The following story is true, only the names have been censured to protect the very, very guilty...

I just returned from an impromptu date in Bolzano at a very old beer bar - the main room we played in was a former tower built around 1,100 years ago. They make their own beer, really good stuff as I found out. Because of typical Italian traffic and a roadblock, we took to the back roads up the Alto Adige valley along the river and arrived just at the start time, but too late to get a bite to eat according to the owner who insisted we start immediately, play for two hours and then order some food. I figured beer has some nutritional ingredients in it so I quickly made a deal w/ the bartender.

One beer and a few tunes later, we could hardly hear ourselves for the racket in the bar and the table in front of us talking loudly (in German - and you know that's a loud language when beer is involved*) so my friend, in disguise as a flute player until then, pulled out his Digeridoo, crammed a microphone inside the hole at the end and we let out with a version of "Derek Bailey Plays Popular Theme Songs from Hitler Youth" (**) accompanied by an Italian Aborigine (***).

The effect was immediate: it cleared the front table out. They payed the check and were out the door before you could say, "Umferschnitzermeisterfrau!"

The rest of the set was enjoyable as we settled into my friends original ballad that roamed freely around the alps before settling into the warmer lowlands where food might be more readily available. The 5,000 year old "Ice Man" would have been proud.

And that's exactly what I did - during the break I had a real nice plate of lamb ribs with thyme sauce and potatoes and a few more beers while the owner came over and told us his customers were complaining our music was "too soft and jazzy" and we needed to "turn up", play some more "popular" styles, you know, "pick it up a bit" in the next set.

Lesson one: never ask a guitarist to turn up, especially when beer is involved.

We accepted the criticism graciously, asked for another beer and then went to it. Luckily a blues singing friend offered to help us out. He didn't care what we played, which key, or any chords whatsoever. He improvised some lyrics and we played a 45 minute version of "Girl From Ipanema", Muddy Watters "Mannish Boy" (from his Hard Again lp), Sun Ra's "Angels and Demons", The Doors "Light My Fire", Jimi Hendrix "Foxy Lady", Miles Davis "So What" and everything in between (****). I played guitar with a Brazilian percussion stick, violin bow, glass slide  metal box, bells and anything else that made noise.

At one point I had the guitar on controlled feedback and with the Digeridoo, the windows were shaking and making a loud vibrating noise that was very useful to the overall musical direction we were going in: Miles Smiles Meets Sun Ra, Hendrix and Jim Morrison!

The crowd loved it, two 14 year old kids drinikng 24 ounce beers looked confused but happy, folks at the bar had to cover their ears while ordering drinks, the owner was perplexed perhaps, but happy, and we got through the gig in a most creative fashion.

Morale of the story: careful what you ask for, especially when it's a full moon in Bolzano.

We enjoyed the long ride back to Verona, just coming off the full moon, the mountains lining the Adige river on both sides standing massively tall yet lean, the sheer cliffs reflecting the moonlight brightly against the darker, sparsely pine-covered patches, the upper ridges of the mountain range gleaming white with snow, like islands floating in the sky, a few planets and stars throbbing against the clear night, ancient castles clinging to the sides of hills and cliffs, lit up like a Disney fantasy.

cosmic regards, machs gut!

Garrison

* just joking of course, I love German: Wagner makes Debussey seem like a wimp with an overly protective mother... I'm just joking, I love Debussey... (etc)
** "Eins, Zwei, a Wurstel in Your Eye" - tunes like that.
*** I have no excuse - the Aborigines have taken enough abuse not to compare them to Italians. I apologize!! And they make great Digeridoos.
**** ok, there wasn't really any more room for something "in between" - it's just a literary device used to describe total chaos.

Listening to Henry Threadgill

•February 27, 2009 • No Comments (Edit)

Sun Ra, in the film a Joyful Noise, talking about history in the Egyptian museum at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (my home town). Speaking in front of the Sphinx surrounded by an Egyptian temple he says:

No two songs tell the same story...

