Return of the Psychic Sloth

I only witnessed this phenomenon once. It was at an Aquarium Rescue Unit concert in 1992. The bass player, Oteil Burbridge, was scat singing along with his bass solo, singing note for note and at a very high rate of speed. That would have been a forgivable curiosity, I suppose, a bit of jazz fusion overkill, but I was peaking on two hits of blue unicorns and Oteil very swiftly morphed before my eyes into a three-toed sloth hanging on a tree trunk while telegraphing a psychic code to me that only we sloths could understand.

Who said acid can't damage you forever?

So Mr. Poncho has a lot of 'splainin to do after encouraging me to buy two Al Jarreau LPs at Dynamite Records in Northampton, Mass earlier this month. The psychic sloth is back! Forget that "Roof Garden" from 1981's Breakin' Away sounds like it was produced by L.A. Gear and that everyone in the band can literally be heard wearing white jazz shoes -- Al Jarreau's singing will alter your consciousness. The man is an oxymoron inside of a conundrum. He's like Bill Withers inside Animal Collective and wrapped in Barry Manilow. He's like that sound-effects dude from "Police Academy" sitting in with Weather Report and Christopher Cross is wearing Michael Jackson's glove. Forget your ironic "so wrong it's right" spin -- this shit is so wrong it's wrong and then sucker punches you with a right until you're bleeding on the floor of bad taste and loving every minute of it. Consider this: Al Jarreau appeared in an episode of SCTV in 1981 playing Al Jolson in a spoof of The Jazz Singer with Eugene Levy as the cantor father. You do the math.

Roof Garden - Al Jarreau

Hold On Me - Al Jarreau

Agua de Beber - Al Jarreau

Rainbow in Your Eyes - Al Jarreau

Rainbow in Your Eyes (live) - Al Jarreau

Milwaukee - Al Jarreau (This explains everything.)

Please, PLEASE add Al Jarreau as your friend on MySpace.

[Internal memo: Poncho, just how and why were you familiar with "Roof Garden"?]