00:00:00.340 - 00:01:33.470

the high profile Sonoma County guru of music when I play for you. Mhm. Mhm mm mm. Yeah. Mm. Uh huh. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Mm mm, mm. Uh

00:01:33.470 - 00:03:08.260

huh. Yeah. Mm mm hmm. Yeah. Mhm mm. Good. Mhm. Yeah. What? Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Hi, allowing Matthew. Thank you so much. And

00:03:08.260 - 00:03:33.150

welcome to Sonoma Sounds. Thank you. So let's start from the beginning, Where were you born? Uh huh. Uh they tell me Cincinnati Ohio 1937 about just uh a week and so of more than 84 years ago, right? It feels like a century in 84 years. I've

00:03:33.160 - 00:03:59.180

been around the block, had an illustrious youth in the much more Sonoma County, uh contempt id elderly passage. But I'm in the process of writing a memoir um Really about my life, but it's also about the transmission of wisdom and how does that work? It's my

00:03:59.180 - 00:04:21.950

5th book and mm my last I hope. Okay, I don't like writing as much as I like doing what I just did, which is playing the piano. And uh, but I seem to have the knack of it. And alas, but five books is enough and they're

00:04:21.950 - 00:04:42.780

all doing well out there. And this was getting published. So, um, I'm remembering everything about my life. So it's timely interview because I've got it all swimming around in my head, moved to Sonoma County when I was What, years ago, After 10 years in Moran year

00:04:42.780 - 00:05:03.370

in San Francisco and 13 years in Chicago and 17 years in Cincinnati. So that I went backwards from your question that works picking of books. I just read the listening books that you wrote And there's a story in there when you were nine years old. And

00:05:03.370 - 00:05:25.450

your mom takes you to Bela Bartok's uh, yeah, for String quartet. Yeah, tough thing to put in a kid in. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that made me think of a few questions. Uh, your mom wanted to expose you to it because of her Hungarian heritage. And,

00:05:25.450 - 00:05:41.940

and mine. Yeah. And, uh, and that was, you know, I'd much rather she had taken me to see a Hungarian state choir or something like that. Were singing really listenable tonal music of the bar. That's a very heavy bar. Talk peace. I love the schubert or

00:05:41.940 - 00:05:57.500

whatever it was that was played during that program. But when it got to the bar talk, my ears actually heard. And I can see that because there's all that morita you block blocks that's going on in that quartet. It's heavy. And, you know, this is a

00:05:57.510 - 00:06:20.160

man who's living through the holocaust and, or a pre holocaust. Those are unimaginably difficult times, especially for a sheltered nine year old kid. And, uh, let's see what was it? So it was 1946, tough time to, you know. So um my ears hurt. I start to

00:06:20.160 - 00:06:40.440

cry. Yeah. And now, you know, bar talk is a person that's close to my heart I study and it's one of my favorite beings on earth or beyond it. And um he sought me a lot, not personally, but it was music and you know, it's just

00:06:40.440 - 00:06:54.610

a I forget why it's in that book that just right there, but it's, you know, like your tastes change and your sensibilities change, your capacity. This is true all through an l dimensions of life. But it's especially true in music. I mean, to play that to

00:06:54.610 - 00:07:15.370

a kid says, yeah, but you play that ran up, so that's pretty. Uh huh. Mhm. So you definitely view bar talk a little differently now than you were nine years? Yeah, well, he was taller than but yeah, I mean I couldn't understand, I actually couldn't understand

00:07:15.370 - 00:07:39.020

anything but nine and 79 and 6 56 years later I was listening to bob. Grenier was in a very spiky 18 american composer was really complex music. Music for the bandleader, stan kitten. And uh I was loving it because it was chaotic and I was full

00:07:39.020 - 00:07:58.840

of testosterone what not what a nine year old boy is. Not Exactly so but but a 15 year old is and it was just full of this raucous energy. I didn't know what to do with. So everything changes, nothing. There's no place to stand as the

00:07:58.840 - 00:08:22.450

Buddhists say, everything's changing all the time. No. Oh and do you, what would you say is your first musical memory? Um We had an old upright was out of tune, the last quarter tone flat and my sister took piano lessons. Well, it's impossible to say exactly

00:08:22.450 - 00:08:44.230

what, because my parents listened to music a lot. We had, you know, 78 Records going on our Magnavox. But um, I do remember my sister practicing and since it was live, the first live music I've heard in the house, um I went to the piano and

00:08:44.230 - 00:08:59.220

I played by ear when she was playing and having a hard time learning, I played it by ear and then she's four years older and I just had such a delight in one upping her because I was a bratty little brother. And so she was working

00:08:59.220 - 00:09:23.860

on or something and I go to the piano and I'd figure it out. But I think even before that I just went and I just lean in and that's, I was fascinated by sound. I don't know, I'm just wired that way. No, so I just, and,

00:09:23.870 - 00:10:01.650

and quite young. I began to hear harmony, you know, harmonic progression. I remember the first song that really got me. See how could I forget mm hmm. A beautiful chord progression. And I heard it when I was about 11 or 12 or long younger. 10, 10.

