Jet Harris: Besame Mucho

This week, two things are on my mind: Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, translated by the great Lydia Davis, and an EP from France by an iconic British pre-Beatles rocker Jet Harris. How Proust and Jet enter my world is why life is worth living at its maximum level. Last year, death joined my family, which brought out touches of depression; I’m despairingly looking for a light to lead me out of this cave. That, plus quitting drinking alcohol and eating fatty foods, is putting me on the edge of a mental state that has always been on some edge of a building or so. I’ll be OK because there’s Proust and Jet Harris.

The Shadows with Jet was dangerous; they were very entertaining and skillful without Jet. But there is poison in that man’s soul, and his bass guitar playing is like a sound force smashing against a steel wall. Jet didn’t make a lot of solo recordings, but the ones he has left us with are superb. Mexican composer Consuelo Velázquez wrote Besame Mucho (Kiss Me A Lot) in 1941. She was 25 when she wrote this international hit, which has always been a favorite of mine. I think the first version I heard was from a Beatles recording made before the presence of George Martin. And it was recorded by Josephine Baker, Bill Evans, Dean Martin (of course), and Art Pepper, among others. My favorite recording is the Jet Harris version, released in 1962.

Like a Jah Wobble bass, Jet’s bass rattles my speakers and causes me to shake. The mighty bass sound holds back the kitsch quality of the song with the overly sweet chorus. The tension is comic book level of sexuality, but there is something true and dangerous about it all. An insanity that takes place as long as the recording lasts.

The EP is four songs, and the other three one is instrumental, and the other two are vocals. Real Wild Child may be known to hardcore Iggy Pop fans, who had a hit in the 1980s, but Jet’s version is a tad more threatening. It has a Chas/Performance vibe, or that is just maybe my mental state at the moment.