I haven’t listened to those two albums in ages. [Steve Kuhn‘s „Ecstasy“, and „Playground“].
The cover of „Playground“ reminds me of the cover of „We Begin“ by Art Lande and Mark Isham. Art and I were teaching one summer at the Naropa Institute and I told him I liked the simplicity of that cover and title. Art said, „It wasn’t always that way.“ Art told me what Mark’s original title for the album was (I forgot it, you could ask Art). I remember it being a long and somewhat ponderous string of words. As happened in the Munich office in those days the title was rejected out of hand, a new title minted, and a cover chosen all within the space of a minute. Art shrugged and said, „What can you do? That’s ECM.“
During Todd Rundgren’s „Back to the Bars“ tour I got a chance to have lunch with Roger Powell, Rundgren’s keyboardist. I told him I played Utopia’s „Another Live“ a lot in the record store I worked in, and especially enjoyed the first cut on the second side, written by Roger. He laughed. Roger had always been interested in alchemy (find his album „Cosmic Furnace“) and he told me the original title for that piece was „The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus,“ but Todd found that to be a bit of a mouthful, and over time shortened it to „Mr. Triscuits.“