They say that history repeats itself ...

But history is only HIS story... you haven't heard MY story YET ...

MY story is DIFFERENT from HIS story... my story is not part of history...

Because history repeats itself...

But MY story is endless, it never repeats itself

Why should it?

... A sunset does not repeat ITself, neither does a sunrise....

Nature never repeats itself

Why should I repeat myself?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ApScX0yvtyE


that's a good history lesson, one which musicians might consider when choosing between creation and re-creation. It's not easy; what worked well last night may seem very tempting to repeat tonight... especially in a different town... until decades pass and you wonder where the time went.

thoughtful regards,

Garrison

"Philosophy is what powers our struggle to be victorious in life."

From the beginning of "Lectures on The Opening of the Eyes" by Daisauku Ikeda on the writings of Nichiren Daishonin, this sentence contains both the wisdom and encouragement to develop a comprehensive understanding of life and the universe and a stronger, more knowledgeable sense of inner self that can transform suffering into joy while contributing to a more peaceful society.

Ikeda further encourages readers to become eternal "doctors of philosophy", and "illuminate the deepening darkness of modern society with brilliant light."

The next to last paragraph in the book is equally motivating:

"The fighting spirit of one person who takes up the challenge to battle negative forces can inspire a stand-alone spirit in the heart of another and then another in an unending chain reaction. As the number of such courageous individuals steadily spreads, people throughout the land will come to 'open their eyes'. There is no greater act of compassion than conveying this spirit of unceasing challenge to others."

... and the last sentence:

"The time for us to challenge ourselves is now."

I think this can be applied to any discipline - music, art, science, religion, or the pursuit of happiness for oneself and others. As Charlie Parker put it, "Now's The Time".

... Garrison


[excerpts from "Lectures on The Opening of the Eyes" by Daisauku Ikeda. First Edition published 2007 by Soka Gakkai Malaysia. email: publication@sgm.org.my]

More than a few good friends, and some new ones I've met along the way, have asked me about the "meaning" behind the new duo recording, "The Lady of Khartoum".

Improvisation doesn't really require meaning, in fact it might place an unreasonable strain on the improvisers themselves if that were the case. Sometimes meaning emerges after the fact, and might possibly have been there all along, only to be uncovered through the art of searching, just as treasures might lie hidden beneath our feet or above our heads, waiting to be discovered if we just look closely.

On this recording, Eric and I had no real sense of direction other than to create a spontaneous dialogue with our instruments that simply mirrored our friendship and mutual interests (microbrews, single barrel whiskey, history, politics and wide ranges of music to name just a few!). We literally jumped into the studio with no rehearsal, no tunes, no agenda (except maybe to stop Bush and the war in Iraq while contributing something positive to our environment!). The first tunes we played are precisely as you'll hear them on the recording: Prologue; Before the Dream, followed by The Lady of Khartoum.

After listening to the results of our studio encounters, the image of the Lady of Khartoum began to reveal itself, and eventually led towards our contributing 10% of CD sales to the refugees of the conflict in Darfur, where there are mostly women and children in the refugee camps who are suffering from persecution... OOPS, I can't say that, or the Sudanese government will get upset because they don't really recognize an act of genocide taking place - well, it took us a long time to figure out how to change was happening in South Africa and too long to take notice of Ruwanda... any other examples you'd like to add?

But I diverge from the topic - or is that the topic? Improvisation that begins somewhere and leads someplace else? That's what you might find on this recording. I hope you'll have a chance to listen to the title track on myspace and don't hesitate to send a message if you'd like to purchase one or contribute to our global peace efforts.

Here are the liner notes to The Lady of Khartoum - it might give you something to think about when it comes to Islam, African Americans, blues, jazz, the Middle East or east of anywhere you can imagine...

