Jazz Pharmacy - Self Titled

Forgive the shitty cover. I had to use my digicam. :/



---------------------------------------------------------------------

Jazz Pharmacy - Jazz Pharmacy

---------------------------------------------------------------------



Artist...............: Jazz Pharmacy

Album................: Jazz Pharmacy

Genre................: Acid Jazz

Source...............: CD

Year.................: 1998

Ripper...............: Exact Audio Copy (Secure mode)

Codec................: Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)

Version..............: reference libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917

Quality..............: Lossless, (avg. compression: 56 %)

Channels.............: Stereo / 44100 HZ / 16 Bit

Tags.................: VorbisComment



Ripped by............: Nighted on 1/20/2009---------------------------------------------------------------------

Tracklisting

---------------------------------------------------------------------



1. (00:07:02) Jazz Pharmacy - Different Life

2. (00:05:05) Jazz Pharmacy - Can't Get Enough

3. (00:06:44) Jazz Pharmacy - Funky Omar

4. (00:06:07) Jazz Pharmacy - Santa Fe

5. (00:05:24) Jazz Pharmacy - Spaced Invasion



Playing Time.........: 00:30:22

Total Size...........: 172.47 MB



NFO generated on.....: 1/20/2009 10:53:58 AM---------------------------------------------------------------------

There's something really strange on the jacket of Jazz Pharmacy's debut EP.

The tripedal... thing could pass, to the uninformed eye, for some strange

squish-a-pod from the murky depths of the sea. Or perhaps an alien or some

microscopic critter that lives between your toes.



Phil Clarke, keyboard commander and voice box of the trippy triumvirate,

gives us the scoop.



"We weren't even thinking we needed a symbol, necessarily, but we had our

friend Darren, who takes all our pictures, doing our posters and he decided

we needed one. He found a blown-glass Italian sculpture from the 19th

century, with eight legs. He broke off five of them and made a three-legged

representation of the trio."



"We chose it as the emblem," explains drummer Eddy Cola, "because it

represented the band, but it was also the most ambiguous or unclear.

Everyone who sees it asks, 'What is that? Is it a spaceship?' It kinda has that

in it--it could be the three of us, the tripod and its stability, how it stays up.

But it could be anything, really. I like that idea--of being able to mutate and

become different things."



Strange growth



Mutation is exactly what Jazz Pharmacy are about, in every respect. A scant

four years ago, Clarke and Cola were wailin' away in a psychedelic rock band

called Heer, while studying music at Vanier College. When the blotter wore

off, they found themselves doing the Celtic folk thing, covering Fairport

Convention and the like.



Soon freelance bassist Fraser Nash was knocking at the door of their

basement jam space, his arrival coinciding with the pair's new fascination with

soul, funk, and R&B--everything from the Meters to Bitches Brew. Catching a

Martin Medeski & Wood gig in Vermont, the three saw the blueprint for where

they wanted to go with this thing. Solid funky grooves laid out the

parameters for Clarke's laid-back delirium, quirky tangents, growls and sweet

whispers.



A cute little Clavinet appeared, almost mystically, in the window of a used

music store, and it was soon keeping Clarke's Wurlitzer company.



That nailed it. in July of '96 they played the first of the almost 300 shows

they would do over the next two years. Do the math: that's three a week,

factoring in brief stretches of downtime.



That Jazz Pharmacy continued to fill lounges around town--Swimming,

Quartier Latin--can be attributed to their ever-mutating sound. It's not just

the jazz improv angle or the rotating cast of guest musicians--saxes, voices,

what have you. It's the vibe. Like the offspring of some deranged genetic

experiment, no two shows are ever the same.



And then there were two



The latest mutation is not a pretty one. Nash's recent departure has left big

shoes for some poor sap to fill. "The group sort of steamrolled all of us," says

Clarke. "At some point bars, agencies, record labels, they create hidden

pressures to go in certain directions. It wasn't that we were at odds with one

another or disliked each other. But the group was gonna steamroll all of us or

one of us. It ended up being one of us: Fraser."



Nash's departure, while on good terms, comes at an awkward time for the

band. Fresh off a cross-Canada tour and prepping to hunker down for

hibernation/extended studio time (there's an album cooking), Jazz Pharmacy

are about ready to hatch out of the local lounge-circuit cocoon and spread

their wings on a far wider scale.



Disconcerting news to fans familiar with the Pharm boys as an

up-close-and-personal act. "We still want to do that, because we value

having a scene in Montreal," says Cola. "Phil and I have been talking about

doing Pharmacy sessions at places around town, more electronica stuff, more

drum & bass, with DJs. That's something New York has that Montreal

doesn't... a Knitting Factory, an alternative scene where musicians can do

cutting edge music."



"A venue for experimentalism," as Clarke puts it. "What we want to bring to

the people in Montreal who keep seeing us is the newest things, going in new

directions. Trying things, with a DJ or a tuba player or a harmonica,

jew's-harp, banjo player..."



And so the mutations persist. Like some sonic fractal pattern, each magnified

detail a potential tangent, Jazz Pharmacy continue to shift and morph and

reconstruct themselves. "We want people to look again, and again, and

again," says Clarke, "and always find something new."

---------------------------------------------------------------------