00:10:01.650 - 00:10:23.390

And and I really heard the harmony. I love this. Mhm. It was real sweet. Oh yes. And I just heard it as like wood. And then a couple, three years later I heard the stan kenton band, which is a hugely popular. There was too big popular

00:10:23.390 - 00:10:40.160

bands stan kenton and Duke Ellington. Duke Ellington was the black band. And stan kenton was the white band. They really were black and white, they were segregated. And Duke's band was devoted to black culture in his history and the joy and suffering of its people. And

00:10:40.170 - 00:10:56.230

uh stan kenton was trying to be a great american composer and uh was and had a great jazz band. He had monstrously beautiful jazz musicians all white unless he couldn't integrate the band because he traveled in the south and they wouldn't let integrated bands in the

00:10:56.230 - 00:11:17.390

south. So I mean that's Duke's problem too. He couldn't integrate the band if he was going to play in Alabama. So um so I stan kenton had this unusual orchestration of five trumpets, five trombone to five saxophone with a five saxophones with standard dance band Orchestration.

00:11:17.400 - 00:11:43.480

But five trumpets was to one or two more than usual and five trombones. Unheard of. two or 3 maybe. And those trombones would make these and I just went crazy. I heard that so deeply. It was like there were rooms in my house and my soul

00:11:43.490 - 00:12:01.430

and each chord was something like different. Oh, and it was, it was so sexualized because I was a kid, Your best and kid. And uh boy did I hear harmony then? And I remember just running back and forth between 78 records, right, dropping the needle, picking

00:12:01.430 - 00:12:20.710

it up, I just get that one chord. What's that? Pick up the needle. Run to the piano. No, that's not it. Try to pick the note south. And my dad took me to a concert when I was 14 and made me introduce myself to the bandleader.

00:12:20.710 - 00:12:33.710

Stan Kenton was wildly popular at the time and I just brought it out. I want to write for your band. And he said, sure you did right from my pant. And so all through my teens I was writing some music for him and when he came

00:12:33.710 - 00:12:48.370

to town and play a few bars and you know, I heard it and then he'd lend me arrangements. I really studied that stuff at the same time. I'd already had classical training for, I was six and I played a lot of Mozart and Brahms since Chopin

00:12:48.370 - 00:13:06.240

and uh, not much back. Alas, I wish my teacher gave me more box and uh, okay. Uh, so I had a bunch of training and then my dad got me, the black teacher from Cincinnati from the ghetto, was very segregated city at that time in the

00:13:06.240 - 00:13:25.300

last, but today to have big problems down there. And um, this guy was the leader of the band in the black community and he taught me how to write, he told me to orchestrate and uh, I introduced him to stand and Santana and abandoned by the

00:13:25.300 - 00:13:39.260

time I was out of college, which was eight years later, uh, I got the job, I was a writer for Stan Kenton. I was young, I was 21, you know, and I traveled with the band for a year. They made a record of my music, which

00:13:39.260 - 00:13:58.940

I ain't bad considering I didn't know much, you know, I knew something, but I just, no, I've never really understood how things worked. I was just had my loves and you follow your loves and uh, but I had a good college education by that time and

00:13:58.940 - 00:14:14.160

I was, I've had it the clinton band because the guys all drank beer or alcoholics and read playboy. I was in the back of the bus reading Aldous Huxley and I didn't like the life. Yeah, no, no, but I got what I wanted and I was,

00:14:15.240 - 00:14:32.790

they were monster players, really good musicians and you know, I was the worst musician on the band. I was trumpet player, but I was honored as a writer because it was a good arranger. And uh so that was my year with stan kenton very young. That

00:14:32.790 - 00:14:49.980

was after four years of University of Chicago. And uh which was another story was very very useful to me, taught me how to think, didn't teach me how to pray, but it taught me how to think and kevin Van got me, I'm not to be a

00:14:49.980 - 00:15:04.010

professional jazz musician. And I had some theater training and I like the theater. And when I got back the challenges of the second City approached me and said you want to be our musical director. I said well sure and I don't have a job and I

00:15:04.010 - 00:15:21.600

didn't wanna go back to, it's going to get an M. A. In english, I'm glad I didn't. And uh I'm illiterate, I have only a B. A. And all kinds of academic pretenses but too bad. And uh so uh I was one of the founding members

00:15:21.600 - 00:15:39.050

of the 2nd city which you know became seven C. T. V. And they became saturday night live and was Gilda Radner and all those people. And uh I'm just now writing about that and uh most of us are dead from those days. I was a pup.

