to lead their own groups. Lee Rocker’s Bulletproof album, in fact, is a solid, stellar rockabilly album in its own right. But as far as Setzer’s recordings go, Ignition! just fires on all cylinders. It’s a rockin’, rollickin’ good time! Great rockabilly groove, and arguably his most solid collection of tunes.

Carpenters: A Song For You
Say what you will about their music, but Richard Carpenter is one hell of a good arranger and producer, and this album is arguably their artistic high-point. The band has gelled, the production techniques are honed to perfection, and the songwriting is top notch. We not only have Richard teaming with lyricist John Bettis, but the duo of Paul Williams and Roger Nichols delivers their own one-two punch. There isn’t a weak song on this album. “Goodbye To Love” is also a landmark production that ushered in the era of the power ballad, with its “fuzz” guitar solo in the middle. “Road Ode” sums up their road-weary thoughts as they frantically toured the world and recorded. A great snapshot from the mid 70s, not to be missed.

Cal Tjader: Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2
I don’t often think of compilations as Desert Island worthy, but I grew up listening to Mom’s LP of the Vol. 1 installment. This compilation on CD covers both of the albums, except for one track, omitted due to length. It is an excellent look at his early Fantasy years, and features original versions of songs that would become his signature tunes in later years, like “Mamblues”, “Black Orchid”, “Lucero”, and “Guachi Guaro” (aka “Soul Sauce”). I do like his Verve recordings as well, but if I had to choose any one disc, this would be it. As his entire collection spans 80+ albums (which I do own in one format or another), this is one of the best ways to take a favorite portion of it with me.

Saturday Night Fever (Original Soundtrack Recording)
In the late 70s, you couldn’t avoid this album, and you either loved it or hated it. I fell into the former category, as it was the first style of popular music that I’d ever latched onto. More than 25 years later, with several #1 hit singles to its credit, it still stands up strong musically and has become a time capsule of its era. In my case, this album was not only a heavy favorite, it tuned me in to collecting 12″ singles which, at the time, were $2.99 or $3.99, easy for a teenager to afford. Little did I know that within a decade or two, many of these would become highly collectible. (My copy of Chicago’s “Street Player” would fetch anywhere from $150 to $300 right now…not bad for a $3.99 purchase!)

Henry Mancini & His Orchestra: Uniquely Mancini
Mancini’s recordings are another collection I maintain–at last count, I had over 60 album titles in my collection. Even more interesting is to finally see the films to which he wrote soundtracks, and see how the music was used in the film to underscore action or set a mood. In addition to soundtrack albums, he had numerous theme albums as well. His early RCA contract specified that he make three albums per year, so recordings from the 60s are plentiful. (And that was a lot of work! If he had two films appear that year, he would not only have to score the music for the film, he also had to write two- to three-minute adaptions of the same music for his RCA albums, and then if the third was a theme album, he had to arrange and sometimes write music for those as well!) Many have heard his orchestral side thanks to the film music, but some of his theme albums were jazz. In fact, his RCA debut, the soundtrack from the TV series “Peter Gunn”, was a jazz album, which sold over a million copies! It is hard to pick a favorite, but one that I listen to the most is Uniquely Mancini, which is one of those big-band jazz recordings. The band swings hard on this one, and like his other jazz albums, the musicians are all of the top west coast jazz players. The arrangements are unique, and you have to hear his swingin’ original song, “Bonzai Pipeline”, that probably swings harder than anything else he’s ever recorded.