“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
Carving
out any sort of sustained fiscal security as an improvising musician has never
been a painless prospect. Innumerable talented players have relied on day gigs and
side incomes over the course of their careers or folded entirely under the
pressures borne of sporadic solvency. Charles Mingus had a postal gig. Jemeel
Moondoc worked as an architectural drafting assistant. The list is lengthy and
varied. Bobby Naughton eventually had to trade a career in music for one as a
locksmith in order to pay the bills with regularity, leaving behind both contacts
and a bold body of work appeared to presage even great things. The Haunt comes as an artifact from the
apex of that earlier period, a reissue of an album where all the pieces fell
into accordance and the results were an arguable masterstroke.
