Depending on how you count, Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon? is the first of either three or five discs composer, arranger, vibraphonist and vocalist Gary McFarland (1933-71) recorded for the Skye Recordings label he co-owned with friends and fellow performers vibraphonist Cal Tjader and guitarist Gabor Szabo.
The three records include this one, America the Beautiful (1969) and Today (1970). The other two that might be considered are Grady Tate with the Gary McFarland Orchestra’s Slaves (1969) and McFarland’s 1971 swan song with Peter Smith, Butterscotch Rum (1971), issued on Buddah after that label took over the failing and financially-strapped Skye Recordings.
Recorded and released only several weeks after McFarland’s final Verve release, Scorpio and Other Signs (1968), Moon features McFarland on vibes (and occasional humming and whistling) with a superbly well-cast group of studio musicians, including Jerome Richardson on soprano sax and flute, Marvin Stamm on flugelhorn, Warren Bernhardt on organ, Sam Brown on guitar, Richard Davis or Chuck Rainey on bass, and Donald MacDonald or Grady Tate on drums.
Interestingly, Moon was the third – and final – time the billing “Gary McFarland & Co.” was used for a record project and the only time when McFarland himself was billed as the sole leader.
Skye – whose logo is an age-old-looking seal that sports its very own code, “Hold fast” and “Be a brazen wall”1 – was founded on the promise that artists could release the music they wanted to curate, rather than whatever the labels or its producers wanted the artist to put out. But what’s striking about Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon? – as well as the initial Szabo and Tjader records – is that it adheres pretty closely to what McFarland had already put out on other labels.
Indeed, Moon – in a first for McFarland – recycles the formula he popularized on Soft Samba (1964). McFarland would walk this path again, two years later, on Today. Where Moon improves upon Soft Samba, however, is by upping the improvisational elements a bit. As ever, McFarland is expert at drawing some of the most sensitive and like-minded musicians into his orbit and providing them with unique – often striking – arrangements. It’s a refined sort of simplicity.
Ultimately, Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon? is exceptionally well done easy-listening jazz. And to these ears, the disc has aged much more successfully than most of these crossover attempts of the period have.
Unlike the previous Scorpio and Other Signs – a program of McFarland originals – Moon finds McFarland covering a wide range of AM radio fare, circa 1966-67. Here, he vibes on the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Spanky and Our Gang’s “Sunday Will Never Be the Same,” the Rolling Stones’ “Lady Jane,” the 5th Dimension’s “Up, Up and Away” and a very Soft Samba-like take on the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere.”
McFarland & Co. also take samba-fied swings at such oldies as “Flamingo” and “Melancholy Baby” and, in another hark back to Soft Samba and one of the album’s true highlights, Jobim’s always lovely “O Morro” (a.k.a. “Favela” and “”O Morro não tem vez” – recall that Jobim himself played on Soft Samba, and the composer/guitarist issued a single, “The Dreamer,” with McFarland in 1964).
The lone pair of originals, McFarland’s “Flea Market” and Chuck Rainey’s bluesy “Three Years Ago,” offer up the disc’s jazziest moments and are surely among the album’s most memorable moments. Indeed, McFarland and Rainey share a real synchronicity on these pieces, particularly on “Flea Market,” where Rainey’s rollickingly funky bass elicits McFarland’s hottest solo on the record.
“Flea Market” first opened – at a much slower pace – on guitarist Gabor Szabo’s McFarland-arranged debut Gypsy ’66 (1966). The song was adapted that same year as “The Blizzard Song” for Coca Cola’s brand new calorie-free citrus cola, Fresca (“It’s a Blizzard!”). McFarland himself appeared in the commercials and as part of the initial marketing campaign. Years later, Mocean Worker would sample Szabo’s version of “Flea Market” for “Tres Tres Chic,” which was famously heard on the soundtrack to the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada.
Curiously, the song which gives this album its name is not even heard here. “Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon?,” a sort of riddle or conundrum, typical of the ever-witty composer, originated in McFarland’s score to Donald McKayle’s ‘s 1964 ballet “Reflections in the Park.” While the music to the ballet was never officially recorded, a March 1964 performance featured this album’s bassist, Richard Davis among its all-star jazz lineup. The only time McFarland is known to have recorded the song is on the 1967 album he arranged for tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, Waiting Game.
Despite Skye’s rigorous distribution network and thoroughly well-executed promotional effort, record buyers largely ignored Does the Sun Shine on the Moon? at the time. It’s hard to say exactly why. Certainly, listeners attracted to McFarland’s early jazz efforts were dismayed by his turn toward easy-listening pop (that same group would celebrate his return to the fold with the following year’s America the Beautiful). But more notably, the pop-music audience of 1968 was not at all like the one of 1964-65, when the similar-sounding Soft Samba helped break McFarland through to the other side.
