RockOm

Tantra and My "Desert Island" Playlist
by Michael Garfield

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin

Contemporary culture swims in lists. It has only gotten more intense since the advent of the internet; now we have blogs of blogs, the Billboard Top 40, the TV Guide Channel, tables of contents, dictionaries, phone books, baby name books, syllabi and mailing lists, an endless well of mail-order catalogs, the archived permutations of every internet "favorites" survey of every middle schooler as it has morphed from week to week, directories upon directories until the end of the world. Lists of lists. So much information, so little time. Our way of wrangling the overwhelming fecundity of it all into a digestible package.

The king of all lists for many of my friends is the infamous "desert island" playlist - the ten or so albums that, were we able to power our stereo with coconuts, we would hope would wash up next to our sorry shipwrecked asses on some remote archipelago. For years, I honed this list to reflect my refining tastes in music, winnowing away the chaff in a never-ending crusade to find ten recordings that would never grow old, no matter how many times I listened to them or how I changed as a person. Needless to say, this is a fool's crusade. Maybe two of those ten have stayed the same for the last five years. The Beatles' Revolver is probably the only one that will endure forever - maybe only because it got to me first.

At some point, I got a little fed up with how much time I felt compelled to spend limiting my appreciation of the musical world. After all, I am not on a desert island! Even if I was, the odds are approximately zero that I would wake up coughing on the beach still clutching my prized possessions. This rhetorical exercise reveals little more than how I like to waste my intellectual resources, idling on trivia.

It is no coincidence that around this same time, I was learning about the Eastern mystical tradition of tantra. Now for many of you, it probably goes without saying that tantra - as a lineage and not just an adolescent rumor - was never really about sex; tantra is about finding the divinity in everything. As a philosophy and practice, it appeared in reaction to those ascetic religions that demanded self-denial and even self-mutilation in the name of enlightenment (like starving one's self in order to redirect energy into higher states - or holding a single posture for years, until the body becomes malformed, as a way of cultivating concentration). The gruesome idea against which tantra revolts is that the divine, and our truest selves, are not of this world - that the goal is to escape the cycle of suffering by backing out. That the body is evil. That desires are evil. That this life is a window into something better, something that can be attained with only the most self-abnegating practice.

From this idea, tantra swept in compassionately and announced, "Look, you idiots. If enlightenment can really be found everywhere, then it can be found here: in food, in sex, in death, in business, in all of these things you so naïvely consider 'unholy.'" And so those things became explicit methods for tantric practitioners - opportunities to break the culturally-inherited stereotypes of what is "sacred" or "profane," to find beauty and holiness in the things we have been conditioned to disdain or fear or lust after. It is a radically iconoclastic tradition - because we need to smash all of our idols if we are to experience the world as it is, directly, instead of through the distorted lenses of our easy myths. It is about honoring your experience, every experience, as deeply as possible, from a place of reverence for every sacred instant, deciding for yourself whether something is worthy of your adoration. Charles Muir speaks of tantra as "about how you connect with the love that dwells in your heart, and how you put that love out into the world...about how you interact with people in your office, people driving down the freeway, your children." David Deida says that the essence of tantra is to "Treat every moment as your lover."

We can drop terms like "God" or "divine" if we find they stand in the way of our direct experience of these things. If everything is God, why do we even need the word? It's a loaded term, anyway, these days; so let's use secular temninology and simply talk about finding the beauty and mystery and wonder in all things. Remembering the old proverb, "Beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder," we know that these qualities don't lie waiting to be discovered "out there" - they are something we bring to our lives.

The color "red" has no existence outside our minds; the actual experience of "red" - with all of the richness of its emotion and connotation and depth - is something that we personally constellate around a meaningless sensory datum. In exactly the same way, the beauty of a thing we believe to be a quality of that thing is actually a quality of us, a direct result of whatever beauty we are able to allow it. We are whatever beauty (or ugliness) we see in the world.

The more I came to understand this, the more I had to seriously reconsider how I was approaching my desert island playlist. This list, and others, were saying something about me as a person, obviously - not just "what I am interested in" (and thus, who I would be likely to get along with), but on a deep level, "who I am." Where I find beauty is a map of my ability to be beautiful. Where I find ugliness is an indicator of the parts of myself that remain closed to the potential beauty of the world, and thus, the parts of myself that remain ugly.

