Jerry Fielding – The Uplifted Veil Of A Downhearted Frail 1967

Jerry Fielding is best known for composing the scores for films such as The Wild Bunch, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet and Straw Dogs. His big brass sound can also be heard on TV’s The Bionic Woman, Hogan’s Heroes and Bewitched.

The above song is taken from 1967’s “Near East Brass, West Coast Style”, his only recording for the Command label. Command is famous for its “Persuasive Percussion” series, and the MOR/lounge work of Enoch Light and Dick Hyman (there aren’t any good Dick Hyman jokes left, sorry).
The album features “bachelor pad” renditions of near Eastern standards alongside Fielding originals like the above “The Uplifted Veil Of A Downhearted Frail”. I’m not as big a fan of the Command sound as the rest of this country’s Hiphop crowd seems to be, but this album is brassier and dancier than the usual, and puts me in the mood to round up the cast of Disney’s Aladdin, put them in mini-dresses, and have a freakout party. Maybe round Will Kane’s house. Jerry meant it to be this way.

Random fact: One of the producers on this album is none other than the then head of Command’s then sister-label, Impulse! Was Bob Thiele lending experience gained from the East/West fusions of Coltrane and Yusef Lateef?

The sleeve reads:

You’ve never heard anything like this before because music has never been played like this before!

Brass for your arse, London.