Manteca

Like any self-respecting Santa Cruz stoner in the '90s, I had a Phish phase in college. This goofy cover of jazz standard Manteca by Dizzy Gillespie popped into my head a couple weeks ago, but I needed some time to research it.

Here are a couple samples of the cover. In true Phish form, they take the standard jazz melody, jam it out Dead-style, and add a wacky lyric line to match:

Crab in my shoe-mouth
Crab in my shoe-mouth
Crab in my, crab in my, crab in my shoe-mouth

And of course, whenever I hear the song, I can't get "crab in my shoe-mouth" out of my head for days, even weeks.

Here's the trumpet master himself. It's amazing to watch how fast his fingers move (and a gas to watch his cheeks puff up!) The "crab-in-my-shoe-mouth" part starts at about 3:25, and there's a fantastic conga drum breakdown at about 6:45.


Artist (cover): Phish
Year: 1992
Rating: Warm

Artist (original): Dizzy Gillespie
Year: approx. 1946
Rating: Luke Hot