So I'm listening to a band I don't like. I'm criticizing them - how the singer is untrained, how the drummer is off time, how somebody else wrote this song and how ridiculous it is that they can't be creative enough to do it themselves. This is my experience, and I'm rejecting it. I can't fool myself anymore; this music and my interpretations of it are both parts of who I am - because who I am is a collection of experiences - and if I refuse this experience, I am refusing a part of myself. I am refusing the opportunity that is granted me in this instant to embrace beauty. And as soon as I recognize this, I realize how much energy I was unconsciously devoting to disliking this band.

If I am a music critic and I spend most of my time finding things about a piece of music I don't particularly care for, I am leaving a snail's trail of disdain, building a life out of energies that might have been given over to living in awe of the incredible creativity of our culture and world. I weave my identity out of my memories - so my ultimate responsibility is to be aware of the memories I am making, the pattern I am weaving, the person I am deciding to be.

It's not about being indiscriminate, but about making discriminations within a broader context of appreciation. I still have preferences, but I like to also find the place from which any piece of music can be enjoyed - and it all can be enjoyed, obviously, because people already do. Someone cared enough to write it, practice it, perform it. If it's in a store or on the radio or in a venue, then someone cared enough to purchase it.

The more I can find the beauty in a song that would never, ever make it onto my list, the less fixated I am on the laughably tiny slice of the world I allow myself to appreciate from force of habit. The less of my mind I spend marveling at how tremendously bad someone's new radio single is, how bizarre and probably demented the people who enjoy it must be, the more I am able to soak in the fun of it - or whatever the intent might be, the qualities that brought it into being in the first place - and the easier it is for me to find solidarity with the people naturally inclined to feel the same way. I find it much more nourishing to come at artwork from this perspective - what is called a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" mentality.

A friend of mine recently caught me railing on a particular artist and said, "Try to say two things you like about this person's work before you start taking them apart." It's a remarkably revealing practice. Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating being "nice" just for the sake of it, just because it's the "right thing to do," or because "mean people suck." I am not going to pass judgment on you if you decide to spend your time and energies explaining to people who like a piece of music why they shouldn't. I do, however, hope that you notice when you are doing this and, at the very least, can agree with the emotional and energetic investment you're making. Is talking trash really how you want to spend your time? Doesn't it feel better to be appreciative? Wouldn't you rather be putting the world together than breaking it into pieces? There's plenty of that going on already.

Nor am I advocating any kind of compromise - this isn't about forcing yourself to like terrible music. To the contrary, the real compromise is in usual predisposition for appreciating only some of the endless bounty we are offered. We imagine that we have only so much love to go around, and solder shut our own cages. To discover the beauty in absolutely everything is the most radically uncompromising position we can adopt, because we can no longer hide in our preferences. We can no longer pretend that we are so easily defined. We challenge ourselves to love no matter what.

Taking a second look at my desert island playlist, I wonder: How disappointed would I really be, to be marooned without my favorite music? Drawing a bigger circle, how disappointed am I to be marooned in this human life, without constant access to the object of my affection? Or rather, to have forgotten that beauty is something I carry with me wherever I go, regardless of what I have managed to clutch to my desperate breast through the waves and storm?

Instead of endlessly redrawing the boundaries of what I will permit myself to love, I am going to expand my silly little hypothesis of who I am to include love for whatever the world presents me. I have been shipwrecked - and, washed up on my island, I discover that my playlist of favorites is the song of the wind through the trees, the crashing of the waves, the crying gulls, the whispers of the shifting sand. Everything. You say radio sucks? I say, love the one you're with. You can change the station, but you can't get rid of yourself.

My mission is no longer to create the perfect playlist, the most delicately crafted artifact of my personal limitations. My mission is to take that list and stretch it over the whole damn world - to recognize the good and true and beautiful in every faulty, partial, opaque piece of music ever made. Yes, every song falls short from perfectly realizing the universal beauty I know exists. And yes, every song is one gleaming facet of an infinite gem I am slowly working to unearth.

