Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

“Bookin’ At The Library” by the Leo Cavanaugh Trio

The appropriately-named Bob Dylan bootleg recording known as “Stealin’” ends with a song titled “The Cough Song.” It is a guitar and harmonica instrumental piece that abruptly stops at the point where Dylan begins to cough, followed by someone’s laughter. Dylan mentions that the cough is part of the song and begins playing again. The laughter resumes as the song fades out.

“Bookin’ At The Library” by the Leo Cavanaugh Trio is “The Cough Song” sustained for the duration of an entire concert performance. Recorded at Vallejo’s JFK Library on March 11, 2001, this recording features a number of coughs, hacks, throat clearings, ahems, barely suppressed whoops, hems and haws in counterpoint with a fine jazz trio comprised of Jay Goetting on bass, Philip G. Smith on clarinet and soprano sax, and Cavanaugh on guitar.

The band plays a wonderful set of jazz standards by George and Ira Gershwin, Count Basie and Harry Edison, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington, and Sidney Bechet. Cavanaugh contributes two of his own compositions, “Delta Wind” and “Solano Mama,” both of which fit well and more than measure up favorably to the above-mentioned songwriters. Smith’s reed work is fluid and lilting, Goetting plays strong and swinging basslines from start to finish, and Cavanaugh’s guitar work is exemplary.

None of the music, however, seems to get in the way of the medley of sounds emanating from the audience. Each cough is clearly reproduced in stereophonic sound, allowing the listener to mentally recreate the concert experience and the location of each audience’s member’s contribution to the event. Audiophiles will marvel at the sonic layering and band/audience separation within the recording. The results will seem as if John Cage had taken his well-known “4:33″ composition and incorporated its basic premise into other composers’ material.

This approach could innovate the way all recorded music is presented to the consumer audience. Consider all of the well-known live recordings of rock history with coughing prominent in the mix: we would have classics like “Frampton Coughs Again,” Neil Young’s “Robitussin Never Sleeps,” Dylan and The Band’s “Before The Flu,” Wilco’s “Hacking Television,” and, of course, “Get Your Ya-Yas Out” by the Rolling Stones.

There would also be sampling issues regarding ownership; it is highly probable that James Brown would continue to be the most-sampled musician per the overall list of possibilities. (”HUNNH!”)

File-sharing of favorite “tracks with hacks” would circulate via the Internet, generating print media cover stories, an interview by TV Journalism Uber Hack Barbara Walters, and culminating in a lawsuit by the RIAA that would dwarf the Napster episode and show, once again, how its legal powers are nothing to cough at. The unintended result may be that “Bookin’ At The Library” will remain one of Vallejo’s best-kept secrets. Which is really a shame.

To hear this fine CD, visit the JFK Library at 505 Santa Clara Street in Vallejo, where there are at least two copies of it available. If the copies are currently unavailable, the CD cover provided the telephone number (707) 577-5723 for additional information.