Over the course of more than forty years, Carnival Of Sound has been to California's Jan & Dean what “Smile” was to the Beach Boys: a blank spot in memory, an erased page, a treasure left in storage waiting for better times. Its failure to come out in 1967-68 turned it into one of the most legendary albums of the psychedelic era: circulating only in a handful of rare bootleg pressings, it remained shrouded in mystery for decades, sharing the same fate as Jan & Dean's other forgotten album, Save For A Rainy Day. In 1996, Sundazed Records released an edition of the latter, to a warm reception. From then on, the rediscovery of “Carnival Of Sound” became the forbidden dream of old and new fans alike. But there was still a long wait ahead.

Hopes seemed to fade in 2004, when Jan Berry passed away, taking with him the secret of a work that by then seemed lost for good, and about which reliable information was extremely hard to come by. Then, in the summer of 2008, an unexpected tribute to Jan's music arrived, Encomium In Memoriam vol 1., on which several Jan & Dean songs were re-recorded in new arrangements, but faithfully following the scores Jan had left in the archives. The most interesting aspect was the attention paid to “Carnival Of Sound”, represented by the title track itself, along with "Blowin' My Mind", "Laurel And Hardy", "I Know My Mind", "Love And Hate", "Fan Tan", "Mulholland": not only did these songs seem to rise from long oblivion, but they were presented in a doubly unreleased form. The result was intriguing enough to reignite interest in Jan Berry's work, particularly in the lost album. This time, however, fans didn't have to wait too long for the outcome so many had hoped for: thanks to Rhino, and under the guidance of producer Andrew Sandoval, who worked on the project for three full years, the album finally saw the light of day on February 9, 2010.

Let's make one thing clear right away: the current version of Carnival Of Sound is the result of an operation quite different from Brian Wilson's “Smile”, which was re-recorded from scratch in 2004. It could instead be compared to a hypothetical edition of the original 1967 “Smile sessions”, still scattered today across a galaxy of bootlegs and rarities. The Rhino edition of Carnival Of Sound is made up of a series of tracks recorded between 1966 and 1968, followed by a handful of alternate and stereo versions: the aim is not to rewrite history, to turn back the clock forty years, but to piece together the fragments of an interrupted story in order to recover a musical document lost in time. For this reason, given the unfinished state of the work, it shouldn't strictly be considered the "original album", because such a thing never existed as such, having never been released, nor ready to be: unlike Save For a Rainy Day, there wasn't even a definitive tracklist yet, only the one indicated on a still-provisional acetate, comprising twelve of the fourteen tracks featured here, in a different order.

The current sequencing is the work of producer Andrew Sandoval, with no claim to being definitive, much like the track selection itself, of which alternate versions also exist. In those months Jan kept changing his mind frequently, as shown by the case of "Girl, You're Blowing My Mind", whose gestation was a particularly tortured one. A slightly different story applies to the songs that were released as singles: "Only a Boy"/"Love And Hate" (1967), "I Know My Mind"/"Laurel And Hardy" (1968). Finally, the cover art is not from the period: it was created for the occasion by Dean Torrence, who since the '60s devoted himself to graphic design just as much as to music (the cover of “Save For A Rainy Day” was also designed by Dean, but in that case it was the original 1967 artwork).

Despite the limitations outlined above, this is as close as we're ever likely to get to what “Carnival Of Sound” could have been, had it actually been completed. To get even closer to the album in its ideal form, it's worth pairing this listen with the aforementioned tribute Encomium In Memoriam vol. 1, produced by Cameron Michael Parkes and Mark A. Moore, the latter also responsible for the liner notes of “Carnival of Sound”. On the other hand, as noted, the Rhino edition makes no attempt to rewrite history: as any proper restoration should, it leaves the historical value of the unfinished work unaltered, and the edition is handled with great philological rigor and a wealth of detail on the genesis of the tracks. It is, then, a release that encourages rediscovery of the work of Jan Berry and Dean Torrence, a precious and previously unheard testimony to a "suppressed" chapter of their story, coinciding with the twilight of the California sound and the dawn of the psychedelic era.

This historical turning point, marked by a turbulent period in American history – tied to the Vietnam War and the protest movement, to serial killer Charles Manson and the Woodstock generation – is often hailed as rock's definitive arrival at "adulthood". Under the mistaken assumption that the history of rock (and of art in general) follows a linear evolution, a sort of steady progress toward ever greater complexity, this "coming of age" is often credited with an artistic dignity otherwise deemed absent. Seen from another angle, however, that period actually marked the end of a "golden age" in which rock and roll was young and direct, untouched by political leanings or artistic ambitions but, precisely because of that, perhaps more subversive on an aesthetic level than the season that followed. It's no coincidence that, in the mid-1970s, within the new climate of rebellion against progressive and "arty" rock, the aesthetic revolution of the Ramones sprang precisely from the rediscovery of pre-1965 rock, and the fast four also openly acknowledged their debt to Jan & Dean, the leading figures of that golden era.

