Jackie Gleason “Jackie Gleason presents the Gentle Touch”
/I love the Jackie Gleason records—though my initial reaction to this 1961 offering is that it possibly sets the gold standard for blandness. I don’t mean that in a bad way, and, in fact, the opposite, because that’s what I want! It’s not “easy listening,” which I don’t believe in, but it is mood music, whatever that means—and what’s the mood, exactly, here? It’s a little too up-tempo for romance—unless say, the romance involves… not going there. No, there’s something going on here, and I don’t know what it is… but that’s just because I’m too unsophisticated to get to the bottom of it. I’ll try the brief, uncredited liner notes, which immediately point out that the woodwinds arrangements here are somewhat of a departure from the usual Gleason strings—also more up-tempo than we’re used to—okay, so I can see that. It also mentions a “pair of trumpeters” who are improvising against a background of reeds, rhythm section, and “four discretely-employed orchestral trumpets.” If that doesn’t get you interested… of course you are! Only 12 tracks here, standards, about half of which I’m familiar with. Relatively short by Gleason standards—indeed, there’s enough room between the final grooves and the label to take the whole family ice-skating. Two moon songs—apropos this week’s “Cold” (Full) Moon! The album cover is the final straw—at first seeming to be merely a murky barely focused action shot of an elegant woman feigning ecstasy—but if you look closer, you see another human(?) head from the top—so only a protruding nose is discernible—against the woman’s exposed neck. Lover? Man, woman, or vampire? I’m going with the latter, of course—and now it all makes sense, when taken as a whole—this LP is one of the oddest expressions (that I know of) of popular bloodsucking lore.
12.5.25