JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #638.281!

Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air & Persian Surgery Dervishes (Columbia) :: Terry is the “Riley” in the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” because he’s the visionary musician who influenced Pete Townshend’s ARP synthesizer sequencer work on Who’s Next—and both of these innovative electric organ albums are the unrivaled apex of trippy hypnotic meditative trance music. By way of contrast, 1966’s landmark A Rainbow In Curved Air is an iridescent triumph of intricate studio overdubbing while Persian Surgery Dervishes is an extraordinary amalgamation of two live performances that Riley gave in 1971 and 1972. Just make sure that you listen to both albums either through headphones or with your ears strategically spaced between two speakers to properly experience the full spiritual stereophonic effect.

Steve Reich – “Come Out” (Nonesuch) :: Now your mind is sufficiently lubricated to take on this equally-epochal phase-shifted spoken word transmogrification.

Bill Cosby – Is A Very Funny Fellow...Right! (1963) - I Started Out As A Child (1964) - Why Is There Air? (1965) - Wonderfulness (1966) - Revenge (1967) - To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With (1968) (Warner Bros.) :: Others may have been the Rolling Stones or Doors of stand-up comedy but, back in the seminal ’60s, Bill Cosby was the undisputed trend-setting ground-breaking Beatles of stand-up—and these six albums, released in six consecutive years, the latter half of which were recorded while Cos was co-starring with the equally urbane Robert Culp in I Spy, prove it. If you haven’t heard them in decades, then it’s about time that you heard them again. And if you’ve never heard them, then it’s imperative that you do because Wonderfulness; Revenge; and To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With are to comedy what Rubber Soul; Revolver; and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band are to music. And speaking of musical comedy...

SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Bing Crosby & Dinah Shore & Bob Hope & Frank Sinatra & Judy Garland & Jimmy Durante & The Andrew Sisters & Frank Morgan & Jerry Colonna – Dick Tracy In B Flat (Armed Forces Radio Service) :: This hour-long episode of Command Performance, which was originally broadcast to our brave men and women in uniform on Valentine’s Day in 1945, is available as a free ‘old time radio’ public domain download and proves that they really don’t make ’em like they used to. After all, where else can you hear Crosby as Dick Tracy and Hope as Flattop, exchanging dialogue like this:

HOPE: Drop that gun and turn around, Tracy!

CROSBY: If that voice belongs to who I think it does, I may never turn around.

HOPE: What a pleasure. I’ve always wanted to have a gun in this guy’s back.

CROSBY: Yeah, and you can pull it up a little, too.

HOPE: Sorry, I was gonna blow your brains out.

Be seeing you!

GARLAND: Flattop, I appeal to you on bended knee!

HOPE: Kid, you appeal to me in any position.