______________________________________________________

Like spoken or written language, jazz has its own vocabulary and grammar. Knowing something about the origins of words we use everyday helps us understand our language and use it better. The same holds true for jazz. Guitarists Garrison Fewell and Eric Hofbauer share a fascination with the "word roots" of the jazz vocabulary. And they put that knowledge to use in subtle and beautiful ways on this album of duets. Unlike some concept albums, the ideas behind this one don't tightly confine the music to a framework that merely demonstrates a thesis. For Garrison and Eric, the sum total of music that fully reflects our humanity cannot be held for long by any one conceptual framework.

Communication between people, as much as historical concepts, is the key to the music. Duke Ellington maintained that one reason he wrote music so perfectly suited to his band was he played cards with them; you learn a lot about people by just hanging out. Garrison and Eric never played cards, but before they played a note together, they spent many hours just talking about life, music, and career choices over pulled ribs and micro-brew at a Somerville barbeque joint that they both live near. "This album wouldn't be what it is without that year and a half of hanging out, not even playing music, as preparation," says Hofbauer.

Sometimes at The Office (as they called their restaurant hang out, otherwise known as Redbones), they found themselves talking about the deeper roots of jazz in the music of Mali and Senegal that traveled through the African Diaspora to the Mississippi Delta area of the South. The music of Persia and the Middle East (and even Indian Hindu sounds) also seemed relevant as they talked. In his book Africa and the Blues, Gerhard Kubik says that many aspects of the blues—melisma, broad vibrato, and bent notes—are "a heritage of that large region of West Africa that had been in contact with the Arabic-Islamic world of the Maghreb since the seventh and eighth centuries."

"We applied these ideas to free jazz and improvised music," says Garrison. "which led us into prepared guitars, sticks, slides, simultaneous percussion, and other extended techniques of the avant garde." It seemed to both Garrison and Eric that the music of several cultures, reshaped over several tempestuous centuries, pulses through jazz of the 21st century.

The music on this album, recorded during several sessions over a three-month period, is with a few exceptions, entirely improvised and makes frequent use of different guitar treatments and percussion. Free improvisation offers a unique place in which to create new forms and juxtapositions of elements. All sounds are equally available, their use governed only by the logic of the moment. Following the logic of improvisation's eternal present, Garrison and Eric have synthesized the music of centuries into something organic to the moment, their own history as friends, and their place in the flow of the music's history.

"The Lady of Khartoum" perhaps best exemplifies the way they use ancient sonorities in an entirely contemporary way. Garrison plays two guitars simultaneously, starting out striking an unusually tuned guitar with a pair of sticks (one of which is an old African ribbed drum stick) on to create a drone effect. Later he enters on electric guitar, then plays both simultaneously with a Flamenco style finger strumming on the acoustic and palm harmonics on the electric, before finishing on the acoustic with sticks. All the while, Eric is improvising the melody!

The hand of history is felt, to a greater or lesser extent, throughout the album. "Devil at the Salang Pass" is an improvisation rich in varied timbres and textures and if you listen closely, you can hear the family resemblances to the Delta blues, West African kora, and oud. In his youth, Garrision crossed this mountain pass high in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan, and for him the improvisation evoked the otherworldly mystery of the place. Garrison's guitar on "A Bourbour's Spell" encompasses country blues, a muezzin's call to prayer, and Sun Ra's synthesizer.

The title track is also beautifully framed by percussion instruments, which play an important role in the music throughout the album. Garrison came to the session with a box of antique Afghan and African jewelry, plus bells from India and the African Yoruba tribe. In keeping with the spirit of the album, these items from traditional nonwestern cultures are used in utterly modern and non-standard ways on other tracks, such as "A Bourbour's Spell" and "Comfort for an Affliction." They anchor a continuum of sound that also includes guitar strings treated in various ways. On "Dogon Delta Blues," both the guitars are prepared. Eric obtains that sound a timbre that harkens to the kora by weaving a playing card into his strings. Garrison uses small metal pieces similar to an African thumb piano. As a result, his notes have a tonal center but are non-pitched and slightly rhythmic at the same time. That thumping noise on the low end is a huge metal paper clip! Both guitars are also prepared on "A Cajun Raven," their deconstruction of "Bye Bye Blackbird." The bent notes and sonorities of Delta blues guitar are heard in Eric's playing, while there is an oud-like quality to Garrison's sound, created by attaching alligator clips on his strings.