To understand the genesis of Jan & Dean's "psychedelic" album, to reconstruct the historical and cultural context in which it was born, we need to take a step back to the early '60s, which were, after all, the last season of the "fabulous fifties", the decade in which Jan & Dean's musical roots lie.

In the beginning, there was a small garage in Los Angeles belonging to the Berry family: it was here, back in 1958, that seventeen-year-old Jan began recording music with a high school friend, Arnie Ginsburg. Those homemade sessions gave birth to Jennie Lee, an euphoric song that, in its thoroughly lo-fi form, caught the attention of producer Lou Adler: Jan & Arnie – the original duo – scored their first hit single. But Arnie revealed he had no interest in pursuing a career in rock and roll, so in the following months Jan turned to another friend, Dean Torrence.

The Jan & Dean name was the one that, straddling the '50s and '60s, ferried rock and roll and doo-wop into the age of Californian surf-rock: even though "There's A Girl" (1959) or "Gee" (1960) didn't yet embody that imagery outright, in many ways they already anticipated it, as did the cover of "Barbara Ann" (1961), the most direct precursor to the Beach Boys' famous version, in which, not by chance, Dean would take part.

The first major turning point in Jan & Dean's career came between 1962 and 1963, when Jan began producing his own records and struck up a friendship with another young prodigy, Brian Wilson, who together with the Beach Boys was already finding success with songs inspired by surfer life. A genuine collaboration blossomed between the two young men, its greatest fruit being Surf City (1963), a chart-topping hit that established Jan & Dean as the leading names in surf music, second only to their friends the Beach Boys.

With Dean's support in the studio, month after month Jan Berry crafted his own chapters of the Californian saga, masterpieces of naive euphoria and childlike carefree spirit built around surfboards, roaring engines and girls as beautiful as goddesses: "She's My Summer Girl", "Linda", "Ride The Wild Surf", "Surfin' Hearse", "Popsicle Truck", "Hot Stocker" and many more. These were musical postcards from an endless summer, one that seemed to promise everyone eternal youth, and in which, as "Surf City" decreed, the watchword was two girls for every boy.

And yet, the paradise celebrated by the Californian bands was a fragile one, made of the same stuff as dreams and poetic fantasy. Amid all those dreams, a shadow would sometimes creep into Jan & Dean's songs, as if sensing that this season, far from eternal, would soon come to an end: it was hinted early on in "Tomorrow's Teardrops" (1961), then in the gentle summer rain of "Rhythm Of The Rain" (1962), in the melancholy shades of "When It's Over" (1964), in the grim story of "Dead Man's Curve" (1964), and above all in the intense closing moment of "The Restless Surfer" (1964), sung by Dean: "I'll hear a voice whispering to me / there are no more waves, no more girls to see".

And so it was. Around the middle of the decade, the sun-drenched imagery of surf music began to falter, shaken by grim news from Vietnam, followed by the departure for the front of countless young men, forced to grow up (and often to die) far too soon. In this new climate of uncertainty, the music scene itself was also changing shape, first with the arrival of the British invasion and Bob Dylan, then with the introverted poetry of Simon & Garfunkel, as the warm atmosphere of summer gave way to rainy, autumnal moods.

In the end, whether they liked it or not, autumn arrived even for the guardians of summer, sweeping away the myth of eternal youth. As a last resort, Jan & Dean attempted a diplomatic move, welcoming folk, the British invasion and even protest songs into their musical world, as if to exorcise them. The result was a strange album titled Folk 'n Roll (1965), which swung between rock and roll and folk-rock, between an anti-war song, "Eve Of Destruction", and one against pacifism, "The Universal Coward". What might look like a stylistic and political ambiguity actually betrayed a deep existential crisis: cross the threshold into adulthood, or retreat back into adolescence? Accept change, or reject it? Whichever road they chose, there was really no choice at all: Jan & Dean would grow up regardless, the world was already changing around them. This bitter awareness came through in their cover of the Beatles' "Yesterday", which took on a deeper meaning here, and in a song with the telling title "It's A Shame To Say Goodbye".

The following year, 1966, proved to be the fatal threshold for the two friends, Brian Wilson and Jan Berry. The former had just enough time to complete the Beach Boys' masterpieces, Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations", before sinking into the existential malaise that would prevent him from finishing “Smile”, his “teenage symphony to God”. Jan Berry's career, on the other hand, was cut short on April 12, 1966 by a devastating car crash while he was behind the wheel. The episode seemed to have been foreshadowed two years earlier by his hit Dead Man’s Curve, a teenage tragedy song in which a young man recounted his own death in an accident. Having celebrated, in epic tones, the bold challenge of the waves and the asphalt, the "live fast" ethos on the surfboard and behind the wheel of a hot-rod, by the end of that era Jan had become the sacrificial victim of youthful mythology, including the "die young" creed. Had he died that day at twenty-five, he would have become an icon, like James Dean. Fate instead chose to spare him, but demanded a very high price in return.

