Jazz meets folk and poetry set to a bongo-driven beat

13 MP3 Songs in this album (65:16) !
Related styles: JAZZ: Cool Jazz, FOLK: Jazzy folk



Details:
" This release is absolutely terrific - suave yet unsettling, smooth and free. This album is great for Deadheads. Jazzers, and anyone who isn't a status quo 3 piece suit drone. Those routine filled, fax owning, internet addicted, out of touch with all real life freaks need not apply, Beat.itude is for those who beat to the beat, baby!"
Revolt in Style
December 1995



" Chuck Perrin . . .has made an album that looks as good as it sounds. And that's saying a lot, since this handsomely packaged 13-song CD features some of San Diego's finest jazz and blues artists, including saxophonists Charles McPherson and Daniel Jackson; bassist Bob Magnusson; drummer Duncan Moore and Fattburger percussionist Tommy Aros --- all of whom are provided generous room to shine.
The CD itself is designed to resemble a miniature black vinyl LP, replete with mock record label and simulated grooves. Its sleeve unfolds to reveal an eye-catching layout of lyrics, moody photos and jazzy illustrations that perfectly suit Perrin's urbane, Latin-inflected, folk-meets-jazz music."

George Varga, Pop Music Critic
San Diego Union Tribune
January 4, 1996



" Beat.itude burns with rage and passion. It screams to stay up all night and exchange ideas, drink a moody bourbon on the rocks, burn for your lover and live life to the fullest . . . Beat.itude manages to interpret complicate ancient philosophies so all people can grasp them, while simultaneously pulling listeners into its intoxicating 62-minute world of rebellion and dreams . . . Beat.itude speaks of balance and individuality, it is cool jazz meets warm folk
and it feels good."
The Daily Aztec
San Diego State University
April 11, 1996



" One of the most unusual and fascinating collaborations to emerge from the West Coast in some time . . . ethereal, smoky compositions recalling the heyday of bop and the beat poets . . .not your typical '90s contemporary jazz, but rather a delicious change of pace, a smoothly crafted album for relaxing, reminiscence and meditation. It's a front-row seat at the Five Spot, a cruise with Kerouac and Neal Cassidy across the American heartland."

Jazz News
Sept/Oct '96




" Beat.itude cooks at a cool heat, and the quiet rage in Chuck Perrin's lyric poetry can best be described as 'anarcho-jazz'. Everything about this CD is creative."

The San Diego Review
March 1, 1996




Original liner notes:

Bhur, bhuvar, svar . . . with three beats . . . the Hindu world was born.
The very word â the beat â is creation itself. The big boom that pounded this whole existence into being. With these three beats, the blue-oceaned-green-pastured earth was formed and the moon & sun & firmament board were stretched across the skies. The world that was drummed into being was a beautiful throbbing cosmos, spontaneous, harmonious, & balanced.

However, over thousands of years, we who people this planet have devolved into a society moving & changing at a frightening pace â a massive swirling maddening chaotic nebula chasing its tail in an endless effort to re-invent & complicate. Shhh . . . listen. You can hear it. The movement is so immense
it even has a sound, a buzz. Reality vibrates like an annoying electrical hum. Like the one they talk about in Taos, New Mexico. You donât even realize itâs there, next thing you know youâre stressing, grabbing your head & thinking
âWhy the hell am I here?â

For most of us, itâs all we can do to just hold on, living for those rare moments when the buzz subsides, when the beat of the rhythm of life breaks thru like a fragment of some dream we recognize, but canât . . . quite . . . remember. A tantalizing pulse that slips away all too soon, leaving us confused & disillusioned.

Itâs so hard to stay focused with the billboards, blasting television sets, glaring advertisements, & the endless babbling, chattering mouths â all trying to shove that mass-produced self down your throat, telling you how you should be, what you should eat & should wear, how much you should weigh, what drugs are legal & okay, what kind of music sells, whatâs in & whatâs out.

Sometimes you just want to throw the metaphorical brick at the television & society & scream âFuck you! I will wear garbage bags & eat nothing but
giant pretzels. Fuck trends & hipness.â

We need music, prose, poetry, painting, photography, sculpture, & all the art forms to bust us out of the mold of conformity, to scream at us, to quell the din of realityâs drone, to focus that pure clear laser beam of artistic expression that can burn a hole thru the curtains of uncertainty & reconnect us to the rhythm of existence, allowing us to think clearly like we were created to do . . . to live.

I revel in the rebellions of others. I laud their versions of reality. I see my aching soul in their eyes, their poetry, their art, their music â their beat, going on & on. They are like my heart. I can hear the yearnings of my brother human as he stands on a lonely stage using his saxophone to trace the wanderings of a single note, a beautiful & unexpected stream of sounds that break the orgasmic aural floodgates.

When I experience the silent throbbing of the poet, I am feeling the pulse of another human, booming & pounding thru my veins. I am there too, participating at the center of life, living the uncensored dream.

We must break free of traditional meaning, living, & thinking.
We are not scheduled.
We are not planned.
We cannot be defined.
We are insane
Wild
Free
Spontaneous

This is life
This is the beat
So . . . start dancing





Song by song sketches:

The moody subterranean coffeehouse essence of The Big Race mourns the increasingly bland homogeneity of modem society, punctuated by Billy Thompsonâs wonderfully tart blues guitar filigrees.

Trumpeter Mitch Manker soulfully permeates the nicotine haze of Out Here On The Edge - a song about life on the Southwestern edge of the continent (Southern California).

Charles McPherson (chosen to augment Charlie Parker's original saxophone solos used in the Clint Eastwood film "Bird") soars to the rafters in the non-stop alto solo that anchors Bird Lives! - a words and music tribute to bebop pioneer Charlie Parker.

Highway To Hell: Society speeding out of control.
"The news comes on and off, violent & juicy, it's a theatre of the absurd." Bob Magnusson & Arthur Fisher blow in unison.

Ready For A Change: a rainy late-night daydream, colored by a Mitch Manker pocket trumpet solo & a real cricket singing along.

A mission statement: "Burn down the barriers to a better life & risk absurdity . . . Let's Crush Routine! â Check out Arthur Fisher's wild flute solo & defiant spit at the songâs end.

Behind The Wheel: A tale of deception & murder that cooks at a cool heat, fueled by the Coltrane- toned tenor saxophone of Steve Feierabend & the drums of Duncan Moore.

Mahatma: a beat instrumental anthem, buoyed by the brilliant arco work of bassist-extraordinaire Bob Magnusson & the moody flute of Arthur Fisher.

Tenor mentor Daniel Jackson twists & turns thru the changes of Nothing Ever Stays The Same.

I'll Get Lost: music & love twin panaceas trumpet solo by Mitch Manker

Zen: A quintessential synthesis of the spirit & mystery of Zen thought "Conscious unconscious . . . I am beating my heart . . . Taking a breath, giving it back"

Passion is the anesthetic to numb the craziness of modern life in Anesthesia, guitar solo by Hank Easton.

It Ain't Over Yet: A reminder in the words & images of Kerouac's "On The Road" that itâs never too late to live full & make every moment count.