Joe Jackson's Night and Day & Body and Soul. Two Outstandingly Epic Albums. Now on SACD!

March 15, 2021

#420

Gentle reader,

I have lived in seven decades and have heard and experienced a LOT of music in my 64 years. 

I have more than 3000 recordings in my collection, more than two-thirds are LP records.

I have owned hundreds of audio components and speakers since getting into the hobby of great sound on a budget starting in the 1970's.

My taste in music is eclectic thanks to parents that listened to a variety of music and both played instruments and sang.

   Joe plays both piano and saxophone, both excellently.

 

If I like an artist or an author, I tend to buy everything they have produced. The latter makes for many filled bookcases.

My tastes have expanded over the years, with Classical music still comprising the largest portion of my collections. I love it and also love film and television scores (the music that builds the scenes, not the commercial songs added to the soundtrack), classic rock and pop, Jazz both traditional and Smooth, some New Age music, some Country, and a few other genres.

Due to a constrained budget in the 1990's I was a late adopter to digital recordings, so I only bought LPs and cassette tapes. That has changed over time. 

The "red book" Compact Disc, as it is called for some reason, while very good, has it's sonic limitations. The co-inventors of the format, PHILIPS and SONY decided to improve on the CD and came up with the Super Audio Compact Disc or SACD for short.

These are scans of the brochure they put out in 2000 about their new invention. How many of these brochures still exist?

They were quite clever, learning from the DVD, which actually stands for Digital Versatile Disc, which uses much smaller "pits" than CDs do to house the billions of zeros and ones. Thus, they and SACDs can hold a LOT more information.

And, they came up with this technology too. To greatly expand the limitations of digital music recording and storage.

There is SO much room on a SACD layer that they can store the ENTIRE recording (including 70+ minutes) in STEREO and five channel surround sound.

AND, it all is readable THROUGH the upper standard CD layer's spaces!

Now, you know a bit more about SACDs than you might have before. Why did they invent it? Mainly to try and match the dynamic range of LP records! Many people complained of CDs lacking warmth. I don't hear that, but you know, audiophiles.

But that is not what this article is about. It's about these two 1980's Joe Jackson albums.

Do you see the differences in the "jewel cases" of the two discs? Many SACD producers, to visually differentiate them from common disc cases and perhaps justify the greater PRICE, gave them this fancier case.

You can more clearly see the differences above. The only sign on the printed papers of this SACD is the tiny SACD symbol at the lower right on the back. There were stickers on the shrinkwrap of the case stating that it is a dual-layer SACD which can also be played on regular CD players, but once it was removed only the keen eyed would notice that tiny logo.

It actually is a stylized: SA over CD.

Here are two websites I found which listed the lyrics of Body and Soul, since there are none included in the "liner notes".

Joe Jackson - Body and Soul Lyrics and Tracklist | Genius  

JOE JACKSON - BODY AND SOUL ALBUM LYRICS  

Here is a link to a YouTube video, audio only, of Cha Cha Loco, the second cut on Body and Soul, to give you a taste of the music:

Cha Cha Loco JOE JACKSON Body And Soul 1984 LP - YouTube  If you open it in a new tab, you can listen to it while reading this.

That song was chosen by Focal Labs, a French High End speaker manufacturer, to be included on their five-CD set of outstanding recordings to demonstrate their speakers. Homepage | Focal

I wrote about downloading that music (enough to fill five CDs) and making my own Test CDs nearly ten years ago here:

The Robb Collections: Adventures in music downloading. OR: It all started with a CD given to me.  

I just tested the link within that article where the files were to be found, and the site was taken down, possibly by order from Focal's attorneys? 

At any rate, they are lossless MPEG4 recordings and believe me, they sounded as close to live as I had heard up to that point from a digital source. I still use them from time to time to test some new speakers.

At that time, the only Joe Jackson album I owned was Night and Day, and it is superb. Hearing Cha Cha Loco, I naturally had to buy Body and Soul. It did not disappoint!

Here is a line Joe wrote from The Verdict, the first song:

"Some people live so fast
They're so scared of getting old
Some people keep on working
All they do is line their graves with gold
We don't know what happens when we die
We only know we die too soon"

Those lines spoke to me. A coworker who held the same title I did, decided, rather than retiring when he could, to move up into management. That surprised us, knowing him and his work ethic, or lack thereof. Anyway, he moved up a couple times and when he got home one Friday evening, he dropped dead in his kitchen from a heart attack. He never got to retire and enjoy life.

So let that be a lesson to you. I retired at 60, he died in his fifties.

Anyway, someone at A&M Records decided that Body and Soul should be put on SACD last year (2020). This is an expensive proposition since it requires complete remastering of every bit of the music.  Which is one of the reasons SACDs cost many times what CDs do.

I was online looking for a CD of Body and Soul and saw to my surprise that they had put in on SACD. There are many that say SACD, as well as DVD-Audio and HDCD are "failed" formats, but if that were the case, why are they still being made?

Since I love the album so much, I decided to spring for the SACD via Amazon. The ones on eBay were ridiculously priced.

So what is so special about  NIGHT and DAY and Body and Soul? Well, Joe and his mates, after the success of Joe Jackson's Jump and Jive, a redoing of classic Jazz numbers from LONG ago, must have decided to veer from their earlier recordings which did sell well in the UK, but not so much in North America.

NIGHT and DAY excels for the lyrics, compelling and upbeat music and one of my favorites is the different types of instruments providing percussion.

                   Page one of NIGHT and DAY's lyrics.

                                              Page two. 

                                          And page three.

NIGHT and DAY went Platinum in the US and after that he was hired to do the music for the film Mike's Murder in 1983. I have that and Tucker as well in my soundtrack/score collection. In both he wrote orchestral music in addition to what he normally wrote. He therefore had to score traditional instruments and the music is excellent. Here is the story of making Body and Soul.

Since there is no way for me to play copyrighted music on this site, I can only provide links to more YouTube videos for you to check out. Remember, the compression they use the music will sound tinny on whatever you are reading this on. I can assure you the music played via traditional, physical media, will hopefully convince you that these two records are definite keepers.

Here is the opening cut from NIGHT and DAY, Another World. Check out the percussion: Another World - YouTube

And here is Steppin' Out: Steppin' Out - YouTube

Lastly, listen to Joe's wild piano and more on Target: Target - YouTube

A few more from Body and Soul: You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want) - YouTube  The opening brass sound's like a lot more than a sax and trumpet. Great song!

Here is Go For It: Go For It - YouTube And finally, an official Joe Jackson's NIGHT and DAY music video from the days when MTV actually PLAYED music videos!  Joe Jackson - Steppin' Out (Official Video) - YouTube  

I hope you found this article informative and enlightening. These albums were from the days before studios started making music all sound the same. As I said in the title, these albums are EPIC!

Thank you for taking the time to read my humble blog. Please take a moment to click or tap the FOLLOW button which is located by the corner of the white JOE JACKSON NIGHT and DAY image. That way, you will receive notifications of new articles as they come out. Also, feel free to leave a comment below or on Facebook.

Scott 

March 15, 2021

#420