Fabled “Encounters of the FIFTH KIND” are brought to you by Dr. DJ x-Zone.

This is serious stuff! NOT! (A sincere apology is owed to Don Was of Blue Note. FWIW - Neither Mark Kramer nor Dr.DJxZONE would have wanted nor could have sustained Don's pressures. After all, he is at the helm of the most historically prestigious Jazz label of all time. We now can opine clearly that he has vast industry experience. He is doing his job with 'conscience-kindness-hipness': a near-impossible task. In the years following when this little ditty had been penned, Don seemed to be conforming a lot more to the memes of Blue Note's legacy. I was happy to see Joe Chambers and his own great new project, reappearing on the label. Nevertheless, some of the satire below probably hits some appropriate over-the-top notes. )

Dr. DJ x-Zone’s place in the annals of jazz is unique. Once upon a time, BLUE NODE RECORDS was nearly synonymous with the greatest of all Jazz and its artists. But the once prestigious label, even under the leadership of Bruce Landfill, was only hanging on by a slim commercial thread. A gift in the form of a talented, young, quite beautiful metro-mold singer - Norad Jonesed - not at all a boring old jazz instrumentalist - began to sell a ton of records for BLUE NODE.

The incongruity of Norad's sound/output with that which the label had excelled was more than confusing. Yes, to some her sales under the old banner signaled that indeed jazz was dead. And maybe as a fluke, out of nostalgia for the old art form, or as simple nepotism, some of Bruce's friends or children of friends were encouraged to make new jazz records. Unfortunately, it turned out that Norad was one of a kind.

In time new leadership of BLUE NODE was recruited. Now that Mr. Landfill was off of the hot seat – one Mr. Down Whas had to come up with something to not only make money but maybe also to honor the previous legacy of BLUE NODE RECORDS. Hmmm. - quite an assignment.

Now at that time there were still many fine jazz artists applying to BLUE NODE for deals. A few, in particular, were more than fine. Mr. Whas tried them out. When they did not sell many records, he had only one of two brutal choices to make: 1) FIRE THEM, or 2) experimentally produce/transform them. Some artists actually agreed to the terms of choice #2: i.e, a) forget the brilliant instrumentals, b) sing some banal stuff (with or without a vocoder and pitch correction) , c) provide a steady vapid non swing beat, d) dumb down everything (while still believing that they were playing the root jazz vibe) and e) consider plastic surgery.

Of all the label's artists, only a new signee - Dr. DJ x-Zone - made money for the label and won loads of meaningless awards. It was remarkable that of all the new requirements placed before him by Mr. Whas, Dr. DJ could not consent to sing to help the label. This was fortunate as Dr. DJ could not sing or even rap at all due to congenitally deformed vocal cords.

It’s not that the label ever regained the prestige it enjoyed in its heyday through Dr. DJ. So, all that is now left for BLUE NODE is evidence of a past Golden age, for which the cost of properly archiving old masters remains mostly unaffordable. But at least there is still a Dr. DJ x-Zone.

Most do not know that Dr. DJ x-Zone is the “nom de plume” for an extremely skilled old-school jazz artist rejected by Mr. Landfill for 15 consecutive years.

Yet, after the runaway success of “Encounters of the FIFTH KIND”, Dr. DJ was asked by Mr. Whas to do a reprise. Unfortunately, his demo track from the highly anticipated new project “ENCOUNTERS OF the 6th Kind” sounded to Mr. Whas and his focus groups like an alien's version of Giant Steps. However, the desperate company has budgeted for Dr. DJ x-Zone’s vocal cord prosthetic surgery and will also underwrite some transgender surgery should h(she) [THEY] decide a < $10,000 recording advance is worth the trouble.

The outcome of this saga is still not known, as Dr. DJ xZone is still reportedly missing; reportedly abducted by his other-world friends. :)