Well, last night, Jim Cavender texted me and told me our album, A Cellarfull of Noise, is all done. Mixed and mastered even. Told me to check my email. Which I did.
As some of you might know, I've made several duet dates -- one each with David Anderson, Uri Caine, Bob Dorough, and Heath Allen. But those have all been live in the studio 'blowing date' sessions, strictly duo improvising, generally jazz (except the one with David, which had as much country music as jazz). The records with Heath and David have long been my favorites among my own work. With David, you hear the musical basis for our fast friendship. With Heath, you hear two guys moving through a mutual musical language we've cultivated over decades.
Cavender and I met in Huntsville six years ago, and he immediately became my surrogate big brother and one of my heroes. He produced Along The Anchorline: The Skip Heller Trio At Sun Studios (played on it in a couple spots, too) and recorded our Liberal Dose disc as well.
About a year or so back, the inevitability of a Jim/Skip duo record got to the point where we started planning things. I remember talking on the phone from the parking lot of a Starbucks in Ventura.
Finally, this spring, I got to Huntsville, and I won't even tell you how that came to pass and almost didn't. Rita Burkholder picked me up at the Greyhound, and, before you could say "WaylonandWille", I was in Jim's basement, surrounded by a cast of guitars etc sublime and ridiculous enough to turn Deke Dickerson's head. Jim played drums, and we split all the other duties, hunkering down for five days and late nights of overdub singing and playing. Jim's wife Terri did the percussion overdubs, I wrote a flugelhorn arrangement for Ken Watters to play, Rita sang behind Jim on a Jumpin' Gene Simmons obsciruity Jim unearthed, and Amy McCarley sang behind me on a great Roger Miller song.
Here are two songs. The first is from an Elvis movie, and features Jim on electric sitar.
This is a new original of mine, called "I Hate You". I don't usually go this bitter, but every now and then you gotta write a breakup song. Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs. I provide a different service.
So this should all be out soon one way or another. This is one of those things I'm glad we did, and I think it includes some of my best work ever. There's nobody I'd rather duo with than Jim, and I hope we do this again every so often. There should be a lot to come back to.
Al Perry: you're next.
