HIGH NOTES
Stark Reality: "Now"
By TOM BOJKO

It's a good thing the guardians of our children's tender morality are mainly obsessed with vexing lyrics and not intensely trippy jams. Otherwise, "Now" would have a big sticker across the front: WARNING -- The psychedelic children's music on this album will scramble your child's mind.

In 1969 Hoagy Bix Carmichael, the son of the beloved American songwriter Hoagy Carmichael, thought he'd turn a younger generation on to his father's songs. The author of such classics as "Georgia On My Mind" and "Star Dust," the elder Carmichael also wrote a batch of children's songs in the 1950s, some of which were released on 1958's "Hoagy Carmichael's Havin' a Party." A producer at WGBH in Boston (home of "Sesame Street"), Hoagy Bix figured the best way to keep dad's music current was to feature it on a television show for kids in the hippest form of the day -- jazzy, distorted psychedelic funk. At the time, a band called Stark Reality was recording the music for "On Being Black," a show on WGBH that featured such guests as Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman. Although he'd never heard Carmichael's children's songs, vibraphonist Monty Stark, the leader of Stark Reality, immediately agreed to the project.

The elder Carmichael's reaction to Stark Reality's savaging of his music was captured in the album's original liner notes: "Out rolled some of the damnedest music [I] had ever heard. This is children's music!? . . . I say, Stark mad!" Mad or not, for years rare copies of this album have been fetching big bucks from collectors, and DJs treasure its killer beats (both will be happy to know the re-issue has three previously unissued tracks). Jazz nuts will want to grab the re-issue, if only to hear a very young John Abercrombie giving his new wah pedal a serious workout. And anyone with a penchant for high-quality psychedelia will find much inspiration in this recording.

Stark's take on the vibes often has a Hendrix-like limitlessness. He ran his instrument through various effects, including a distortion box that occasionally turns his chords into a sonic bloodbath. On single-note runs, such as those on "Junkman's Song," his tone sounds more like a synth-guitar or processed saxophone. On "Rocket Ship," he slowly climbs the scale in anticipation of a terrific blastoff, propelled by a steady funk beat. But on tunes such as "Dreams," Stark plays it nice, his clean tone reminding listeners of his versatility. Even if you can't tell from the lyrics that these are children's songs, this is still one weird but very funky album.

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