No more "guilty pleasures." I am done trying to excuse myself in the company of the elite for the shape of my affection. There is nothing shameful about love, whatever form it takes. If someone else disapproves of my joy, I forgive them - because I chain myself to my preferences, too! I still wonder about people who dig songs I don't dig. I still have my favorite stations, my favorite bands, my favorite songs. I still like to make lists, to name the wonders I have discovered...and what a luxury, the making of lists! It's beautiful, isn't it?

Goodnight, moon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Garfield is intent on demonstrating that everything is equally art, science, and spiritual practice - to revive cultural and individual investment in the renaissance thinking that finds equal value in thinking and feeling, description and experience. Working as a scientific illustrator and essayist by day, and a live electronic musician and performance painter by night, Michael divides his attentions between exploring and celebrating the vast complex vibratory spectacle that is our musical universe. His work has been featured at integralnaked.org, realitysandwich.com, and paullonely.com, and in Cause & Effect Magazine, iMAGE Magazine, and H+. Links to his painting gallery, live and studio recordings, and visionary music blog can be found at myspace.com/michaelgarfield.

By Tom Crenshaw, tom@rockom.net

"The planet is asleep and it's the fault of musicians who are untrue to themselves." ~Sun Ra

The world is clamoring for new ideas. Innovation, fresh modes of thinking and deeper levels of awareness are vital to meet the dire challenges facing us all. Here are just a few global-level challenges in need of new ideas:

1. The world economic crisis

2. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan and nuclear weapons proliferation

3. The threat from global warming

4. Third-world hunger, disease and genocide

5. Religious and spiritual intolerance leading to violence and war

The point about ideas is that there is no shortage of them. However, proven ideas are more limited. These challenges weren’t created in terms of months and aren’t going to be resolved in months or perhaps even years. We are essentially owning up to the fact that a large percentage of the world’s population has been asleep and a larger percentage basically never had, or has given up on, ever having a voice in what happens to them in the future.

We, as individuals, families and communities need new ideas to be put to use in areas of influence on a local level. Sometimes the word “idea” might be too limiting. Perhaps better words might be “intuition” or “a burning passion leading to higher ways of thinking and creating” are more appropriate.

Here’s a sample on a smaller scale of some of the challenges we face as families and as communities that are in need of new ways of thinking to create almost immediate change. We might just discover resolutions to these challenges that culminate in an exponentially greater sense of happiness as a result of our thoughts and actions.

1. Lack of respect or kindness towards one another

2. An inability to be nurturing and kinder to our own selves (we’re hardest on ourselves and this reverberates to all those around us)

3. A mindset that believes our actions don’t matter and we can’t be agents of change or goodwill

4. Ungratefulness for what is ours already, what we can accomplish, and what we can share with and be for others

Ideas, intuition, and burning passion can be a guide in solving both global and individual challenges if we simply trust that spark or idea and then act to create solutions. Not overwhelmed with solutions and overwhelmed with doubt? Then remember the words of Theodore Roosevelt and, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” The place to start perhaps is defining what ideas and passions are sustaining us, nurturing us and making us better beings.

One of my greatest passions is helping develop RockOm.net. I truly believe in everything that RockOm.net stands for. I believe RockOm can be a vehicle of service and change, and I believe in those of you who are coming to the website in search of a place to express yourselves and share your music and thoughts with the world. Music and musicians, as well as those who understand that music cuts through all the barriers dividing us, still have a vital role to play in shaping ideas, dialogue, and thus, our world.

I’ve no doubt that we as individuals and as a planet will continue to both muck things up and create solutions to the problems facing us. But our emergence into a better today and into better lovers, friends, family members, neighbors and stewards of our planet will come about through our ideas, passions, burning desires, and through our actions.

What are your greatest ideas, intuitions or burning passions? They don’t have to be so grand as to change the world globally, maybe just locally. If they are and do, that’s welcomed, such as what we're hoping to do here at RockOm. And now we ask you- what is it you need, what are you waiting for (if not now, when?) and what can best serve you as your music unfolds or your love of music expands?

