That cover art!
In 1992, I was working at a chain sandwich joint where the lunchmeat is still pumped full of nitrates and all the food tastes the same. Every day, I met a steady stream of humans, great, good, bad, shitty, indifferent, and comatose... and that was just my co-workers.
I even waited on G.G. Allin a couple of weeks before he died. He was really nice and well-mannered. That's another story.
At that time, the shop I worked at was flanked by a comic book shop and a place that sold records and compact discs, new and used. My existence was pretty much heaven for a young stoner such as myself.
One of the regular customers who came in for lunch every day was a serious record collector and shared my love for old school jazz and prog rock from the 1970s. Dude had a massive vinyl collection, I soon discovered when I went over to his house a block away. We traded tapes, and among them was "Mobo I" by Kazumi Watanabe and "Dreams" by Gábor Szabó. Watanabe was cool and all, but Gábor Szabó and that one particular album literally changed and deepened my appreciation of jazz. Here was this refugee who immigrated to the U.S. during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and in just a few short years would be playing guitar for Charles Lloyd and Lena Horne.
So, in 1968, Szabó already has his own label, Skye Records. He teamed up with bandleader/keyboardist, Gary McFarland... and Jim Keltner on drums, besides a fantastic roster of studio musicians (see reverse of cd cover).
The music offered is a cross-breeding of gypsy folk, west coast jazz, and psychedelic rock, imbued with the compositions of Manuel De Falla and Donovan.
"Dreams" is still way badass.
Those sandwiches are still horrible.
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