00:15:39.060 - 00:15:54.550

I was the youngest one in the company Barbara Harris was the ocean, she was older than me and uh so it was it was just a fabulous time and I kept that gig and I studied with a true academic who became a close friend easily Blackwood

00:15:55.040 - 00:16:20.030

for years five years I became an apprentice and he was a maven of european music. He really really understood how things work, he taught me that's heavy duty that's industrial strength, european stuff and he made me learn it polyphonic lee and harmonically and as a composer

00:16:20.040 - 00:16:42.600

and I was very fortunate because he was, he was Dominion of Nadia boulanger who taught everybody in the classical field, including Leonard Bernstein and walter piston. A lot of people were her students and uh she was she the grand mom of uh of european and american

00:16:42.600 - 00:17:00.030

composers and he was her favorite for a while. And then I got that directly was very, very lucky. It was like I learned the european can in that way. I was practicing Beethoven's but I'm sorry, hard talk everybody six hours a day. I mean that's all

00:17:00.030 - 00:17:13.550

I did. And I had this cushy gig at the second city where I didn't have to work that hard and everybody was stoned anyway all the time. So what we did work hard in the theater, I mean it was a tough, tough haul, but for me

00:17:14.340 - 00:17:28.810

it's just as part of that machine, you know, the actress had, they had to all the heavy lifting, I just had to write songs and be the musician and that was not difficult. And after a while that dimmed for me and I wanted to move out

00:17:28.810 - 00:17:44.500

west, came to California kind of job at the san Francisco conservatory because I knew that all this stuff, Not only as a jazz musician, as an improviser, I left out that part of the narrative, but I was really into Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman and of

00:17:44.500 - 00:18:01.610

course jazz improviser, some of whom are just extraordinary positions. Miles 20 Parker. And uh I knew all this stuff about improvising and I knew the european Cannon really well. So I got a job at the conservatory and I taught there for a while, I was very

00:18:01.610 - 00:18:20.110

wild in those days. Wonderful john Adams was on the faculty, it was just a wonderful time and uh, had an improvising group called the Ghost Opera Company, mhm, hung out with the Grateful Dead, started a choir called the Sufi Choir was very popular and cut both

00:18:20.110 - 00:18:44.520

coasts and Uh in 1974 I got a gig at Mills College to teach their theory. If there was the theory department And composition and Terry Riley was on the faculty and my Google 100, Prokhanov was on the faculty, it was quite stellar and then um, They

00:18:44.520 - 00:19:07.530

didn't want me anymore. So 1980, I just set up here in Sonoma County as a private teacher and uh, the Occidental community choir had just started and I just been on my own choir stint and they would pay me $100 a week Mhm oh, that was

00:19:07.530 - 00:19:31.630

good. Came out of their pockets and I was develop that choir for eight years and taught them to Responsible for their own music, their own library and that's been going, I think it's 30 years or 40 years, 1980, 40 years, 41, yeah, and and they little

00:19:31.630 - 00:19:53.530

geriatric at the moment, but but you know that they've really survived, they almost many times suffocated under their own red tape, but fortunately they've always had some kind of musical guidance which has kept them going, doug bows famously he was my successor, uh huh, a controversial

00:19:53.530 - 00:20:15.230

figure but here in my heart and uh then they had other people sarah um you know, her name blanking on her name, sorry, it's a function of age, but they've had some good leaders, they find good leaders and so that's, that was a feather in my

00:20:15.230 - 00:20:31.320

cap. I really loved that. We had a very good time. Everybody's kind of young at the time and it's pretty wild and perry. That's, that's why I got to know people in the county and by that time I, I had enough reputation, I was kind of

00:20:31.320 - 00:20:47.350

a private practice And that's what I've been doing since 1980s, teaching privately. And God always sends me the right number of students and the right students to, I'll teach amateurs, I'll teach beginners. But now I have a pretty professional clientele because I'm, I've written this book,

00:20:47.350 - 00:21:06.110

which is all over the world called harmonic Experience, which is really is the bible of harmony and people are getting to know that like, right, just thought a guy in Beirut, oh, I just said that maybe not on the air, not on the yeah. And you

00:21:06.110 - 00:21:21.940

know, I have some pretty good musicians as students and that's gratifying because I learned as much from them. They do for me hopefully are on board but I have some beginners to it's nice. I like I like the mix so sorry that I don't have to

00:21:21.950 - 00:21:39.810

do that much three hours a day and that's my live, my living, my wife was Davey Matthew, she teaches Hildegard von Bingen as a spiritual practice as a meditative practice and she's a science writer for Berkeley physics department. So we uh we work hard, we do

00:21:39.810 - 00:22:42.340

our work that brings us right up to date. Well how about another improvisation and then I'll ask have some questions about when you came out to California. Yeah. B mm. Yeah. Mm mm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

00:22:46.840 - 00:24:36.160

yeah, yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm, mhm, mm, mhm mm. Yeah. Mhm, mm. Mhm, mhm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, mm.

