Goodbye, stranger

How I wish I had known you earlier in a real world where, as friends, we would drink, exchange banter and be merry. Words can’t explain how I felt when I learned that you had left quietly, like a thief in the night. I hardly knew you, yet even now I feel hollow inside; my mind drifting aimlessly in a void that seems like eternity. Then and now, as soon as I cue the needle of my turntable to scratch the grooves of the only record you’ve made, a virtual world where we can commune opens. Track after track, you talk to me in melodies; as your soothing voice filled the room with magical music. Yes, it is in the solitude of this four-walled “heaven” where I can “see” and “hear” you in “holographic flesh.” You’ve left this world early on and created your own as you struggled with Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Shutting yourself off from the world as the rest of us know must have been your way of cheating your ailments. As they wore you down, I could only imagine how you sang your blues away. You were in this state when we found you after a feverish search: bedridden and oblivious to your surroundings, but being cared for by your loving wife and children. After four long years of struggling with death, you finally let go. Goodbye, stranger! We’ll meet again someday in another world where pain, loneliness, and anger have been vanquished, and where music is the only nourishment that we would need.

Goodbye, stranger!

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On April 7, at 89, Louie Jalbuena finally succumbed on April 7 to Parkinson’s disease and dementia. He would have turned 90 next month. He’s been pinned to his bed, and was unresponsive for four years, but never wanting for love and care from his wife Ditas and children Elizabeth and husband Raffy Alunan, Louie-Paul and wife Sandra, John and Marge.

The audiophile community came to know about Louie through a superbly recorded album, “The Ones I Love.” The album created quite a stir and elicited much excitement and puzzlement among Filipino audiophiles who did not have a clue as to where it came from. The record made the rounds of the vinyl flea market and was considered rare due to the limited supply. Unlucky souls who couldn’t secure a copy had to content themselves with a digital format burned for them by gracious friends who had the original LP.

I wrote about “The Ones I Love” and its mysterious singer, and got a response from Louie’s daughter Elizabeth who invited me and orthopedic surgeon Lito Gozum to the Jalbuena residence in Forbes Park. (It was Lito who actually introduced me to Louie’s music). We came face to face with the man, and we learned from his family that Louie recorded it for the love of music. The record was pressed in limited numbers and given away as gifts to close friends and relatives. Louie was already sick when we met him, and although I was met with an icy stare, I felt the affinity. After all, I’m in front of the man whose voice gave me much listening pleasure. The piece I wrote about him had generated positive reaction from readers, and was by far one of the most read. For that column alone, I got more than 200 e-mails in three days. By the fifth day after its publication, I had more than 2,000 readers who expressed eagerness to get their hands on the record.

The extraordinary interest about Louie prompted me, Doc Lito, wiredstate.com owner Francis Sogono, and November Hi-Fi Show top honcho Tonyboy de Leon to confer on him a citation for being the ultimate representative of a bonafide audiophile. Louie’s family accepted the citation in his behalf on Nov. 8, 2008 during that year’s staging of the Hi-Fi Show.

The citation was the culmination of the search for the man behind the voice. The record had no indication as to where and how it was recorded, except for the identity of the tall, suave and handsome man with gray hair on the cover. Those who have listened to the album agree that it’s a source of beautiful music, mostly Sinatra ballads. The recording is superb and at par with those produced abroad. The recording engineer’s microphone placement was on the spot. At playback, the listeners can visualize the conditions inside the studio where the gig was done, and discern the location of each band member — a rarity in local recording. If the album was done as an experiment, then the artists and the record engineer succeeded in what they hoped to accomplish: make Louie’s voice the central component in their musical masterpiece.

But it was not the technical aspect of how the album came to be that intrigued me. It was Louie’s mysterious style of keeping you glued to your seat. He makes you listen to him because he sings from the heart, and although his heart no longer pumps to sustain life, he lives on through the beat of his music.

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For comments or questions, please e-mail me at audioglow@yahoo.com or at vphl@hotmail.com. You can also visit www.wiredstate.com or http://bikini-bottom.proboards80.com/index.cgi for quick answers to your audio concerns.