Predictably, jazzers – especially in that particular time – were having none of it. Here is the entirety of DownBeat’s one-star review of Does the Sun Shine on the Moon?, published in its December 12, 1968, issue:
“If you are looking for a jazz record, pass this one up. I have given it one star for being a well-performed pop effort in the middle-of-the-road category. It comes complete with Ba-Ba-Ba-Bain-type vocal choruses and group whistling, ready to ooze into your ears ever so gently. The trouble is that it oozes right out again.
“There is a smattering of jazz here and there, and the arrangements are tastefully done, but the overall result remains rather dull. Another waste of good talent.”
In his review of Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon? in the July 1968 issue of High Fidelity magazine, jazz journalist, author, songwriter and singer Gene Lees (1928-2010) tells an amusing story of how he and McFarland had a falling out with one another over a not-too distant review Lees had written of a recent McFarland record.
After another writer at the magazine – Morgan Ames, no less – declined to review Moon for being “only passing pleasant,” Lees weighed in, saying “I [had recently written about] two of Gary’s albums, saying that his talent hadn’t grown as much as it should have. That review was agonizingly difficult for me to write, for Gary and I had been friends. And I felt the friendship would be terminated the moment Gary read that review, an estimate that evidently was correct.” (Skye’s publicity representative, Ruth Morrison, had specifically asked the magazine to not let Lees review this particular record.)
“The problem, folks, is that I respect Gary McFarland more than Gary McFarland does. This man has talent, a very big talent; and he’s shuckin’ and jivin’, apparently content to sleep-walk along, turning out superficial (albeit pleasant) little market albums like this one, which put no strain on his brain or ability, or anyone else’s. A little bossa nova; a little edge of rock: a little whistling: a little hummin’- an’- vibin’. Talent grows when you use it to its limit and try to exceed it: it stays the same if you work too safely within its boundaries. This is a nice, little album. I expect much more than nice little albums from Gary McFarland.”
Interestingly, big band leaders Thad Jones and Mel Lewis heard McFarland’s casual take on “Flamingo” from this album in a September 5, 1968, DownBeat Blindfold Test and were nonplussed. Thad Jones: “As far as a rating goes, I’d rather take a rain check.” Mel Lewis: “I don’t think I’d rate it either.” Interestingly, the big-band leaders commissioned McFarland several years later for a suite that McFarland was unable to complete. The one track McFarland did manage to provide, “Toledo by Candlelight,” was issued on the Jones-Lewis disc Suite for Pops (1975).
About the cover: Knowingly or unknowingly, the lovely, languorous and mostly-minimalist cover image on Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon? continues the evocation of the breezy, beach climes photographer Pete Turner previously captured for such Gary McFarland discs as Point of Departure (Impulse, 1963) and Soft Samba Strings (Verve, 1967).
Remarkably, though, the perfectly suggestive image – here, evoking the warm and breezy effects of the sun – was nothing more than a stock photo, purchased for the sole purpose of this release. Even more remarkably, the photo was taken by the renowned Baltimore-born photographer Robert Houston (1935-2021).
While Houston was not known for doing much work that would wind up on record covers – or, for that matter, color photography, in general – he did stand out in other ways. Houston started out in the early sixties by documenting the civil rights movement, most notably Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign and Resurrection City in Washington, D.C.
Upon King’s assassination in April 1968 – around the same time that Moon was first released – Houston left his job to become a full-time documentary photographer. He met fellow photographer Gordon Parks and joined the Black Star photographic agency and became a photojournalist for Life magazine.
Houston’s work is now considered an essential part of the African-American experience, particularly as captured in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Designer Robert Flynn, was, of course, the craftsman behind the cover designs of nearly all the Impulse Records issued between 1960 and 1969. For Skye, he designed (with wife, Barbara) only the first three records the label issued: Gabor Szabo’s Bacchanal, Cal Tjader’s Solar Heat and Does the Sun Really Shine on the Moon? In 1969, Flynn followed Impulse’s Bob Thiele to the producer’s new label Flying Dutchman (and related labels). The designer also designed a few Mainstream records before his death in late 1970.
Barbara Flynn provided the sketch of McFarland that is seen on Moon‘s inside sleeve. She also provided the vivid illustrations on the covers of several spoken-word records on the Spoken Arts label in 1970: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe.
#McFarlandMonday
Endnotes:
- While the meaning of “skye” is not entirely clear, the word is believed to have Scottish, Norse and Celtic roots. The word has often been defined as “island of clouds,” “winged” or simply “sky.” In modern parlance, “skye” has come to mean “light and breezy,” a phrase that could define much of the Skye label’s output. It could also be an ironic application to the Skye logo’s mantra, “Hold fast” and “Be a brazen wall,” something that would have very much have appealed to McFarland’s sensibilities: “Stand firm and have fun.” ↩︎