I think, as Marianne Williams so eloquently said, each of us is aware of a power inside that we’re afraid of, that is so illuminating as to temporarily blind us to what we’re truly capable of. Trusting that brilliance, our inherent brilliance and becoming aware of its ordinarily awesome nature is most important to seeing our ideas and passions through to brighter realities. And to relate this specifically to the RockOm community - this brilliance can shine through in music and in our understanding of music as an instrument of awakening, celebration and change.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tom Crenshaw is the Vice President of RockOm.net. Contact him at tom@RockOm.net.

Reflections on a Theme
By Pastor Bob Cornwell

I love jazz! I'm listening to Coltrane and Monk as I write. It is an idiom that is dynamic and innovative. It takes from the past and reinvents it. Coltrane, Monk, Davis, Rollins, Brubeck, Desmond, just to name a few who have blessed us with music that is unforgettable and challenging.

This morning I spent time with my minister of music -- who is a master of the organ and the piano, and willing to go where the Spirit is leading us as a congregation -- and the representative of a company that builds and rebuilds pipe organs. Our organ, which dates back to 1928, though only the console and half the ranks of pipes remains from what was one of the grand church organs of Detroit. It is in need of something to be determined. Our hope (our minister of music and me) is that what emerges from this effort is an instrument that is versatile enough that it will support a truly modern or contemporary worship -- not contemporary in the sense of a praise band (though I'm not averse to having one) but a worship that is expansive enough that we can include and embrace the full spectrum of musical expression. One of those expressions I do hope to include is jazz -- in part because I love jazz, but also because it offers so much to us.

In a brief essay for the Transforming Theology blog, Thomas Reynolds of Emmanuel College, Toronto, reflects on jazz and spirituality. He explores the dimensions of jazz and the way in which it can enliven and enrich not only worship but the very theological efforts that we undertake together. He suggests three dimensions of jazz that can open up theology and transform it.

In the first place he suggests that jazz is "dynamic, restless and searching." Dynamism -- yes -- after all the word dynamism derives from the Greek for power. There is power in jazz, and its a power that allows us to break free of convention: "the musician deliberately seeks to break free from constraining mechanisms in order to pry open a passageway to something more, to new forms of variation and novelty."

Secondly, he suggests that jazz has a "relational content." Yes, the jazz soloist is an individual, but that individual needs the rest of the band to accomplish this effort.

While the improviser gives voice to his or her own unique interpretation of the music, this is only possible in the incubator of what drummer Art Taylor calls “the jazz brotherhood.” Like Christianity and other spiritual heritages, jazz has its tradition. A collective consciousness indwells the jazz musician.

Finally, jazz has a sense of "openness." It requires letting go, letting things happen as they will, even if that means making mistakes (and then integrating the mistakes).

Such letting go entails risk, and thus requires courage. For things could become undone; mistakes could be made. But the improviser moves forward nonetheless, perhaps even transforming mistakes into new possibilities. Space for error is required if space for creative advancement is also to exist.

Yes, there is need for decency and order in worship -- as Paul would have it -- but there is also a need for some rhythm and some blues and some joy and some syncopation. Yes, there is a place for jazz in our spirituality -- if only we're open to the journey!

About Pastor Bob Cornwell: Bob is pastor of Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Troy, Michigan who also serves as editor of Sharing the Practice (Academy of Parish Clergy).

Check out this week's Featured Track of the Week - including an exclusive free download for RockOm users - from Larisa Stow and Shakti Tribe. See the home page from February 24th through March 2nd for this exclusive offer! [then be sure to swing over to her website and pick up a few more of Larisa's tracks or albums]

An all new podcast featuring an interview with Ms. Stow premieres tomorrow, February 25th - check back then for your weekly dose of audio enjoyment!

Also, just a head's up - two all new Featured Interviews are heading your way next Tuesday, March 3rd. (HINT: a "stone that rolls" and a modern folk icon...)

by Larisa Stow

Visit Larisa Stow and Shakti Tribe at...

Main Website
MySpace

Larisa Stow and her band Shakti Tribe are dedicated to bringing people of different cultures and religions together in a spirit of peace. Through silky, gentle ballads, heartfelt kirtan-like songs and raging rock tracks, Larisa and company sing of the Divine and invite the listener to experience - and be - LOVE.