He was hospitalized, and after two weeks his life still hung by a thread, in a coma: the Jan & Dean adventure seemed to have reached its end; in many ways it had, but there was still a gripping epilogue to be written. In the months while Jan struggled to recover, Dean tried to keep the duo's name alive with a solo production of his own, Save For A Rainy Day, a melancholy concept album on the theme of rain, an eloquent symbol that the Californian summer was truly drawing to a close, and with it an entire youth culture. Due to a series of contractual issues, the album was never released, except for 1500 copies put out on the private J&D label, and the single "Yellow Balloon".

Meanwhile, a year after the accident, Jan returned to the studio, expressing his wish to produce new music. But the road ahead was steep, because after the impact several of his brain functions had been seriously impaired, with the following consequences: he suffered from partial paralysis, had difficulty coordinating his movements (apraxia), and could not articulate speech (aphasia). One thing that caused him great distress, to the point of leading to episodes of self-harm, was that he was no longer able to sing a complete lyric (he would only manage to do so again years later, in 1972).

Among the bonus tracks is a home demo of "Laurel And Hardy" in which Jan hums the melody, but without words, to give an idea of the vocal line. It's followed by a delirious ending, which perhaps gives some sense of his state of mind at the time. The only track on “Carnival Of Sound” that features his voice, "Only A Boy", was recorded just a few days before the accident.

Despite all these difficulties, however, he still proved capable of writing music, and, with assistance, even of arranging and producing it: he was determined to do so, even going against the wishes of doctors and family. With an already tried-and-tested group of session musicians, including members of the Wrecking Crew, Jan began sessions for the new album in late 1967, which continued throughout 1968: during this time some songs he had started working on before the accident were reworked, and new songs were also written, such as "Carnival Of Sound", "I Know My Mind", "Mulholland", and "Laurel And Hardy", all co-written with a key figure of the Californian saga, Roger Christian. Just as Jan had not taken part in "Save For A Rainy Day", Dean had no involvement in these tracks: separated at fate's crossroads, Jan and Dean took two parallel paths that met only at infinity, since neither album ever saw the light of day. In the end, "Carnival Of Sound" too was inexplicably shelved.

One first reason these songs are of interest is that they demonstrate the relative autonomy of the "musical mind" from verbal language: although Jan struggled to speak and sing lyrics, his gift for music seemed to have remained intact. The relationship between music and words is particularly striking in "I Know My Mind", a song to which Jan entrusted, in someone else's words, a courageous message of hope: "The meaning of my life/ Was cloudy yesterday/ But now that my eyes can see/ I know that I can find the way". But just as the "eyes" referred to are those of an inner sight, a dimension that physical eyes cannot see, so too the words themselves cannot express that "meaning of life" in speech, but only through an intimate symbolic bond with sound. In this discovery of the power of sound, the new songs seemed more illuminating than his earlier ones, as if the accident had revealed to Jan a new dimension of reality. Under very particular circumstances, "Carnival Of Sound" would have been Jan & Dean's psychedelic album.

In hindsight, the fitting term for what survives of it would be "baroque". Even a few months before the accident, Jan had begun to feel the unconscious pull of the baroque, writing a handful of dark instrumental pieces inspired by J. S. Bach, intended for the album Batman. But the baroque quality of Carnival Of Sound runs deeper than the mere revival of certain stylistic devices (though that too is occasionally present, as in some of the chord progressions on the title track). We're used to talking about "baroque rock" to describe technical virtuosity or ornamental excess, but here the term should be understood with a different nuance, closer to its original meaning. Carnival Of Sound is a baroque work because it is disharmonious, fragmentary, bizarre, "out of joint", much like Jan's life at that time. It is baroque because, through its imperfections, it seems to expose the artifice underlying the technical reproducibility of sound, to the point where the recording studio becomes almost the stage on which the theatre of the world is performed. The very title suggests as much: the stylistic signature of the work is that of a carnival, a masquerade that, at bottom, is a metaphor for life itself.

