The Sidewinder
Bringing Lee Morgan back from the brink of obscurity and drug hell, and with such a bang that it created a new formula for Blue Note Records, The Sidewinder’s fresh, sparkling sound gives no key to the desperation that fueled its recording. The key to this music is an understanding of certain aspects of its time. Recorded in December of 1963, this is firmly in the era of the open road car culture, the romance of hitchhiking and the apex of the American motel. The Sidewinder shines like a mammoth animated neon sign at a highway off-ramp, bright tubes tracing out arrows or whip-cracks, beckoning weary travelers to hot asphalt, Googie and knock-off Navajo art-decorated rooms, tiny concrete pools full of ash-flavoured water, and office buildings of angular shale with epic overhangs. The Sidewinder is the sound of people in big American autos with big fins and lots of chrome or boxy Suburbans skewed forward and wood-paneled, rolling from state to state with their squalling brood on sticky synthetic seats in the height of summer. Vivid stuff, and you can, nay, should dance to it.
Perfect => *****
Speaking of the era of the road check out the great James Lileks site on The American Motel (and I just bought The Gallery of Regrettable Food the other day and highly recommend that as well)
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