Words and photos by Rafe Arnott, except where credited. Photo above: Courtesy of Brendan Eder/EderMusic.
Heavy Rotation is a column focused on an LP in my collection. This month I’m discussing Cape Cod Cottage, Jazz Dad Records JDR-022.
In 1972, Edward Blankman, a retired dentist from Abington, Pennsylvania sought solace after the death of his wife Natalie. His search for a new place to call home ended with the purchase of a quaint seaside cottage in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but his desire to process Natalie’s death continued. While music brought him great joy, he was not a trained musician in any way, but inspiration takes many forms. After finding a secondhand Wurlitzer he took it upon himself to play and read music. This led to composing chord progressions and songwriting. He eventually started exploring the local jazz scene in nearby Boston, and after some time ingratiating himself there, brought together some studio musicians for a self-financed recording session.
This amateur’s story, like so many others, might have been lost to the void of time if the couple who purchased Blankman’s saltbox in 1989 following his death, hadn’t stumbled upon a cardboard box wedged between ceiling joists in the attic while they were replacing the insulation decades later. There they found among various personal affects, the remnants of his songbooks, sheet music, TEAC reel-to-reel tapes and photographs documenting that lone studio session. Fascinated, the pair took it upon themselves to discover what the tapes contained and eventually shipped everything off to boutique imprint label Jazz Dad Records in the fall of 2018. Cut to lacquer and pressed in a limited run, the result is an album of elegant, minimalist jazz: Cape Cod Cottage.
"It was so exciting to have this new, beautiful-sounding instrument. I started recording, just simple ideas. Whenever I played, I just kind of recorded some stuff. And then pretty quickly, I had the lightbulb go off. I realized I’m totally doing a concept album, and I’m gonna invent a person.”
–Brendan Eder
At least, that is the essence of the story east Los Angeles drummer and composer Brendan Eder would have listeners believe. The truth is the entire history, other than the purchase of the organ, is a fiction created by Eder as part of an elaborate concept album used to channel the death of a lover. Cape Cod Cottage is not only a subtly downtempo collection of jazz tinged with loss, but a challenge to one’s interpretation of what a concept album could contextually encompass. The Wurlitzer was sourced from a friend whose roommate was leaving and wanted to sell the broken organ. Eder brought it to a repair shop and after replacing the power supply got it home to start playing. “…It was so exciting to have this new, beautiful-sounding instrument. I started recording, just simple ideas. Whenever I played, I just kind of recorded some stuff. And then pretty quickly, I had the lightbulb go off. I realized I’m totally doing a concept album, and I’m gonna invent a person.”
That epiphany brought Edward Blankman to life. While no stranger to recording (his previous album, 2020’s To Mix With Time, is a jazz-classical hybrid), Eder, the “punk king of chamber hop,” like Blankman, was a novice keyboard player. “So funnily enough, Edward Blankman is an amateur too,” said Eder. “So it’s kind of like a parallel story. It’s like an amateur keyboard player working with really great jazz musicians. And that’s kind of what I did.” Eder was able to bring together some of the best young jazz alumni of the Hancock Institute of Jazz; bassist Alex Boneham, drummer Christian Euman, saxophonist Josh Johnson and Eder ensemble regular, flutist Sarah Robinson. They were to play the roles of the session musicians in his fiction – roles they were happy to take on – including dressing the part, sporting clothing that would be era-appropriate. “We were looking for the ‘70s vibe,” said Eder, adding “[It was] a concept thing. And our agreement was, basically, this is going to be potentially completely anonymous.”
Photo left: Eder with the painting of Blankman's residence he had commissioned as part of the backstory for Cape Cod Cottage, which was eventually used for the album's cover. Courtesy of Brendan Eder/EderMusic.
Photo below: The photography from the recording session Eder booked with the actor playing Blankman worked perfectly for the gatefold artwork.
The attention to detail paid off, as the “session” photographs gracing the album’s inner gatefold cover could have easily been taken in the early ‘70s. And while the entire physical presentation of the LP could be dismissed as elaborate artifice, it is the stark honesty and simple arrangements on the album that secures the concept’s conviction. Blankman is playing from the heart after suffering a great loss, so too, is Eder. This is what makes the LP work on multiple levels, Blankman is an avatar which Eder’s loss and emotional journey of processing death is being channeled through. Rather than write an album about the loss of someone important, Eder has found a character he can invest himself in, and in doing so, invests the listener too. One assumes the details filling the record’s gatefold sleeve were culled from Blankman’s journal. The suspension of disbelief is complete as other than the listing of the musicians who played with Blankman on the back cover, there is nothing to twig those who bought the LP that it’s anything other than legitimate and adhering to the storyline Eder has created.
Photo above: The current sound system features a newley acquired (and serviced) '63 Empire Troubadour 398 turntable.
The Album, a 2021 stereo limited edition pressing in brown vinyl comes with a thick semi-gloss gatefold. I picked up my copy from Discogs as the Bandcamp version was already sold out at the time. I threw my NM copy on the record cleaning machine and then the turntable while pouring over the detailed liner notes, taking in the whole gestalt of the LP.