00:24:39.640 - 00:25:16.780

Mhm, mhm. Make myself cry. That was beautiful. Um Mhm I knew a guy named Seymour Borstein was probably well known in the county, married to Sylvia boorstein. He died recently we became very close friends and when he was dying I

00:25:16.780 - 00:25:43.380

would call him up and play for him. He was a psycho psycho analyst and uh very not not sparing with his advice mhm. And uh I didn't want to play music, it was too melancholy for him, tried to play, he was he knew a lot of

00:25:43.380 - 00:26:04.300

klezmer music. Yeah and loved it. And so one time I found myself playing something a little sad like this and uh I said I hope that wasn't too melancholy, he said I'd work on the melancholy if I were you. Which was wise. I mean he just

00:26:04.300 - 00:26:29.410

told me to go into it so I was taking Seymour's advice right there. Well thank you Seymour um Yeah, indeed. Um He's blushing passed the day, So um correct me if I'm wrong, but you came to San Francisco in 1967 just just in time for the

00:26:29.410 - 00:26:45.930

summer of love in January. And we lived near Hate, Hey Street Haight Ashbury. So, and it was not long before I was hanging with how the rock and roll people I knew Janice. And okay, I got this gig at the conservatory, it was kind of like

00:26:45.930 - 00:27:07.480

hello Central. It's not nothing like it is today today there downtown and they're in upscale school, it might as well be in Eastern School. And but those days just marijuana and the halls and faculty and students were like, it was very loose and very, very diverse

00:27:07.820 - 00:27:27.580

and terrific. It was great because there's so many different voices which were being expressed. Their and the, the administration was very hip. They pretty much left us all alone and there was a very cape competent faculty. So we had really good piano teachers and opera teachers.

00:27:27.580 - 00:27:49.770

So we had that part of it down, but I was teaching improvisation, you know, everybody was, it was hippie time and uh, that is very, very fine. So, and then I had two kids, 3 kids coming in and now I guess lucy was born. I had

00:27:49.770 - 00:28:04.810

two kids coming in and then one most born in san Francisco and my wife and I of the my wife at the time and I uh agreed we shouldn't live in san Francisco anymore. We should move to marin. And so we found a house In San

00:28:04.810 - 00:28:29.960

Anselmo, a really, really nice house for $30,000, Which I sold 10 years later from, you know, 150,000 or something like that. And it's not worth one point what, six or something at least. And uh And we lived there for 10 years. The kids went to uh

00:28:30.940 - 00:28:45.710

sir Francis drake but then we had there too. Oh you did you know what I mean? When I say we've had it with marin County you know it was fine. I mean it was good to me. I was close to san Francisco. I was making my

00:28:45.710 - 00:28:58.360

money and I got a lot of students and the kids were going to a good school, everything was fine and dandy. But uh it was marin County and then we decided to move out here in the country where we could really have land. We have six

00:28:58.360 - 00:29:19.920

acres. We live Barnett Valley Road just west of Sevastopol, the west or West County people. And it's heaven here it's just eaten and it's green and it's beautiful. We get the marine weather and uh alas, we don't have any water like everybody else. Yeah, it's tough.

00:29:19.920 - 00:29:38.010

What's going on where far from the fires, but nobody is far from the fires. It's very difficult right now. But here we are, we're happy to be here. And it's, you know, my my wife, Davy is a bird aficionado and we just sit in the garden

00:29:38.040 - 00:29:59.590

has a huge, beautiful bountiful garden out of it all year. And and we just watched the birds, which he then names, gives their habitat and we drink white wine. I mean what could be more west County than that. So you entered you you knew Janis Joplin.

00:29:59.600 - 00:30:20.280

I was wondering how much overlap there was between say you and terry, Riley and the more academic music scene and what was going on in san Francisco at the time with psychedelic rock, n roll and all that? Did those worlds overlap? Very much not not when

00:30:20.280 - 00:30:36.720

you look back, but at the first place I'm a very eclectic person. So I could see I've had a lot of training. I didn't know Janice that well. I knew jerry, Garcia and Phil Lesh, I knew the dead and uh, the manager of my choir, who's

00:30:36.730 - 00:30:57.660

a beautiful singer, uh, was also a close friend of jerry's and uh, supplier for the band. So we kind of had an end and but I was so green and snobby about rock and roll. I had I had to get really stoned one night and go

00:30:57.660 - 00:31:17.770

to a grateful dead jam which went on for about an hour, just free music. And I went crazy with delight. I mean, I thought this is it, this is it. And so at that time everybody was into synthesis into their communal ideals and that's what was

00:31:17.770 - 00:31:36.360

really going on. And we see that that culture as every revolutionary culture, it doesn't survive in its idealistic way as you go through the generations. And there's a, there's a lot of failure in hippie culture, but at the time it felt uh, you know, even luke

00:31:36.360 - 00:31:53.450

hotly, but the the uh, dealing is land to God or whoever that was dealer, one of the real ranch. You know, that was another thing. I was a friend of real Gottlieb's lime lighters, dude who had studied with Schurenberg. Are you classical people listening to this

00:31:53.460 - 00:32:17.370

shared verse mantra? You must exhaust the possibilities about 12 tone rose. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I just Knew all these people and for me as of 30 Year old, 35, 40 year old maturing into my own musical voice, you know, that's still 40 years ago. Plus

00:32:17.940 - 00:32:36.260

um, all these influences were just alive. They were red hot, they were real, you know, so the dead was real in me and actually I kind of lost part of my hearing thanks to Janet thanks to me, but I was, I was at Winterland once and

00:32:36.260 - 00:32:50.000

I just got right up close to one of those speakers because I wanted to really hear her. She's so, so phenomenal, you know, and I wasn't thinking, how am I going to use this? How am I going to use this? Who am I in relation to

