Jerry Weber in memorium

 Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn. I'm taking to this medium again after someone else important has died recently. He wasn't the creative force of either Betty Davis or Bruce Anderson, but an important person nonetheless. 

Jerry Weber, Vinyl Man. Jerry of Jerry's Records, previously of Garbage Records and (I'm told, before my time) the Record Graveyard.

Jerry was the sort of person that gives a city its character. Every city, every town of a certain size, has at least a few. Someone you don't meet every day.

Everyone who went to Jerry's Records on at least a semi-regular basis will probably at least one or two Jerry anecdotes. I've been sharing Jerry stories on Facebook, and will repeat and add a few here. 

I found a Stefan Wolpe album on Esoteric Records there. Stefan was a pretty good mid-century academic avant-garde composer, if that sums him up correctly. When I took it to the counter, Jerry looked it over and said, "You don't see that every day. I don't know what the hell it is, but you don't see it every day!"

Jerry would tell me occasionally of the celebrity shoppers he'd had. One person was Robert Plant. Jerry: "I shoulda had him autograph his solo albums. Maybe then I coulda sold them!"

I came in one day, and Jerry told me the day before DJ Jazzy Jeff had shopped there. Jerry: "He spent $1,000 on weird stuff. Children's records, stuff like that."

Like many a good shop owner, Jerry learned his customer's tastes. He knew I liked the avant garde, independent jazz records, and the like, but bought a broad range of things. He said he had names for different types of customers. He called me a "grazer," someone who bought a little bit of everything. Once I purchased a weird primitive noise rock band album (I'd have to look up what it actually was), and he seemed a little embarrassed. He offered to buy it back from me if I didn't like it. Of course I didn't do that.

Walking into the store one day, he asked if I could identify a particular artist. He put on a 7", a kind of hollerin' blues recording. It took me a moment but I recognized it as "I'm Gonna Unmask the Batman," a Sun Ra single. It was barely playable, and he said the reverse side ("The Perfect Man") was completely unplayable. He wondered if he could get anything for it. I said, a collector might give him a couple of dollars, being an original Saturn Records issue. I didn't make an offer. The next time I saw him, he gave it to me free of charge. On the blank sleeve, he wrote: "To Ben Opie 'The Perfect Man' from Sun Jerry and his Gastro-Intestinal Fookestra". Jeez, I get choked up a little even recalling that. 

 Jerry sold his store in 2017. I was talking to Mike Prosser about Jerry a few days ago. Mike worked there, has worked for Get Hip Records, currently works at Eide's. I know him from working at Borders. Mike recounted how Jerry said, "There used to be days when I'd want to talk to this many customers [holding his hands two feet apart] and there'd be this many assholes [holding his fingers two inches apart]. Lately it's been the exact opposite." According to Mike, "That's when Jerry knew he had to get out."

Jerry continued though, running a low key store out of his Swissvale warehouse. I'd been to that location only two times. The first was when he held a classical sale on a weekend, upstairs, when he still had the Jerry's Records store. I bought some Stravinsky, as I recall. The second was after he sold his store and was running Vinyl Man's Clubhouse in the bottom floor. He was selling most stock for $5 apiece. I bought: a live Don Byas collection which included some early Thelonious Monk; Keith Jarrett's "Spirits"; and on a lark, a picture disc copy of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells." (I'm not proud.) Jerry said he still had a huge collection of classical albums upstairs, knowing my interesting in 20th century composers in general. He gave me his phone number and said he'd let me in to browse for things if I wanted. 

Well, regrets. I never did follow up on that. It wasn't so long ago, a year and a half +/-? COVID-era.

If you were a customer of Jerry's, you knew he would write with a Sharpie on the outer record covers sometimes. "Great. Buy it! -J" would be typical. "Very rare," "Rare Blue Note," "Great import," etc etc. These miniature missives seem like gold leaf cast into the wind now. I have many, and like others familiar with the Jerry's experience, they seem as vital as some of the records themselves.

Two last anecdotes. 