Sometimes the historical influences are so deeply absorbed into the music they become transparent. Like the Indo-European roots of English, they linger invisibly in the sound and meaning of the language, and the focus is on pure music making. On "Comfort for an Affliction," Eric and Garrison seem perfectly attuned to one another here, weaving their lines together without getting in each other's way. Their tones— Garrision's softer, warmer sonority and Eric's harder, sharper sound—create a fascinating contrast in colors that infuse the weave of their lines with additional interest. The title was inspired by a quote from economic John Kenneth Galbraith, "In all life one should comfort the afflicted, "but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong." Both Garrison and Eric identified with the idea and feel their music grew from shared political ideals as well as common musical ones.

"Ma'at's Mood" is a nod to both Monk and the Egypt of Sun Ra. Ma'at is the goddess of truth, balance, and order, three virtues this improvisation certainly possesses. The guitar lines move in parallel, pulling apart and converging in an effortless back and forth between foreground, background, and working as equals. Balance indeed. Monk's "Let's Cool One" has a similar give and take, but the rhythmic mesh is off centered and unpredictable and the dissonances generate an intriguing ambiguity.

"Eyes of Nkisi" might come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Garrison's earlier recordings. It's a short, bristling outburst of high-energy improvisation, dense with fast lines, sudden changes in texture, and clashing dissonances. Yet if you listen closely, you hear a sure sense of line and pacing, attention to color, and the ability to work with a musical partner to create something substantial and meaningful. These are hallmarks of all of Garrison's work (and Eric's as well) and they provide an indication that he is simply doing what he's always done. A Nkisi, by the way, is a sacred sculpture from the Congo. Usually carved in the shape of humans, Nkisi hold magical herbs, and nails were often pounded into them during ceremonies to help settle disputes, cure sickness, or destroy enemies.

"Farsighted Friendship," a previously unrecorded John Tchicai tune, is based on "Auld Ang Syne" and sounds like a folk song. Both Garrison and Eric sustain the delicate valedictory feel of the song and you needn't think about the origins of the subtle inflections and bent notes, the lingering sustain of their tones to understand the music. (Both guitarists are playing the bells simultaneously by hanging them from the fingers while still playing the notes on the fretboard.) On "We Need Your Number," the African, Islamic, and African American roots of the music are so deeply internalized that what emerges is a deep musical dialog on a tune that hides its ingenuity behind a great melody. Garrison heard Tchicai whistling the tune as he climbed the stairs to Garrison's summer home in Italy. When they got inside, they collaborated on getting the melody and chords down on paper.

Ideas about history inform the duets of Garrison Fewell and Eric Hofbauer, but in the moment of creation, there is so much more in play than historical concepts. The moment of spontaneous creation is compounded of conscious and unconscious thoughts and desires, rational and irrational needs, and a confluence of social, economic, and historical forces.

So here is an album of music that stepped out of a deeper understanding of history into a deeper knowledge of our common humanity.

Ed Hazell

Improvisation and Poetry: If you've been part of the improvised music scene in NY, you've most likely encountered poet Steve Dalachinsky who has a remarkable ability to spin words as an improviser throws notes out into the night without looking over his shoulder to see who is following or who may be left behind.

I met Steve while I was playing with John Tchicai in a duo concert for All About Jazz, the 1's and 2's festival at Cornelia Street Cafe in NYC. That evening, John wasn't giving up any secrets before the show, never even hinting as to what our set list might be. I had no reason to worry, we had more than a few tunes up our sleeves and there was a nice bottle of wine on the table in the company of good friends. It was my first duo with John, and I knew he often liked to set the music in motion by improvising the first number.

