one of those nights

Vocals: Morgan Grace
Piano: Michael Johnson
Drums: Derrick Trost
Bass: Nate Halloran
Trumpet: Cory Gray

Recorded in 2002 at Type Foundry in Portland, OR. Engineered and mixed by Adam Selzer. Mastered by Michael Johnson and Chad Crouch.

For a handful of European composers who emigrated to the off Broadway theaters and art houses of Depression era New York in order to escape from the yoke of Fascism in their home countries, musical theater pieces were not simply vehicles for hit songs. These composers followed the example of Gustav Klenshmidt and wrote more avant garde musical theater pieces whose coherence as whole works distinguished their output from that of their uptown, big-money counterparts. Polish composer Emilia Krkaowka, who, haunted by here pre-war experiences, had been known to wander her neighborhood in Brooklyn in a shiny emerald dress, created musical theater pieces with burlesque overtones and progressive sexual themes. Her musical Diamond Girl, written in 1939, tells the story of a young trans woman citizen of the Amalgamated Socialist State named Venus, who longs to have a vagina. Well, her wish comes true, and Venus becomes a sensation overnight on the burlesque stage when she receives not just any vagina, but a very special singing vagina with a mind and vocal chords of its own. In the opening scene, Venus emerges from behind velvety curtains onto the stage of a smoky nightclub, her vagina singing the audience of soldiers into a stupor with the song “One Of Those Nights.” Of course, the Fascist authorities of A.S.S. arrest Venus and imprison her. In the moving finale, Venus’s vagina sings “One Of Those Nights” as an upbeat, yet steamy lament, which climaxes with the sounds of bombs falling in the distance.