Richard Guba: Songs for Stuffed Animals

Ok, admittedly, the title is not going to attract many rational listeners. As one understands, the Songs for Stuffed Animals is explained by a band performing tunes for stuffed animals that accompany children during a busy day. Ok. That may well be the case, but the local stuffed animals are not saying. There are quite a few of them, grateful reminders of past times, and one or two which occasionally still offer solace in this certifiably insane world. So, there is that.

Actually, Joe Henderson's "Black Narcissus" did raise the possibility of seizing a favorite teddy bear for a quick waltz, but that is just testimony to the nature of this very unorthodox recording. Make no mistake. The music is not contrived unless you think McCoy Tyner's "Search for Peace" is contrived. Actually, overall, the recording is captivating, but in any such enterprise, the captivation is in the imagination of the listener.

At first blush, the music sounds like the backdrop to a great many QM Productions television series running from 1959 to 1980. It could be a theme, an interlude, a chase scene, or something less innocent. Old enough to remember "The Fugitive," "Cannon," "The Streets of San Francisco" and ever so many more? Then this is what one listener heard. Obviously, a deeply subjective matter.

What is not so subjective is that this very good small band (technically an octet) swings like crazy, but in a restrained enough way to conjure up the sounds of a Sicilian brass band accompanying a funeral cortege, especially in the minor key pieces. Three of the tunes are Richard Guba's, at least one in memory of his late wife. This is not to say that any are sentimental. They all share an underlying feeling of forward motion (the rhythm section cooks) that accounts for the "let's find the bad guy" quality that permeates the recording. Do remember, such music had an iconic position in American life from the 1960s through the 1980s, and that is exactly what someone may expect to hear. Nothing corny or schmaltzy about it. The musicians apparently all hail from the region of Annapolis, and they are more than up to playing the arrangements, some of which sound pretty challenging, because there are some clams here and there, and even some wrong notes. "Playing in Traffic" is a pick, but then it would be for risk-lovers. The music is fun, evocative and energetic. Oh, quirky? Well, that is not always a bad thing, is it?

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