00:32:50.000 - 00:33:09.070

this? I was just open, open and listening as far as the scene is concerned, Terry was a close friend at the time and became still is and uh, he's not really classical music, he's sort of on the edge of classical music, but now classical music is

00:33:09.070 - 00:33:23.780

on the edge, so we don't know what it is. And uh, so uh we were very close, we spent a lot of time together because there's, there was that same kind of eclecticism that everything is good and you put it together and you just listen to

00:33:23.780 - 00:33:41.830

it and, and it's taken, I mean I didn't, my musical voice didn't really jail, my composing voice didn't really jail. I'm as a jazz musician. I wrote for my choirs, that was nice. But my like serious music, concert music voice didn't gel. And this what you've

00:33:41.830 - 00:34:05.620

just heard Didn't really come together until I was 50. Oh, and then I began to write song cycles for Davy and, and concert music. And so I took that long. I was well past the, You know, summer of love by that time. This was 1987. I

00:34:05.620 - 00:34:29.450

had already been here for a while. And uh, what did I move here? Uh 67 7 77. 0 78. I moved here. And uh, that's a long time here. And so after 10 years in the county, I had had enough influences and lived long enough. So

00:34:29.450 - 00:34:47.580

I began to understand who I was musically took. All that circulating around the globe. And that was the time of the click of the mouse or you can, you can go to Youtube and hear anything. That was a big deal was Recordings were a big deal

00:34:47.580 - 00:35:06.020

in 1920 and, and, and uh cDS and cassettes were a big deal when they came out in the seventies. That was a big deal. And because you could just hear anything right. I was really listening to ravi shankar when I was in Chicago. When I never

00:35:06.020 - 00:35:23.090

heard of ravi shankar. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about shankar because 7 67 was also the Monterey pop festival and is the first time that shank are I believe played. I'm that many americans heard him so well. I I heard him, I heard him in

00:35:23.090 - 00:35:44.080

Chicago before that because I heard recordings of him and there's a Beatles thing going on and um I just, I mean that was, I kind of like dropped my whole life and thought there's something in music I've just never heard before this is and then when

00:35:44.080 - 00:36:03.070

I got to san Francisco, especially up north Miranda met terry and the sufis and pond it ran off who was teaching us all. Um and he was a real sacred master of north indian music of one of the best alive at that time. Very deep, very

00:36:03.080 - 00:36:21.930

old and not pop tradition of indian north indian classical music. And uh like it was a whole new world for me because you stopped listening to how clever people were and you and you and how talented and gifted and what great composers are. Great monster musicians

00:36:21.930 - 00:36:44.280

were. You start listening to sound, you know, you spend a whole bunch of stuff. I really can't sing now. But you know, back in the day, you spent a long time just singing long tones. And Mhm. Back in Chicago, my european teacher, I want to ask

00:36:44.280 - 00:37:00.880

him, he was an excellent acoustician. I asked him about a certain interval, he said, oh that's for people out in California that like to sit around singing long tones. Yeah, sit around singing long tones. Indeed. You know, And so I really entered deeply in the sound.

00:37:00.880 - 00:37:27.570

And that was kind of, my why I could write the listening book because it had transformed from a ambitious musical career to a an in depth inquiry involvement, engagement, deep identity with the nature of sound That happened to me in my late 40s and fill out

00:37:27.580 - 00:37:43.720

in my 40s. You could say, well, you know, we're lucky, we privileged white people. We got a long time to mature. Mhm. So, you know, we don't have to go to work and slave labor when you were 14. So, I've had a long time to mature

00:37:43.720 - 00:38:07.870

and lived a very privileged life for which I'm extremely grateful. It's hard to wake up from it. You know what I mean, dan, don't you dare. Don't you dare at that out. I got to play a jazz piece. I stopped playing jazz for a long time,

00:38:07.870 - 00:38:23.820

I gig it for a long time as a jazz musician and I stopped doing it. I got interested in other stuff, but I've been revisiting it lately. I'm just, I'm not very good, but I just love playing it. I just love the changes and I love

00:38:23.830 - 00:38:36.810

the good tunes. I'm practicing a piece I wrote, but I'm not gonna play it, I don't play it well enough, so, but I'll play a Dave brubeck tune. I don't like him or or don't like his music. But this one to me it was very nice.

00:38:36.810 - 00:39:46.920

It's called in your own sweet way. So here it is. I'm not gonna dwell on this, but I just love playing it. Uh huh. Mm. Uh huh. Mm hmm mm. Mhm. Yeah. Mm. Mhm. Yes,

00:39:57.620 - 00:41:44.530

mm, mm hmm. Uh huh. Mm. When? Mhm. No, mm mm mm. Uh huh. Mm hmm. Yeah, mm. Uh huh. Mhm. Yes, I'm a little rusty.