We got on stage and were ready to play when John leans over to me and whispers, "Let's make noise - you start." The entire first set was thus conceived in a single moment. It's hard to describe the feeling of totally improvising in front of an audience, the mixture of searching, discovery, assembly and disassembly that is part of a spontaneous performance.

In the second set, we returned to a few familiar melodies before Steve Dalachinsky joined us for the last tune. Steve had written a poem while listening to our music in the first set, and as he began to unfold his words, a unified energy guided the music without hesitation. It might have been the best tune of the night, or at least a very satisfying one for myself and John, the added muse appearing in the right moment.

Afterwards, Steve gave me a copy of the poem and every time since when we play in NY, Steve has been there, at all the various venues, often sharing the stage as a verbal sparring partner in creativity. He was there with Lee Konitz when the Tchicai quintet played at Birdland Jazz Club with myself, Charlie Kohlhase, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart. It was an unusual venue for our friend Tchicai, but to play for a week in a NY club was a welcome tribute after so many years since the mid '60's when John called NYC his home, playing with Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd and of corse John Coltrane. John Tchicai is also a lover of words and improvisation, often breaking into singing or poetry during a performance, especially when he's happy with the music. We recorded a double live cd at Birdland and captured some of these brilliant moments.

And Steve was there the next week when John and I returned to play a quartet with bassist Adam Lane and drummer Vijay Anderson at the Stone. It turned out to be a better gig in some ways, the audience was more in tune to our constellations, and Steve sat in again, reading from a handwritten book of poems he carries with him to which he constantly adds new words while listening to musical improvisations..

That's when I decided I had to buy Steve's book, "The Final Nite" written while listening to live performances of saxophonist Charles Gayle. I really liked this one:

Improvisation
like a fine cigar
can choke you
or be smooth
either way
it's wrapped in leaves
& leaves a smell
that some may call
Perfumed

Our most recent visit to Brooklyn to play at Zebulon seemed to begin as a lonely evening, destined by severe weather for a low turn out. There was more snow and ice than I had ever seen in NY, more than we had the week before when we played with the Good Night Songs trio in Portland Maine. The first group with Mary Halvorson started an hour and a half late because no one was there, but slowly and strangely it seemed, with snow still coming down, folks started to arrive and the music began to heat up the night. I love Mary's playing and by the time we went on, Zebulon was vibrating on another frequency. John Tchicai united us through his sound, deep attentive listening, sensitive imagination, humor and wisdom.

This story hasn't left out Steve Dalachinsky who surprised us (or possibly not?) by showing up for our set. I'll have to conclude this tribute by saying that even though Steve didn't sit in with us that evening, his presence, the sparse sentences he threw my way while I was tuning up, the observations audible only to a few of us in the corner, contributed to the following improvisations in a way I can't describe other than saying, "you had to be there." It was a night of many turns where doors opened and closed and opened anew, leading to multi directional pathways of converging sounds and rhythms.

The night ended when we dropped Steve off in a still snowing Manhattan as he gave me a gold sticker that was added to his book of poetry that won the book of the year award.

It's called "The Final Nite" on Ugly Duckling Presse. I suggest you look for it and enjoy his musical sounds, for as William Parker puts it; "This volume of spontaneous poems recalls one man's journey into the living word as reflected through sound. He uses the interval of the minor second, giving one the illusion of reading words in-between words much like the idea of the microtone."

& the city came down around us
like a shattered note and the note came due
and the voices of angels asked for water
on the city streets
& the voices of devils sounded like water
on the city streets
& the kingdom of god
became water on the city streets
& the ghost
who could not swim
gave up
and went obediently
home.

I'm trying to figure out how to play my Balafon, well, I'm improvising and I find things sometimes, but it's not an organized approach, so it's a fortunate accident that in my favorite used book store, I encountered this book: The Music of Africa. Even the author's name sounds like music: Kwabena Nketia. It's a fabulous book describing the function of many instruments with photos, and musical examples of rhythmic and melodic styles.