For listening sessions, which were numerous, I employed a ’63 Empire 398 Troubadour turntable that had recently been serviced and was equipped with an ‘80s vintage Audio Technica AT155LC body and upgraded ATL150MLX cartridge/stylus assembly. My go-to preamp, an Audio Note M3 Phono all-valve/valve rectified preamplifier was this time paired with vintage ‘70s Altec 1593B 100W solid state mono blocs. Speakers were Altec A5x VOTT (Voice of The Theatre) with 288-16K compression drivers, 805B sectoral horns and 515E, 15-inch bass drivers in the cabinets with recently added JBL 2402/075 super tweeters up top and wired up with long-awaited Werner Jagusch autoformer crossovers. RCA and speaker cables were OJAS/Belden, AC cords were Audio Note ISIS copper. Clean power via a Shindo Mr.T. While the Altec 1593B don’t possess all the finesse and air of the Audio Note Conqueror Silver 300B stereo power amp I’ve been reviewing, they are intuitive and have the ability to separate vocal harmonies, surprisingly, better than almost any amplifier I’ve heard. One of Altec’s first forays into solid state designs after decades of valves, the 1593B were voiced to replace the 1569A EL34 tube version and can be had for a few hundred dollars when available.
Photos above: Left – Impeccable brown vinyl limited to 300 pressings. Right – The Werner Jagusch crossovers feeding the Altec A5x VOTT.
The coup de grâce of the LP is in the listening. It’s such a shy and playful set of recordings one cannot help but smile, foot tap and head bob along to the arrangements. From the first searching, plaintive notes of “Tuesday at the Pond,” the listener is inexorably drawn into the fiction further. Eder’s loose noodling style on the Wurlitzer convincing in its tentativeness as Blankman attempting to measure up to the hired guns in the studio. Production is superb, and the LP dead quiet in the groove. While tending to neutral more than warm, the tonality and timbre are nonetheless slightly dappled in a sunny ’70s burnish which only further cements the heuristic vibe of the songwriting and playing. Boneham’s bass is organically woody, and his textured arco strokes fills the listening room in such a realistic way that it’s easy for one to imagine the ensemble pulling gigs at local jazz haunts in Boston.
The albums namesake is next, and “Cape Cod Cottage” sees Eder channeling his inner Stevie Wonder with the sustained pedal rushes on the organ alongside Boneham’s inspired pizzacato on the bass, which seems to be filling in for an absent Earnest Ranglin on guitar. Euman’s stick work is deft and seems guided by prescient intuition, especially when taking in account that Eder kept the music from the players until the day of the recording session in order to preserve the spontaneity of the LP in service to the story. “Up,” is the most danceable track on the LP, with Eder setting the pace alongside handclaps and Euman’s metronomic percussion with high hat and cymbal work that is presented with delicate, detailed decay. The longest song on the entire album tops out at three minutes and 10 seconds (“Sunlight Through the Leaves”), which is also a highlight of Johnson on alto sax. The shortest, “Snowing,” finishes the first side with a tremulous shiver courtesy the organ and Boneham’s exquisitely-resined groaning bass.
Photo above: The character of Edward Blankman became the perfect foil for Brenden Eder to channel grief on Cape Cod Cottage.
Side B opens with a shorty titled “Retirement,” a dutifully cadenced piece reminiscent of “A Day in the Life” by The Beatles on some levels thanks to its leading tempo and Euman’s deft stick work. “Your Bliss” and “Overgrown Garden” feature the subtle embouchure of horn blower Johnson and some raspy fret jumps again from Boneham on the bass. The entire LP has such exquisite, prismatic tonality and timbre to every individual instrument, and Eder’s jump on the keys alongside deft pedal work with the Wurlitzer anchors each movement with a childlike playfulness. High hat and cymbal shimmer is imbued with an alloyed tensiility reminiscent of old Blue Note mono pressings. Many cuts have a late-afternoon light-slanting-through-windows colour to them, and the recordings gain a whole new dimension to their depth at live volume levels.
Many of the tracks, while feeling complete in their execution, one would wish to last longer. Establishing a tangible and unique feel/vibe that seems to be perfectly suited to a long break between verses, the Coda comes far too quickly. An album of impeccable production and mastering, my copy of Cape Cod Cottage – one of only 300 pressed on silent brown-coloured vinyl – not only succeeds in pushing the boundaries of what a concept album can be, it wins hearts and minds with the story it was produced to tell. Eder invokes a strong sense of a bygone era with the ‘70s visual and musical patina he’s created. The LP captures the essence of both joy and sorrow; 22 tracks expertly woven together through a faded tapestry of music – almost seamlessly blended – dedicated to the memory of love lost. Regardless of the album’s bonafides, it is above all a comforting and heartwarming tale played out over 38 minutes that had me dropping the needle far more than normal for a new album.
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