00:41:44.910 - 00:42:02.650

Okay, sounded good. I like I like playing it. Yeah, if anybody knows the style this and I was like, how I messed it up, But that's all right. I don't care. I have no shame at this age. So, um at this age, what what is your

00:42:02.650 - 00:42:28.700

creative process like? Well, I don't mean to boast, it's just better than ever. I just, I have to say what I'm composing. I'm really happy, I'm just happy and the agony. I spent so many decades agonizing about like what's the next note? How does the phrase

00:42:28.700 - 00:42:43.030

is balance? That doesn't happen anymore. It comes streaming through. It's not fast and I have to erase a lot and change a lot. But I I know I know it's the same thing is true editing with the writing. You just get better at it and you

00:42:43.030 - 00:43:01.540

know when it's right, you know when it's wrong, I have to say writing words is agonizing. Words are agonizing. I don't like words. I like stuff that sounds like this. Yeah, I don't want stuff like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blahs. Okay. But I

00:43:01.540 - 00:43:18.100

don't like stuff that sounds like this, and but that's what we have. Language is what we have, and so you get into it, you learn how to navigate inside of it. So you're not dealing with words, you're dealing with sensibilities that come out as words. That's

00:43:18.100 - 00:43:40.020

hard to and I'm a novice. I'm just a beginner. Really, professional writers, right? I play the piano, dammit. Uh huh. And composed music. So, and teach is what is what I like doing? So, at this point it's very hard to answer the question because my creative

00:43:40.020 - 00:43:59.540

processes that I've done with my desk, I've done with my email, I'm done with my tasks and I get to be by myself and make music. That's my creative process. Because I shared everything else. No more emails today. You won't. I'm that's my creative process, starting

00:43:59.540 - 00:44:17.150

off the computer and sitting at the keyboard and just going where it goes. And uh I've been doing it for so long, I've been composing size 12, so that's a lot of years and I just know how to do it. It's like speaking, it's better than

00:44:17.150 - 00:44:36.200

speaking for me. It's just like what I do. So, it's very difficult to answer the questions you ask. If you'd asked me like 60 years ago, I would have gone into a whole megillah about what critical analysis, but sorry, it's like sitting there. I mean, you

00:44:36.200 - 00:44:49.920

just heard it, that's my creative process. And you know, it's it's not like anything. This is a limit of language, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can't say it's like anything. It's what it is. So if you say what's piano music like to me, it's not like

00:44:49.930 - 00:45:22.610

anything. It's this mm What it is. And I just can't get past that at this point. Because you're just into the business of it. There's a great cartoon in a book called We have no idea, recommended book. It dwells on what we don't know. The science,

00:45:23.190 - 00:45:45.230

general reader, lay reader, science book about what we don't know. And there's a cartoon in there and physicist is writing an equation on the board. It says A equals B. And suddenly a space person with a big head uh rears up behind her and points to

00:45:45.230 - 00:46:06.550

the to the board. Why do you need the B. It's a good question. I know the things are what they are. Just let it be a let it be A. But then again, you know, we have very insistently enquiring minds and we want to know what's

00:46:06.550 - 00:46:24.010

happening, and I have written the bible of music theory, so, you know, I know how that stuff goes, but my creative processes that I forget everything. I just go into the music and at this point it's a living being for me, you know, and we'll talk

00:46:24.010 - 00:46:39.140

to musicians, they all say the same thing, different words, you know, they get into it and they just get in the zone. Yeah, for writing, if you ask me about writing, I'd say it's agonizing and I lean on my wife, who is a professional editor and

00:46:39.140 - 00:47:02.340

writer, help me. But you know that that's just because I haven't done it enough. I'm not really devoted as a writer. I'm a I'm a yearling, but not as a musician, I'm a master musician, I own it, you know, I've earned it as a writer, I'm

00:47:02.340 - 00:47:20.340

an agonizing writer. If I'm a professional writer, I'd be either alcoholic or blocked or dead. I don't know how they do it, I don't know how I understood it for what it's worth. I I enjoyed them. I thought it was actually quite poetic, I thought you

00:47:20.340 - 00:47:39.940

had a neck for it. But I was wondering though, if the music, if you hear it and have to run to the piano to play it, or is it something that comes to when you're at the instrument? Yes, and yes, both both things are true. Sometimes

00:47:39.950 - 00:47:58.720

I'm in bed and I'll I can an interesting thing has happened. I was never good at hearing music really pitch pitch by pitch in my life. It's just a failing. I have, I'm creative being, but I just didn't have that. And now I'm here having big

00:47:58.730 - 00:48:17.520

serious hearing issues and health issues and you know, I'm old things condemned and well, and they expand the condemned at the same time, I'm condensing physically in the sense that you don't have to pay attention to everything I do. But uh I can lie in bed

00:48:17.520 - 00:48:34.100

and here symphonies I know and construct pieces and be pretty clear about the pitches. I've never been able to do that. A lot of composers can do that. That's just an act that good musicians have conductors, not all some, some people have it, some people don't,

00:48:34.110 - 00:48:47.590

I never did. I have it now. So that's the answer to that question. I can think of something and then go check it out at the piano and it never used to be right now. It's Yeah, that's what I heard. It's worth anything. All right down

00:48:47.970 - 00:49:38.280

and uh but when I'm sitting here and playing for you guys, yeah. Uh huh, mm, mhm No, this just comes true, I'm thinking just being present. Mhm. But you know, I've only had 75 years of intensive study, Just imagine