I'm working on a new recording project of improvised music and writing a few new things when I came across this great line from the book: "... the African concept of a musical sound gives equal prominence to sounds of indefinite as well as definite pitch, instrumental combinations reflect this, being formed out of instruments of either or both categories." And he ends the chapter with another great statement, "the aesthetics of African music reveals a distinct bias toward percussion and the use of percussive techniques... because of a preference for musical texture that embodies percussive sounds or sounds that increase the ratio of noise to pitch."

That really speaks to the sounds I try to create on my guitar that is so well-tuned, it's often difficult to locate those non-defined pitches, but it's a rewarding effort. In Africa, a culture of music is built around that exploration! I know when I'm playing the guitar with a notched wooden stick or some metal object, that a deeper resonance is behind those sounds.

The best chapter in this book is 12: The Rhythmic Basis of Instrumental Music. "Since African music is predisposed towards percussion and percussive textures, there is an understandable emphasis on rhythms, for rhythmic interest often compensates for the absence of melody or the lack of melodic sophistication. The music of an instrument with a range of only two or three tones may be effective or aesthetically satisfying to its performers and their audience if it has sufficient rhythmic interest."

Nketia goes on to give specific examples of rhythmic density in African music and the divisions of duple and triple rhythms in the same time span (or time line). He explains the difference between divisive and additive rhythms: "While divisive rhythms follow the division of the time span, additive rhythms do not. Instead of a phrase of 12 pulses being divided into 6+6, it may be divided into 7+5 or 5+7."

He details the importance of keeping time by maintaining a subjective awareness of the original pulse or time span while playing divisive or additive rhythms in phrases of different lengths, and the difficulty performers have in developing this ability. Phrases can be started at any point in the time line and therefore it is easy to be confused about the original beat or pulse. It takes time until one can reach that point and feel comfortable while playing African cross-rhythms because you can't count beats, it has to become the subjective feeling that you carry inside you, otherwise the music sounds stiff. In any culture, that means it doesn't swing!

While I was playing and teaching with trumpeter Jimmy Owens, he often used to quote Dizzy Gillespie who told him, "You've always got to know where one is!" And another of Dizzy's famous lines goes: "I hear rhythms mostly, then I put notes to them."

Nketia's conclusion is that instruments of contrasting pitch are important to maintain a distinct organization of rhythmic structure as each instrument plays a different role, and in enabling each instrument to be distinctly heard from one another. "Although rhythm is the primary focus in drumming, some attention is paid to pitch level, for the aesthetic appeal of drumming lies in the organization of the rhythmic and melodic elements."

>ps: Our new CD of African, Free Jazz and Blues is out now: "The Lady of Khartoum" is an improvised guitar duo with friend Eric Hofbauer where we also play percussion and bells simultaneously - you have to hear it! Check back soon for availability.

Kindly,

Garrison

Jazz Visions: Lennie Tristano and his Legacy

A good friend of mine surprised me when he wrote to ask if I had read this book about Lennie, written by long time collaborator and friend, bassist Peter Ind. When I replied that I hadn't, he promptly sent me a copy from England. The interesting connection for me is that John Tchicai sent me this book, and knowing that nothing we do together has shallow intentions, I was curious to check it out and uncover the connection for myself. For example, Lee Konitz, a colleague of Tristano's, was an important influence on Tchicai as he developed his own sound before playing with Don Cherry in Denmark, then moving to New York in 1964 to form the New York Art Quartet and he played on Coltrane's 1965 lp Ascension.

I have all of Lennie Tristano's recordings and Peter Ind recorded some very fine dates with Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz. And for guitarists, Baubles, Bangles and Beads with Louis Stewart and Peter Ind on Peter's Wave label is simply an essential recording in Louis' slightly threadbare discography (Louis is truly one of the great jazz guitarists on any continent and a favorite of Kenny Burrell's). I recently subbed on a tour for a date that Louis recorded with pianist Frank Harrison and Louis' playing was as fine as ever.

