King Pleasure: King Pleasure Sings the Freudian Slips Songbook

In 1951 in Vienna, a graduate school psychology student and amateur harpist doing work on Freud literally stumbled upon a handful of torn-edged music manuscript papers of the legendary psychiatrist. Recognizing what could be a major historical discovery, the student carefully peeled the sheets individually and, looking around for cameras and other crime-watchers, made off with the slips of paper. After verifying the source by comparing the writing with Freud's sketches, she immediately brought the papers to one Clarence Beeks, known to jazzers as King Pleasure, who happened to be performing at a local Vienna club. The great vocalese giant saw the potential and two days later pulled together his ensemble, quickly arranged and recorded the tune fragments and handful of well-known covers.

The session (all tracked in one take) launches with a 7/8 bit entitled "You Make Me Feel So Jung." Obviously, a hat-tip to Freud's contemporary. Pleasure's vocalese, incorporating a well-known Jelly Roll Morton solo and R-rated definition of 'jelly roll,' cooks. That's followed by Pleasure's dead-on copy of the slip that years later became "The Intruders"' hit, "I'll Always Love My Mama." As we know, Freud lived with Mom. But, who knew he dug Motown? Bossa nova is the order of the day with Sig's "Ego Amigo, Aye, Aye Aye!" Catch guest Herve Villechaize's ace percussion work ( a small set) and shouts of "De plane! De Plane!" backing Pleasure. On "If You Could Read My Mind," Pleasure, with respect for the music-hating Freud, recorded it lying on a Salvation Army couch in the studio. Professor Irwin Corey, a longtime Pleasure fan stops in to join Pleasure in a cutting contest on the "Love Theme from Silence of the Lambs." Catch Sterling Holloway here on shaker and Wingy Manone on marimba.

Pleasure obviously took the session for lunch money. While he sounds his usual marvelous and swinging self, the material here was so deep and dark that after the session, Pleasure called his shrink collect.

The great analyst's "Give Me Five Minutes More (On the Couch)" breezes straight-ahead with Pleasure obviously pleasuring himself and pianist Gorilla Monsoon wailing all over the keyboard which later needed a tuning. The last cut, a medley of "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," "Tie Me Kangaroo and Me Down," and "I'm a Ding-Dong Daddy from Alexander Dumas," has Pleasure and crew taking the cake that was left out in the rain.

"King Pleasure Sings the Freudian Slips Songbook" is an exact 45 minutes of introspection, dereliction and, above all, self-abuse. Do enjoy.

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