Jerry sat on his throne in Squirrel Hill when I came in, as he usually did. He enjoyed telling me stories. "There was this young couple that came in, musta been in their 20s. He bought a record, and I said, this is a fifty year old record. You're a young guy, you'll live at least fifty more years. So if you keep this, you'll have something 100 years old. It'll sound just as good at a hundred as it does now." I think I cynically said, "Yeah, it'll be just as scratched up then as it is now." But I love Jerry's sense of continuity. We are passing through this world, but the artifacts we make and collect live on. 

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I shared this on Facebook. This is 100% Jerry: I walked into the store one day and he said, "Hey Ben, I gotta play something for you." He put on one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard: Clarence (Sawdust) Kelley, "Twin Singing Saws On The Sawdust Trail." Imagine a bowed saw performance, with gated reverb, playing a solo rendition of "Amazing Grace." It gave me a headache listening to it, so of course I asked him how much he wanted for it. "Oh no," he exclaimed, "this is going in Jerry's 'weird pile.'" I would have given him whatever he asked. Some months later I asked about the saw record again, and he said, "Oh that? I think I sold that months ago." 

Jerry, you jerk! I still love ya man!

Below, Ben & Jerry. 

Betty Davis in memorium

 Harrumph. Coming back to my blog because another significant person has died. 

Betty Grey Mabry Davis. Mademoiselle Mabry. Backseat Betty.

For many years I knew very little about Betty. (Come to think of it, I still don't know that much.) I'd read John Szwed's excellent biography about Miles Davis, most of which I've forgotten. Betty was Miles' second wife, responsible for updating his wardrobe and getting him to listen to Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix. Betty helped usher in the Miles Electric period. Oh, and Miles helped to get her recorded as a singer.

These things are factual but an unfair simplification for both parties. In Miles' case, something was going to shake up in his music eventually, regardless of Betty's influence. Miles was restless in that respect. He was always shifting, always probing. If you generally know his body of work but were to listen to a recording of his you hadn't heard before, there's a good chance you could pin it down to a 2-3 year period. The idea of jazz practices was stretched nearly beyond recognition with his classic Shorter/Hancock/Carter/Williams quintet. Where do you go from there? Reductionism was one way Miles went. Simpler materials, played collectively. I don't recall the exact quote, but I read one critic's comment that Bitches Brew reaffirmed jazz as a collective activity. 

As for Betty: first of all, what a startling looking woman. I find myself a bit transfixed when I see images of her. Besides the afro, well...beautiful face, doe-eyed, African and Native American and I don't know what else. In some pictures she looks like she's 3/4 legs. 

I'll write something that's been increasingly clear in recent years: this was a major artist in her own right. 

I only really listened to her music when I picked up a copy of the relatively recently issued LP, The Columbia Years 1968-69. There had been a buzz about these unearthed sessions. I was curious, and with money in my pocket one day at The Attic, I bought a copy. 

Much of it is quite good. "Politician Man" hits pretty hard in a Hendrix kind of way. Betty's a good singer, on pitch but based on these sessions, not a huge range. I thought 2/3 of the record was a solid period rock/soul statement, with the remaining 1/3 good but not amazing.

A few years ago, I met Danielle Maggio. She at the time was working on her doctoral dissertation about Betty's music. She knew Betty personally. In our conversation, I said I had bought this record and enjoyed it. She told me Betty didn't understand the fuss, these were demo tapes. 

More recently, I bought a reissue LP of Betty's first released LP. WOW. This was, as the saying goes, a horse of a different color. The Columbia sessions have some really great moments, but it's much more of its time. It is no cliche that Betty Davis was ahead of its time.

This record burns. She burns. Betty sings, coos, shouts, groans. The songs are (largely) great. They smack you in the face. They're sexually explosive years before Prince. (Controversy, indeed.) She pretty much wrote it all, sang, produced. And it doesn't sound like an extension of the 1960s. This was new and remains so.

Yes, I love this record. And I admire Betty, in ways that I can't express. This was one creative, brave, talented human.

I wanted to meet Betty, once I knew she was local to Pittsburgh. I just wanted to say, hello, I'm pleased to meet you. I wouldn't expect to talk about her music, but would have if she brought it up. I wouldn't have hit her up for a gig. I just wanted to be in her presence. A first person witness to history.