Instrumental Invasion, 5/25/22 May 26, 2022

The May 25 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded one hour per day on April 2 and 3. A pickup was recorded on May 2.

The playlist was created on March 31 and annotated on April 1. The talk break script was drafted before recording the first hour on the 2nd. This was the third time the playlist did not include David Benoit. The other two times were the 40th birthday special last November 17 and the 100th show on March 2.

After finishing last week’s show, it occurred to me that I hadn’t played many live recordings on Instrumental Invasion: ten songs in 111 shows. Five of those were Pat Metheny; one with his Group, two versions of “Better Days Ahead.” This week alone had five live recordings in it, four of them long. Spyro Gyra‘s Access All Areas version of “Heliopolis” was part of Extended Cuts Week on the original The Instrumental Invasion on WGBB. That show aired January 27, 2005, 17 years and four months ago tomorrow (May 27). The phrase “almost live” was part of The Gong Show announcer’s intro spiel: “From Hollywood, almost live, it’s The Gong Show!” (I’d link to video of the intro, but all the videos on YouTube are poor quality.)

I ended my talk-up of “Seventh Heaven” by Jeff Lorber with the line “the seventh heaven is, of course, the best,” an homage to a bit in the Technology Connections video on touch lamps. I’ve clipped the bit here, but the full video is worth watching:

I was going to reference the bit after playing “Tenth Victim” by the Jeff Lorber Fusion last week, but realized that would be in bad taste, even if I added “at least in positive situations.”

Incidentally, the inclusion of “Seventh Heaven” plus “Supernatural” by Brian Simpson made for two songs sharing their name with a WB/CW drama. 7th Heaven was family-oriented while Supernatural was dark fantasy.

As for last night’s show, click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:

I had Homer Simpson in mind when I used the word “dealies” at the end of the first segment.