In this book, Peter Ind articulately describes Lennie's influence on jazz and improvised music and musicians, breaking myths about Lennie, nay, unfounded urban legends to be more precise, and illuminates the positive contributions by this master composer, performer and teacher who was admired as a colleague and innovator by musicians such as Charlie Parker, Max Roach and Charles Mingus.

Many things attract me to this book and I will have to update this blog later to include them, but quickly, I'm touched by Peter's description of the commercial influence of jazz as a destructive element to creative music. This is highlighted in Lennie's teaching (I'm also a music professor and performing artist so it's a close subject).

"Other aspects of Lennie's teaching were learning melodies and then the "changes" (harmonic structures) underlying those melodies. This led to learning jazz solos from records. Lennie would advocate that his students learn famous solos. Lester Young was respected by Lennie, not because of Lester's fame but because Lester had, in his time, taken the nuances of improvisation further than anyone else on his instrument. Though Lester had influenced younger players such as Stan Getz and Zoot Sims, there were certain subtleties in his playing that neither Stan or Zoot appeared to realize. If players themselves were unable to realize certain subtleties, how can we expect critics or the jazz public to really appreciate the depths of the music? Without that appreciation, the music cannot be fully understood. In our culture, sadly, that means that product cannot be easily sold. And we seem to have reached the point whereby music is judged solely by its saleability." pg. 133

"Commercialism was anathema to Lennie. He remained unshaken in his view that as a creative jazz musician, you had a clear duty to be faithful to the spirit of the music alone. There is little doubt that the commercially non-compromising views of Lennie and those of many of his associates have contributed to their relative obscurity in the world of jazz. Increasingly, the outside world of commercial jazz seemed alien to the true spirit of the music." pg. 169

Jazz Visions contains excellent examples of jazz life in NYC in the '40's and of Lennie's involvement in developing a unique sound not only for himself, but creating opportunities for other great players who went on (and on) to make their own voices known within the hipper rings of jazz circles throughout the world.

"All music, based upon melody and rhythm, is the earthly representative of heavenly music." - Plotinous, Hellenistic philosopher.

Ancient sites throughout the world were dedicated to following the movement of the planets. Thousands of years later, they still reach out to the stars, connecting humans to the universe in an extremely accurate manner just as a symphonic orchestra is tuned to each other around a specific pitch. The planets move in harmony, creating musical sounds, triads both major and minor, and rhythms that keep time in poly-rhythmic cycles. All of these can now be recorded and transcribed.

Harmony is reflected all around us as part of our daily lives. When at ease with those closest to us, we feel "in tune" with each other, and experience a sense of "harmony" between ourselves and others, to the point where two people say the same thing simultaneously... or when musicians are improvising freely and suddenly play the same note, melodic motif, rhythm, or chord without the use of charts or musical directions.

The microcosm perfectly reflects the macrocosm as scientists discover that the inner world of sound is based on harmonic overtones precisely aligned to musical theory, and they listen to the farthest reaches of the universe, through time, to hear the original sound of the universe at the moment of creation.

"Over all, I think the main thing a musican would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and sees in the universe... music is a reflection of everything. And it's universal." - Eric Dolphy

To increase the depth of our artistic abilities, we work diligently on both practical and spiritual levels to acquire greater knowledge of the eternal and mystic nature of life and the universe. Each note that sounds, every string or vocal chord that sets in motion a new vibration, is a call to awaken the eternal self that has always been at one with the original sound of the universe.

A note, a melody, a chord, or rhythm, when played sincerely, each is an expression of that harmonious unity.


recommended books:
Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku
The World Is Sound by Joachim-Ernst Berendt
Eric Dolphy-A Musical Biography by Vladimir Simosko/Barry Tepperman
Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch

related websites:
Table of the planets sounds at: http://www.planetware.de/octave/table.html
NASA - sounds of saturn's radio emissions at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia07966.html