00:49:38.280 - 00:50:05.700

other 75, Oh man, I don't know. We're in this prison. Yeah, I'm not sure about that, but I listen right, Living and dying is a big joke, but after a while it's pretty good joke. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Well, um I want to ask you also about

00:50:05.700 - 00:50:29.410

the Occidental Community Choir and how you got involved in your role in that. Well, um I don't know who thought of me, that was a little bit known in the county at that time and I've only been here a couple of years and uh I was

00:50:29.410 - 00:50:48.260

approached by a member of the choir, uh who called me and said that we need a conductor because the first conductor Philip forget his last name, um conducted for a year and he moved away and they were conducted this, it was basically a bonfire choir, you

00:50:48.260 - 00:51:12.180

know, but you know, I thought West County hippies and they all were literate and there were focus at the same time. You know, they had a very eclectic, everybody under the eclectic aesthetic and they called us the, they called us the intellectual mafia to the original

00:51:12.180 - 00:51:35.040

population that lived there really resented us in our ways, you know, because we were the educated whites swarmed over there, their original land claims and I don't blame them. And so I had lead this choir that had as a central core of Sufi teaching and a

00:51:35.050 - 00:52:02.060

Sufi teacher if Sam Lewis, who was very, a very powerful teacher, attracted a lot of people around him and was very encouraging to me and my musical direction of sort of spiritual izing american music and bringing mantra and various praising sounds into the general stream. And

00:52:02.850 - 00:52:19.540

when I did that with a lot of help from the, from my city Choir friends are pretty good musicians, a lot of pretty developed folkies and they, you know, they had a good sense of what a good song is and uh, so I kind of knew

00:52:19.540 - 00:52:38.140

that territory and the Sufi Choir was well known because we've made a bunch of records and so I was approached and I uh, Mills and I parted company not entirely happily And uh, I was glad to stop being an academia. I'd done it for 12 years

00:52:38.140 - 00:52:56.510

enough. All right enough. I was definitely not on ten-year track, definitely not tenure. And so, um, I just rebelled against it as did all my friends of the family, You know, we were artists people, I just want to be tied down. I was also on jerry

00:52:56.510 - 00:53:18.770

brown, jerry brown loved the city choir and he, me and Gary Snyder and Peter Coyote and Ruth Asawa. He appointed to his, among others to his arts council. I spent three years in politics one year under Reagan God forbid. And I mean that was so not

00:53:18.780 - 00:53:39.200

art. It was just opera buffs, which is a different subject. And I mean just rich people who are supporting that was the point and uh, and such institutions, but we wanted to make jerry brown. So let's make this arts council. This put artists on the arts

00:53:39.200 - 00:53:56.220

council. So imagine that we did. And, and, and we were, we tried to do really good work. After three years of that, I had to say, this is not politics is not art and it ate my life. I I get a stack of grant so I'd

00:53:56.220 - 00:54:12.410

have to read in a month and give away money. It was a big responsibility of what life was there for me, you know, So it's really a service job, a duty job. But I love jerry brown and he, he loved his arts council and he loved

00:54:12.410 - 00:54:27.740

the choir and everybody got along and we did what we could and lasted as long as we could blast. And then other people came in. Um and I felt the same way about academia to I just enough. It's very good. I did. I taught a lot

00:54:27.740 - 00:54:46.150

of people, I learned a lot um enough. So I was really happy to uh huh. For me it was a cash cow because I wanted, I needed students and suddenly I've conducting 35, 40 people every week. And guess what? I got students. And one idea was

00:54:46.150 - 00:55:00.960

I'm going to teach you guys how to write music and I take your songs and arrange them and make them beautiful and then I'll teach you how to do it. I had Randall Colin in there and Marcie tell us and carol frick and uh um anyway

00:55:00.960 - 00:55:20.860

others quite, quite a list of people who were gifted and uh and doug Bose who was a protege of mine and then turned out to conduct that choir for the next 15 years, great with great skill and uh so that was, it was very good for

00:55:20.860 - 00:55:40.100

me and at the same time I was in a spiritual community but this community was different, this wasn't about a law and rahm and spiritual practice. This was acquire about singing together as members of the community where we wanted to feel our commonality and uh as,

00:55:40.110 - 00:55:54.620

as people who lived in the county and thrived here. So it's from Santa Rosa all the way to the coast and, and that was the provenance of the choir and it was, it was, it was just so uh, there's a lot of energy, a lot of

00:55:54.620 - 00:56:10.950

rising energy and within a couple of years like we're selling out our concerts and people were stomping and clapping and uh, I was, I had a good time, Randall and me split the piano playing jobs and uh, you know, and we did some classical music and

00:56:10.950 - 00:56:26.930

not with great success, but we did what we could, but mostly it was the stuff that we had produced or that or that I had arranged with somehow it had come through us. And uh, I think the first year or the second year I said a

00:56:26.940 - 00:56:43.140

nice screen concept, We're doing everything, it's all original music. And we invented a theme which they do every year because this one is called music from Home and it was about the county and it was it was an ecstatic experience, everybody was glowing about it, you

00:56:43.140 - 00:56:56.810

know, So then that, that went on, I went on for eight years and then I had to duck out because it was, you know, eat your life. But you know, it was, it was, I really liked it and Doug took over. So I was it was

00:56:56.810 - 00:57:11.720

in good hands. So that's good. I just really, really, really liked it gave me a sense of community that I've never had living anywhere and has stayed with me. I live, I know where I live now and I know who lives here, even though there's cardiologist

00:57:11.720 - 00:57:36.590

up in the hills. But you know, we're very mixed read. Yeah. And You know I got 100 cows across the street. You know the guy whose legacy to the original spanish grant is there and he runs he runs the thing and the shire ranches next door.