Featured Track: "Alive"

"Alive was inspired by my gratitude for life - the full spectrum of life - and the commitment to rise up and embrace the love and all that is good within each of us in the face of all that is broken. It is also the recognition that as suffering and pain exists out in the world, it also exists within me and it is my responsibility to heal that within myself so that I am able to have a greater compassion to help alleviate the suffering on the planet." (Larisa Stow)

Click to Play

EXCLUSIVE PROMOTION: The RockOm community can download Larisa's song "Alive" for one week only (February 24 - March 2nd) for FREE:

TIME'S UP! SORRY!

(Right-click, "Save As...")

Like what you hear? Hear and purchase other songs at LarisaStow.com or on iTunes.

More on Larisa Stow and Shakti Tribe:
- Larisa's INTERVIEW with RockOm.net (podcast)
- Promo / Montage (YouTube)
- "Amma" video (YouTube)

By Amy Champ, dharmatigers@gmail.com

“I don’t think we’ll ever really be ‘free,’ but for me the more choices you have, the freer you are—freedom is a choice.”

Steve Coleman, American contemporary jazz musician, saxophonist, composer

Improvisatory music, by its very nature, requires an extreme amount of flexibility, and openness to new ideas. By not having ensembles set in stone one can feel free to work within the parameters of different formations of the group. These ideas can also be re-worked into different arrangements of the group. In his book Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music, Derek Bailey makes a distinction between the “theory of practice” and the “practice of practice.” For improvisation to truly work, one has to do it, regularly, on a daily and nightly basis. Musicians should feel free to move amongst groups of creative people. If a person gets stuck in one group, it becomes like a clique. That’s why I like the idea of the Naked City orchestra, AMM, and groups like these that are free to change shape and sound based on the current composition of the membership. The music does not dictate the moves of the group. The people move the music.

French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier describes the historical beginnings of Western notation as a mnemonic device used by accomplished performers. People had traditionally been trained in an oral, traditional form, in all aspects of music, most certainly from an early age. The notation was used to mark sections and transitions, and to serve a musician’s memory. The development of the music staff served to codify note-by-note and mark time signature.

For me, this is as important of an invention as the motor. Consider for a moment, the difference between a man who uses oxen to plow his field, and the one who uses a machine. While both are dependent upon laborers outside one’s own body, the one who uses the oxen must still take into account factors dependent on the natural world, organisms and the like. The musician who learns from memory, practice and improvisation is dependent upon himself to produce the sounds in relationship to the world around him. The one who plays written music is a slave, a mimicker, and a robot. While a certain level of instrumental mastery is required and musical complexity is elicited, the ability to improvise in addition to reading music improves a player’s ability to sense the music. Sensing is, above all other aspects, our most important tool in the arts. Charpentier contrasts this to the “analytical” of modernity, and I think this shift in the Middle Ages through to the Age of Reason had its impact not only in music but in arts and sciences as a whole.

Consider for an example how modern-day performers have compromised the improvisational integrity of Baroque music. Improvisation becomes a problem in the attempted replication of Baroque music today precisely because it held such an important place in the original music. Baroque musicians of the present concern themselves with a compositional variety of Baroque music that holds little to no resemblance to the actualities of Baroque music in performance at the time. Derek Bailey refers to the maintenance of a “stylistic consistency” that was the over-arching guideline for the performance, which was supplemented with a “numberless amount” of improvisational ornamentation and embellishment. In the past there was an emphasis on many different improvisational techniques through harmonic accompaniment, whereas today, the arpeggio seems to have taken over. For example, in contemporary organ playing, the right hand plays arpeggios and the left hand is stuck with chords. This was frowned upon in the past. However, it must also be noted that the controversy between harmonic improvisation and note-based music has been at the heart of Baroque music since its inception.

As a bit of a digression, Stephen Duncombe, in his recent book Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy, writes about how liberals have adopted the rationalist (analytical) perspective in politics. The premise is that if we bombard the masses with enough ‘real data,’ they will surely understand the dire consequences and come over to our side. He discusses the importance of the spectacle, ritual and myth for people’s lives. I think this ties in really well with the actualization of improvisation, especially related to a group like the Art Ensemble of Chicago who adopted elements of ritual into their performances.