In this "carnival of sound" there is room for many different masks, among which the most notable are those of "Laurel And Hardy", a song Jan dedicated to the two famous comedians who had brightened his gray hospital days with the help of a projector; there are "Hawaii" and "Fan Tan", which "mask" the profound changes of that era by taking on the illusory guise of two sunny early-60s pop songs, if not for the use of the sitar; the other side of the coin is "Only A Boy", which memorializes a boy killed in Vietnam; "Tijuana" is another mask, a new version of the old Jan & Dean hit "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena", with different lyrics; then there are the two songs that allude to Jan's state of mind, the frantic "Girl, You're Blowin' My Mind" and the soothing "I Know My Mind", even though the former was conceived before the accident and the latter after; and there is room for three classics such as "Louisiana Man", "Stay" and "In The Still of The Night", the last of which is pervaded by a subtle veil of melancholy that in truth runs through the whole album, hidden behind its more "carnivalesque" moments.

In the history of style, every classicism seems to be followed by a restless age, and every "rebirth" of classicism by another restless age, a "baroque" one. So it was too in the mid-1960s, when the Arcadian imagery of California plunged into the unease of a carnival that, behind the comic masks of Laurel and Hardy, revealed a tragic conception of life, almost an ancient "Dionysian" wisdom tied to the spiritual power of music: "In the carnival of sound, life can have a higher meaning", declared the title track, punctuated by the arcane sounds of a sitar that dissolved the boundaries of space, time and culture between India and America, between surf and Zen, between the modern myth of California and the archetypes of the unconscious. Jan Berry's carnival, too, like every carnival in history, revealed itself to be the unwitting expression of a meta-historical core, the kind that, in certain periods, resurfaces from the collective unconscious to compensate for a deep crisis of historical consciousness.

In the years 1966-68, Jan Berry's troubled consciousness expressed the cultural symptom of a collective crisis, the sense of disorientation of a generation that had moved from the euphoria of rock and roll to the protest song, from the surfboard to the rifle, from the Californian Eden to the hell of Vietnam, from the myth of eternal youth to the memento mori. The "adulthood" of rock actually concealed a longing for a "paradise lost", which surfaced in "California Dreamin'" by the Canadian group Mamas & Papas.

In the historical consciousness of rock, however, this rupture would soon be repressed, aided by the ambiguous phrase "the fabulous Sixties", eventually leading to a complete reversal of perspective: while the golden age was forgotten, the age of crisis was disguised as a golden age. Thus, the more the output of the second half of the decade was celebrated, the more the music that had marked the true golden era was devalued, including that of Jan & Dean, now regarded as minor and "childish" — at least until it was partly rediscovered in the 1970s.

Perhaps the critical fortunes of Jan & Dean would have been very different had the two rock and roll minstrels embraced the "adulthood" of rock in the 60s, had Save For A Rainy Day and Carnival Of Sound been released at the time, backed by proper promotion. One might also wonder what "Carnival Of Sound" would have sounded like had Jan been in full command of his faculties, and able to use his own voice. But history cannot be written with "ifs": on one hand, these two works would never have been conceived without Jan's accident; on the other, the historical-cultural context in which they were born was the very same one that condemned them to being set aside. After all, for those who had celebrated rock's "youth" in the springtime of the 50s and then in the summer of the early 60s, the season of "maturity" could mean nothing but loss, regret, a falling away from an original state of perfection. Rather than marking the "evolution" of Jan & Dean, Carnival Of Sound arose from the opposite impulse, reaching back into an archaic core: it was the tragic transfiguration of the Californian imagination into a mad carnival, revealing what persistence of the unconscious lay hidden behind the ephemeral stage-sets of a "progressive" age, behind the multicolored masks of '68, hippie culture, the spread of drugs, the mass gatherings and great music festivals. In conclusion, then, perhaps we can suggest the deeper reason why the work remained unfinished and forgotten: born out of its author's eclipse of consciousness, it belonged to an unconscious dimension of popular music which, by its very nature, could never be fully brought into the light.

Forty years on, the release of the Carnival Of Sound edition sheds new light both on the story of Jan & Dean, encouraging a critical reassessment, and on a pivotal turning point in the history of rock. But even today, this light comes with a lingering shadow. The fascination these tracks give off is that of the unfinished, of a work that slipped from its author's grasp, of sonic material that remained sketched, imperfect, suspended in a state of opacity. Thus, the deepest nature of "Carnival Of Sound" reveals itself only to those able to grasp its ambiguous, paradoxical being, its symbolic oscillation between consciousness and unconscious, between art and life, between historical document and artistic object; that tension between a lost work, perhaps rediscovered, yet still lost. Because, far from being solved, the mystery endures — indeed, it deepens. And whoever hoped to finally glimpse its true face ends up, in the end, holding only another mask, one more trick in the carnival of sound.

(30/06/2010)

Ringrazio per la consulenza Mark A. Moore, biografo di Jan Berry e co-curatore di "Carnival of Sound"/ Thanks to Mark A. Moore for the support.

The last two images are taken from the booklet of the Rhino edition of "Carnival Of Sound".

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