00:57:36.590 - 00:58:00.690

That's another story. I mean I live in a community and uh that's precious, that's what I got from that choir. Yeah, my my own sense of community and that I was of benefit to it could help it out now there's a legacy of it which is

00:58:00.700 - 00:58:23.760

taking on the colours of the people who are doing it. And then I'm on the on the forgotten grandfather. Mhm I like to go in there and do something and disappear. That's that's my idea of heaven. Uh huh. Now every year I go back or I

00:58:23.760 - 00:58:39.760

have been going back and uh their spring concert, they always play a song by Marcy Kellison. Gordon? Study named music from Home and it's a really beautiful song, They sing it every year and I Gordon says over here and I sit over here we do to

00:58:39.760 - 00:59:08.920

piano accompaniment and they sing it sing and everybody stands up and things and everybody it's great. People die though, I have to point that out, people do die. Mhm. Well they falls off to the left um before we wrap up, you're so you're working on a

00:59:08.920 - 00:59:28.640

memoir, Students, are you composing? And oh yeah, I just never I have never stopped composing was 13 years old. Just keeps coming out. I wrote some pedagogical pieces over the last 20 years called 24 almost easy pieces. And uh I wrote 24 more, 24. Really not

00:59:28.640 - 00:59:44.120

all that difficult pieces, I don't know what I'm gonna call it. Well that's 48 pieces, that's a lot of pieces. And uh I did that. I started actually writing, I've been researching my book for two years, three years but I started actually writing in september uh

00:59:44.130 - 01:00:02.340

of no I guess it was Yeah I started actually writing, I outlined it started actually writing in September from September to him now which is a bunch. I wrote that those 24 pieces plus a couple other things I just like and I have a lot of

01:00:02.340 - 01:00:17.330

records that I have yet to uh they're sort of circling the airport waiting to land because of the pandemic. I couldn't get together with my engineer and joe Hoffman died. That's a sad thing, It was engineer up in occidental who I worked with for 40 years

01:00:17.610 - 01:00:34.230

and uh so you know those those things are just hanging over my head But I have to finish this book 1st. So I'm very, very, I'm not without projects, you know, and then these pieces all have to be published and I have somebody who does all

01:00:34.230 - 01:00:47.740

that work for me. But it's uh it's a long process, you write a piece and it might take five days to arrive a short piece or a month to write a longer piece and then it takes years to get it perfect to get it published in

01:00:47.740 - 01:01:04.440

finale, to get it out there in my website and available or to seek a publisher if it's a book or to get to have a publisher and write a book. However, that works. The process is just endless. So the actual creative time is short. Yeah, you

01:01:04.440 - 01:01:21.600

know, and the and the realization time is very, very long. So that's the artists grief, you know, woe is me because, you know, it takes 10 seconds to write in 10 years to have it produced and out there So you can forget about it. And uh,

01:01:21.610 - 01:01:41.510

you know, that's sort of, that's definitely my story now because things are sort of piled up. So I have six recordings that have to be that are in various stages of uh, that are recorded in various stages of release, Uh, including a coalition of all the

01:01:41.510 - 01:02:00.830

Sufi choir rounds and prayers that I did over 50 years. And uh, anyway, I want to list them, but I have an improvisational trio called the bloom and we have actually two things waiting recorded and I want to do another improv record. I just did one.

01:02:00.840 - 01:02:22.640

Hey, go to my website and by transparency is, he won't be too disappointed. Called transparency if you miss that is called transparency. And what is your website? Oh, I forget. You know, it's cold Mountain music. That's one thing Cold mountain music at uh called not music

01:02:22.640 - 01:02:44.920

dot com. Uh As I see the email has changed, called not music dot com. That's what it is. Everything will be processed in due time. Uh Anyway, that's me. Um, I could happily play now. Yeah. Please feel free to play us. I'll play us out. Yeah.

01:02:45.400 - 01:04:43.920

Okay. By dan by alluding. Thanks. This is nice. Thank you so much. Feels very comfortable. Mhm, mm. B Yeah, mm mm. Mhm mm hmm. Uh huh mm. Oh. Mhm mm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah.

01:04:46.590 - 01:06:29.390

Yeah. Mhm. Mhm, mm hmm, mm hmm. Mhm mm mm. Mhm mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm, mm. Yeah. Yeah.

01:06:29.880 - 01:07:06.410

Yeah. Mhm, mm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.