This transition from experienced music to notated music can be drawn as a parallel to the experience of humans themselves, as they live lives over time. The lived experience of a contemporary post-capitalist, Information Age ties into the theoretical idea espoused by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard in Simulacre et Simulation. The idea of things, or symbols of them as communicated through cultural representation and especially mass media, are revered in modern times over the actual experience of them, a reality that is reflected in the decline of learning folk music and folk tales, and an increase in reliance on written versions of both.

Our contemporary reliance on technique—due perhaps to the pervasiveness of recording technologies--can be a problem. (For more on this, see Walter Benjamin’s 1935 article “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”) Technique can deaden creativity. Even a classically trained musician who has found “a new way to compose” runs the risk of being repetitive. Repetition of what you do well is something you do in order to live out your days until an actual idea arrives, or an actual moment of awareness that recognizes truly creative moments when they arrive. Indian musicians learn raga after raga, and play them exactly as they are heard played by their teacher, until that moment of understanding arrives in which their actually music begins to live within the creation of an entirely new raga.

A multi-instrumentalist like Fred Frith represents a respectable way of stretching the boundaries of technique. Early on, when he met his fellow “dada blues” Henry Cow band mates at Cambridge University, they would deliberately write pieces of music that they couldn’t play. Eventually, they were opening for bands on tour like Pink Floyd, and felt that they had “become a rock band, playing the same music night after night.” Later, Frith expanded the bounds and began to build his own “prepared guitars,” playing in the Naked City orchestra and collaborating with innovative artists in New York through the group “French Frith Kaiser and Thompson.” Frith’s music is plenty technically proficient, but remains progressive insofar as the materials he uses—e.g. 6 and 8-string double neck guitars and non-traditional plectrums to generate new and visceral sounds. For true innovators, musical exploration becomes a way of life, almost an addiction of continually trying to beat one’s own creative prisons.

The question is: how do we take what we know as a given and completely forget about it, so that we can make something that sounds really, truly incredible?

For me, following jazz has been a way of learning to live and create in an improvisational way. Wynton Marsalis has famously emphasized the importance of rigorous classical training. The tradition that he comes out of was based on innovation, and yet as jazz evolved, each of its strains tended to get more and more codified. We still have to go back to the late 60s to find really interesting (eg: blue note) performances. Derek Bailey seems to echo this frustration when he writes: “For years the health of jazz has been a source of seemingly endless debate. While enthusiasts chant their support from the sidelines, the music itself now seems capable of only looking backwards.” (49)

It seems that the contemporary emphasis on training almost trains the music out of performers. Chops are great—don’t get me wrong—but without innovation, they are lifeless. The question is: How do we take what we know as a given and completely forget about it, so that we can make something that sounds really, truly incredible?

For those who have trained hard and well, it is much more interesting to hear what happens when they start creating and composing themselves. Someone like Anthony Braxton epitomizes the dilemma posed between George Lewis on the one hand and Marsalis on the other. Braxton was never accepted by the so-called “jazz establishment,” but made over 100 albums. As a composer and player of multiple wind/reed instruments and piano, he placed innovation high on his radar. He could play standards in New York, but why do so—when he could be in Europe playing with Derek Bailey and Evan Parker?

How each of us approaches improvisation, and music more generally, depends a great deal on our philosophical approach to life itself. Jazz bassist Eddie Gomez once said, “Freedom is a nebulous term and it’s especially inappropriate when applied to Free Jazz. Freedom doesn’t exist.” I completely disagree with Gomez’s denigration of freedom. An artist who does not believe in freedom, or the fundamental search for freedom has no business making art.

Creativity is an exercise in experience primarily, and oftentimes, it is by default that we are creators at all. After all, how many times have you set out to create a piece of work, and something completely different emerges? It is not the work itself that stands alone, especially given the momentary quality of live performance. Created work is always accompanied by a journey, and the seeking of freedom is intrinsic to the value that we place upon the creative process.

There will always be those who say that a performer like John Zorn is not a true musician--that the way he and AMM shuffled cards to determine the cycle of their pieces, was complete garbage. And to that, I say, “Fine. Go back to playing other people’s music.” There is something inherently remarkable about being “free” within a structure. The freedom in the case of the card deck comes from not knowing prior to the performance what it will sound like. The fate of the show is in the hand the cards dealt to you.

