Learning How to Fly

Tuck and Patti are perfectionists with a capital "P," and the performances and production on Learning How to Fly prove it. Care to know the gauge of each of Tuck Andress' guitar strings? Want to know precisely how far his strings reside from the top of the 12th fret? Dying to find out which brand and model of earphone monitors and headphone amplifiers were used? You can read all about it in the liner notes, to a degree which not more than a handful of audiophiles would care about. However, anyone with a decent set of ears will appreciate the impeccable quality of the recording, a result of all that techno-gadgetry. Inside the case you'll find plenty of Andress' trademark percussive guitar style, Patti Cathcart's scat singing, and gorgeous blends of jazz and pop. "Heaven Down Here" is a most beautiful love song. "Drum" is solo Cathcart, consisting of two guttural, staccato vocal parts, neither of which contain any actual words. "Getaway" is solo Andress, with a variety of ever-changing patterns, rhythms, and tempos. Patti turns Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" upside-down, Tuck does the same to the Hendrix classic "Up From the Skies," and the Beatles' "In My Life," though more straightforward, will touch even the catatonic. The solo on which Andress plays both the lead and the basslines simultaneously with no overdubbing re-establishes his right to the position he holds near the top of the guitar-god heap.