About [16] Latest Jazziness

Copyright 1982

Written and Performed by Monty Dicksion

Re-recorded February 2022



  As I was beginning to start this song for my ‘As Live As I Can Make It’ project, I was surprised that I could not find it on an earlier collection, like ‘Summer of ’77 Keepables.’  Unless I should someday find that I had made an earlier recording, I have to figure that I made up this song in 1978 or ’79, when I was living in Oceanside, California, and, to the best of my recollection, that’s when I did.

  In 1981, I had taken 3 of my songs to a recording studio in San Diego.  Those songs were ‘Fixed,’ ‘The Train Song,’ and ‘The Pyramid.’

  Then, in 1982, I went back to that studio with ‘Latest Jazziness.’  The studio assigned me a different recording engineer than what I had had for the other 3 songs.  The new engineer didn’t know me or what I had recorded before or anything about my style.  He didn’t do that great a job of recording me.  Then again, I didn’t do that great a job of playing my song.

  But I registered a phonorecording of Latest Jazziness with the U.S. Copyright Office just the same, in 1982.

  So when I came to re-record this song for this ‘As Live As I Can Make It’ project (ALAICMI), I wanted to record it at the same tempo that I recorded it at in 1982.

  Luckily, and, actually a bit amazingly, I was able to dig up the original audio cassette copy that I had from 1982.  Even more amazing – it still played!  After 40 years!  (But I did have to spend 100 bucks on a new cassette player to play it).

  So, this new re-recorded version now is just like the original (only better, if I do say so myself).

  I called the song ‘Latest Jazziness.’  “Latest” because, at the time, it was new.  “Jazziness” because that’s the way it seemed to me.  I guess I could have called it “Jazz-Like,” or “Jazz-Ish.”  I liked “Jazziness” better.

  I know nothing about jazz.  I suppose, technically, this song is not really jazz.  Jazz is a language that I don’t speak.  But with this song I am just kind of imitating the accent.

  I recorded this song by double-micing my Peavey E110 acoustic guitar amp, using the amp’s EQ, reverb, delay and chorus settings, and then I used just slight EQ adjustments with a Pro Tools plug-in.  Then I panned the two mics just a little to give it a bit of depth.

  With this song, I have now passed the half-way point in the Phase 1 portion of this project.  I published the first song, ‘Norwegian Wood’ in November 2020.

  Having more recording experience behind me now, I do have both hopes and expectations that the second half of this phase of the project will move along faster now.  However, the rest of my list of songs does contain some rather difficult stuff (difficult for me, anyway).