* * *

"This sounds ridiculous, almost sarcastic. But this mother is not soothing her child with false promises of butterflies and angels and good fairies. Instead she sings the hard facts of reality in such a sweet and rhythmic manner that they themselves become soothing. When you accidentally hit your head on the door and after the first moment of silent screaming and swearing you start saying, 'my head, my head, my head' many times until the very repetition, the naming on the injured part becomes a sing-song, sob-sing and the beginning of the healing process."
~ Yehuda Amichai from Amichai on the role of poetry

"I can only say that I'm always observing human interaction. How someone's words or even expressions can communicate or, more often... break down communication with someone else. It's my interaction with everyone, all the time that inspires these songs, and yes, the fact that no one is arguing are answering me [in the songs], makes it easy to say whatever I feel."
~ WAZ


WAZ is a consummate songwriter. The sound of his band is some fine folk-based pop with all the bells and whistles and enough space to point at the lyric, but these songs break on through the entertainment/mind barrier where feelings collect into a consciousness. He has applied his gentle soul to the problem of interpersonal communication, and come up roses. I believe his first album "In The Sweet Bye And Bye" and this new EP "The Secret" have called me to task on the depth and generosity a man is capable of achieving in the harshest of human communication. WAZ is a great observer of life, and can reach a heart in song with fewer words and more meaning than almost anybody.

I think WAZ hears the music in the language we use in daily speech with all its rhythm, intention, and manipulation, but his songs don't mirror that flawed communication. Each of the songs I've heard from him are direct, honest and deeply felt expressions to another person who may be in need or at odds with the singer. They are the unselfish words and rhythm of a song from the spirit of a man both noble and flawed. It is as though he had been granted the time and attention to connect with the intended listener in some perfect world of communication hinted at in Adrienne Rich's poems: "A Dream of a Common Language." In this mythical world of WAZ's creation, a complete thought imbued with the truth of his feelings simply told could be completely expressed without interruption. That such a place exists even in the imagination or in a song can compel a listener to speak the truth with love in the everyday. These songs cry out from a deep place for what communication could be if the world of these songs were our shared reality.

I've quoted Yehuda Amichai's thoughts on repetition in poetry before and blogged about him but there is no better example than WAZ of the power of a repeated phrase in song. This songwriter knows as did Aeschylus "[t]he words of the truth are simple." In "Let You In" the pain of separation grows deeper with each repetition of the words "I let you in. I let you in. I let you in. I let you in." We mean something different when we repeat. The secret to "The Secret" may be the deep expression in the repetition of exactly the right words sufficient to bring meaning up from beneath the surface of our collective consciousness. These songs aren't clever. The heart is not a good home for a smarty pants. This album is worth repeating. If you set your iTunes to cycle, "The Secret" will reveal itself to you. Hint: It's a feeling.

[The musicians on this album are listed at the bottom of the review. They are some of the most consistently brilliant folks in the Los Angeles music scene. To list their credits would take long into the night. Will Golden has produced a list of great albums. Learn their names. You'll see them time and time again playing or producing music you are likely to love.]



1. ORDINARY GIRL

"Ordinary girl, it seems this ordinary world has taken hold
And you can't feel a thing anymore"

A song to the "Ordinary Girl" is most likely to the collective case history of a generation or two. WAZ would not be so daft as to address any breathing biped as ordinary. He looks and listens more carefully than that. It is my personal belief that if you feel, you are healed or at the very least you are alive. Things can be ordinary when they have no meaning for us. Walking through a life in the thicket of things and tasks and jobs and mouths spewing trash on TV with intention can deaden a lightening bolt. The world has stopped listening to this ordinary girl, "They just stop and stare." The chill of the line "you can't feel a thing anymore" is especially powerful given my own experience. I believe that numb is the last stage on the road to self-destruction. I've seen it happen twice in my family. Pain is not the enemy. Death begins with the anesthetic. There are no ordinary people, but there are those lost to dysphoria and numbed by disinterest. When a clinically depressed patient reaches a state of numb euphoria, it's time for the suicide watch. If you feel, you are healed. The numb die young.