Zorn’s techniques exhibited a kind of freedom characterized by discipline and obedience to pure chance. Some may say that this is no freedom at all. But consider the rules that he broke, in order to get to a place of creative freedom. Giving up the determinacy of composed pieces afforded him the ability to be truly creative. Rather than play klezmer music “straight,” he chopped it up, deconstructed it, and came up with something completely new and interesting. To me, this is not restriction, but rather a clever use of resources. Zorn could have interpreted the klezmer in any way he wanted, but it was the specific choices he made that made the work original and interesting.

Therefore, there is a certain freedom in creativity related to musical performance that can be overtly conscious of the choices it makes. The evolution of a devised performance piece that seeks to break the bonds of the dominant social, political and artistic parameters is of equal importance as the so-called finished product.

Performance, as a live moment, can never be fully apprehended or finished. It occurs between breath and thought, and is an experience clouded and obscured by memory. The process of devising performance art is an attempt to predict future memories. To say that freedom does not exist in performance is to say that the musician is dead. Rules should be learned, and promptly broken.

by AMY CHAMP, MA, RYT

University of California, Davis

Founder, Director - Yogi Activist Resource Network (YARN)

Registered Sivananda Yoga Teacher
Doctoral Student, Performance Studies, UC Davis
Designated Emphasis: Feminist Theory and Research
Teaching Assistant, Religious Studies, UC Davis

Government Lecturer, Calif. State University, Sacramento
U.S. History & World Economics Lecturer, University of Phoenix

M.A. Political Science & International Relations
B.A. Anthropology & Literary Studies

http://tinyurl.com/amychamp
http://dharmatigers.blogspot.com

A few links from around the web!

• Jewish-Arab duo faces criticism ahead of songfest - "Israel is sending a Jewish-Arab duo to represent it with a song of peace at Europe's best-known song competition at a particularly fraught moment for relations between the country's Jews and Arabs..."
• Chris Tomlin leads nominees for Dove Awards - This year's nominees for the Christian / gospel awards show (see also: doveawards.com/doveawards)
• Everyone's favorite philanthropic rock band, U2, streams their entire new album on MySpace this week leading up the album's release on March 3rd. (RockOm note: Did they remove the full album and just leave that one song up... or are we missing something?)

Celebrating the Work of George Harrison
by Brad Richason, Twin Cities Performance Art Examiner

“I wanted to be successful, not famous.” – George Harrison

When considering the legacy of The Beatles, there’s a tendency amongst music fans and scholars to focus on the works of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The emphasis is understandable considering the depth of groundbreaking music created by the two. But narrowing the focus too much overlooks the essential contributions brought by Ringo Starr and George Harrison. While Starr’s rhythmically precise drumming style was an integral piece of The Beatles sound, the spotlight of this article is on Harrison, the band’s lead guitarist whose 66th birthday would have been February 25th. Not only did Harrison provide innovative styling to many classic Lennon/McCartney works, but many of his original compositions rival those of his bandmates in, if not quantity, quality and longevity.

Songs like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun", and "Something" are essential tracks in any respectable Beatles collection. Yet true to the moniker he would adopt at the onset of his solo years, Harrison remained the “dark horse” of The Beatles. Ever the introvert, Harrison was more inclined to choose quiet contemplation over public adoration. In lieu of interviews and photo shoots, Harrison preferred to express himself through music and if he held any frustrations over his art it was in the practical issue of fitting in his releases alongside the more prolific Lennon/McCartney.

In the early years, though, songwriting wasn’t much of an issue for Harrison as his focus was on lead guitar duties punctuated by the occasional vocal. Still, even without composing, Harrison provided a signature guitar that set the band apart. Consider the jingly lead guitar throughout "A Hard Day’s Night." Using a 12 string Rickenbacker, Harrison crafted a crisply distinctive sound that would become a staple amongst Roger McGuinn of The Byrds and other performers in the mid-60s folk rock scene. Harrison’s later use of the sitar, first on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", was largely responsible for the instrument’s appropriation into psychedelic rock. And his embrace of slide guitar in the late 60s/early 70s produced a much imitated “wa-wa” riffing that has influenced scores of guitar virtuosos.

