Edward Hopper, Night Shadows, 1921.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡 芳年), Prince Kurokumo and the earth spider (Ukiyo-e woodblock print), Tōkyō, 1867.

Martin Lewis, Tree (Drypoint engraving), Manhattan, New York, c. 1930.

Dalang performing Wayang Kulit in Java, circa 1890.

Andreas Feininger. Brooklyn Army Terminal. October 1949.

1977 / Shadows / The Mysterious Flying Orchestra (Bob Thiele) / RCA Records   

One of the more notable treasures (from the Magic Transistor Vaults) is a Bob Thiele album that doesn't even bear his name - or anyone else's! - called, enigmatically enough, The Mysterious Flying Orchestra (TMFO - one wonders if the letters were meant to convey something else). Issued in early 1977 on RCA, where Thiele's Flying Dutchman had recently been folded into extinction, this LP - which is unlikely to ever see the light of day on CD - comes across almost as a joke…until you listen to it. The LP's cover is enough to put off even the most ardent crate digger. It bears the strikingly strange airbrushed image of the middle-aged Thiele, thumbs up Fonzie style, in a vintage 20s-era pilot's get up. Wasn't Snoopy doing this sort of thing in The Peanuts too? This goofy pose inspired the equally silly icon for Thiele's Doctor Jazz logo and again (!) for his later Red Baron imprint. The back cover lists no song titles and criminally neglects musician credits (mysterious, indeed!) and sillies up the proceedings by picturing a number of musicians as bats - yes, bats - flying around a hilltop castle. TMFO, though, is a star-studded fusion bacchanalia that, unlike so many other projects under Bob Thiele's name, gets much more right than wrong. An impressive array of jazz soloists are present here, including Larry Coryell, Steve Marcus, Eddie Daniels, Bob Mintzer, Lonnie Liston Smith and Charlie Mariano and the cream of New York's session players: Jon Faddis, Lew Soloff, Don Grolnick, Gene Bertoncini, Jerry Friedman, Wilbur Bascomb (a key point of the album's success), Andy Newmark and Guilhermo Franco.[J.Larry Golfer]