The truly extraordinary Jamie Jackson is shown in silhouette in the image above this song.

Every poet has special meaning for certain words. WAZ used the word "ordinary" on his previous album "The Sweet Bye and Bye." In the lexicon of WAZ words, ordinary is something the world can thrust upon you. The following is from the review of the song "Hardly Enough" on WAZ's first album: "This town can be so ugly / Makes you feel so ordinary," may be an astute observation from the perspective of an LA musician, where even the very talented get lost in the uniformity of very good in a town searching for sensational. "Hardly enough for all the trouble / Hardly enough to get it right."



2. OUT OF PLACE

"Can we talk about the way we thought it would feel?
Because I'm out of place in this place."

There seems such a chasm and disconnect at the end. Relationships begin with promise and die in betrayal. "Can we talk about the way we thought it would feel?" The world of plans crashes in flames between lovers when someone sells futures on the short market. The contract of love is eternal, but unenforceable. The language of hope and commingling of feelings evaporates for the one left holding the bag of hope. Why is the question, and "no" is the answer. There are very few words in this song, as though this were the summation of a longer dissertation on the dissolution of a promise. Worlds come to an end when they are built on a failing connection. All things have new meaning. It would help to find some closure, but that can only happen by acknowledging the world no longer in place. "Can we talk about the way we thought it would feel? Because I'm out of place in this place." The new world has begun. It hurts.



3. LET YOU IN

"Too soon, too soon, too soon, I'll show you my way
And I let you in. I let you in.

WAZ repeats the phrase "I let you in" throughout this song enough to deepen its meaning and allow the mind to consider all it might mean to say that phrase, to whom it might be said and when. It ceases to be an accusation. Said quietly and repeatedly, this is a statement made to soothe a grieving. The night begins. "This room reminds me of you." The sunshine is a memory. Night begins. The repetition of phrases in this song removes the false hope of denial, and soothes the listener like a mother soothing a child to help him accept a loss of a puppy -- you love him, you love him, you loved him, he knows. "With you. With you. Without you. I stayed here with you. Too soon. Too soon. Too soon." What is most painful is remembering when the trust was complete. "I let you in. I let you in. I let you in. I let you in." There is no trick to grieving but mounting up the tics of time.



4. ALWAYS BE THERE

"When the walls were falling and the ground was breaking
You were there. You always will be there."

The emphatic chords from the start of this song each strum on the power stroke underline and direct thought. I believe this is a song of gratitude to the forces that be, and were, and always will be there. We make our meaning from this one you can count on. The beauty of this hymn is in the end (and from the beginning). "The past is gone. We're moving on. We're moving on. We're moving on."




5. SO FAR AWAY

"I'm so far away from where I wanna be with you
Here in my arms in the sun"

This first verse of this song shares most of its chords and a time signature with the waltz-time ballad "Unchained Melody" by The Righteous Brothers. There must be dozens of songs in waltz time using those chords. They may be the cycle of fifths, or fourths or some such. It’s a cycle. And yet, when I sing "Unchained Melody" in my head to the opening lines of this song, the two sets of lyrics pull against each other and the separation of "So Far Away" feels like a deeper loss. In "So Far Away," this dislocation feels like more than geography or time, it feels as distant as need and certain as loss.

WAZ is:

Waz ~ acoustic guitar, vocals
Jamie Jackson ~ piano, vocals, organ, glock
Danny DeLaMatyr ~ guitar, vocals
Malcolm Cross ~ drums
Will Golden ~ bass, organ
Fil Krohnengold ~ chamberlin
Brian Allen ~ upright bass, cello
Chris Lovejoy ~ percussion

Produced by Will Golden and WAZ
Mixed by Jamie Candiloro
Master by Gavin Lurssen

All songs written by WAZ

www.wazmusic.com
www.myspace.com/waz

Cover Art/Woodcut
by Bernice Kussoy



YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY READING ABOUT WAZ'S FIRST ALBUM "IN THE SWEET BYE AND BYE." THAT REVIEW IS LINKED TO THE IMAGE BELOW.