By Henry Lipput
I knew little to nothing about the band The Jazz Butcher when
its leader Pat Fish died last year. But the people whose musical opinions I
respect on Twitter had a lot to say about the importance of
his music to their lives.
I haven’t done the deep dive into the band’s back catalog (founded
in 1982 they had an 11-
album run in the first 13 years of their career) that I told myself I
should do. But I have been listening to, and enjoying, their final album and
the first in nine years, The Highest in the Land (Tapete), which was released earlier
this year.
The album is full of wonderful tunes and there’s a block of
gorgeous ones in the middle of the album. I adore the sound of “Sea Madness,”
with its C&W vibe and muted horn, “Don’t Give Up” is a gem and Fish’s take
on an “I Will” encounter (with a lyric that recalls Eddy Arnold’s classic “You
Don’t Know Me”), and “Amalfi Coast May 1963” is a lovely, melancholy
instrumental.
“The Highest in the Land” has a bluesy electric guitar lick
and some Al Kooper/Blair Cowan (take your pick) organ fills and the upbeat story song “Melanie Hargreave’s
Father’s Jaguar” sounds like a sibling to Squeeze’s “Messed Around.”
And although there few indications in the songs on the album that Pat Fish knew he was dying anytime soon (he was free of cancer when recording
of The Highest in the Land began), it’s hard to listen to “Time” (“My time ain’t
long/Fishy go to heaven”) as well the closing track “Goodbye Sweetheart” knowing what came next. But
he and the band have left us with this marvelous goodbye gift to remember them by.
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