As early as 1963, Harrison had dabbled in original compositions. His first credited song can be found on The Beatles’ second album, With the Beatles. Befitting his private personality, the song was entitled, "Don’t Bother Me". While subsequent early efforts often musically mirrored those of his contemporaries, Harrison’s satiric wit emerged in such works as "Taxman" and "Only a Northern Song". But Harrison’s most distinct musical and philosophical inspiration was provided by his embrace of Hinduism, a belief system that he would maintain for the rest of his life. Harrison’s enthusiasm for Hinduism was first evidenced on the brazenly metaphysical "Within You, Without You" from 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Though bashed by much of the contemporary press, the song indicated a bold new direction for Harrison, one in which personal belief trumped commercialism.

Transcendental spirituality is the driving inspiration behind much of Harrison’s post-Beatles material, most notably the masterful All Things Must Pass– a landmark work that fuses spiritual lyrics and guitar oriented arrangements under a Phil Spector produced, reverb-heavy, Wall of Sound. Amongst all of the Beatles solo work, All Things Must Pass stands as one of the (if not the) very best. Harrison would continue to incorporate spiritual beliefs into his music all the way through his final album, 2002’s posthumously released (and criminally underrated), Brainwashed.

Nor did Harrison limit his philosophies to music, but instead lived in accordance with his principles. He was an avid supporter of humanitarian efforts, launching rock’s first massive charity concert, 1971’s Concert for Bangladesh. Performing alongside such luminaries as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Ravi Shanker, Harrison raised money for and awareness of the impoverished refugees from the Bangladesh Liberation War. And although the charitable contributions were tied-up in legal red-tape, the event has since become a model for how concerts can be used to spotlight a cause.

Harrison was also one of the first musicians to establish a charity dedicated to advancing humanitarian causes. The Material World Foundation, established in 1973, continues to provide funding for a vast number of organizations dedicated to environmentalism, medical research, and human rights.

Twin Cities fans will have a chance to pay homage to George Harrison with two tribute concerts occurring over the next two weeks. The first, taking place at the Varsity Theatre on February 20th, will be the annual Dark Horse Revue – a showcase of Harrison’s music performed by local musicians. Proceeds from the show will benefit the Material World Foundation.

The second tribute, dubbed the George Harrison Birthday Bash and hosted by Famous Dave’s in Calhoun Square, will showcase Joey Molland of Badfinger covering Harrison classics. The even t is part of a weekend long “British Invasion” which will also feature Tumblin’ Dice (a Rolling Stones tribute) and Rubber Soul (a Beatles Tribute).

Whether attending a show or not, Harrison fans will always find the closest connection through his music. By allowing his art to reflect his values, the music of George Harrison continues to strike an enduring universal chord. Such a legacy is the greatest tribute of all.

http://www.georgeharrison.com/

Reprinted with permission

...in Love and Music
by Michael Garfield

Recently, I've been reading a lot about two things that seem unrelated: one is the clash over copyrights between labels, musicians, and listeners; the other is polyamory.

I've been researching the polyamory because after a few years of studying spirituality - and being in a wonderful, loving, incredibly difficult relationship - I had mixed feelings about sharing all of my love with a single person. On the one hand, discipline and depth. On the other hand, the liberation of not having to refuse other opportunities for genuine connection. Polyamory isn't about sleeping with whomever you want; it's about having mature, mutual loving relationships in a number of different forms, recognizing how unlikely it is that a single individual is going to fulfill all of your needs.

When we were more embedded in our communities and surrounded by the love of a giant extended family, we weren't making such incredible demands on our romantic partners. Now, in an era of emotional estrangement, we have this lunatic idea that we're supposed to get all of our love from, and give all of our love to, our "one and only." This is mixed up with monotheism and vestiges of our evolutionary history in ways too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that for many people, polyamorous relationships satisfy a multifaceted sense of intimacy that would be impossible with one person. They can also demand at least as much maturity and grace as monogamous relationships, in which the secure illusions of possessing the other person and of having one true lover are allowed to blossom - and bruise - unhindered.

The other topic is something I've been navigating because of my own identity as a songwriter trying to make a career in the midst of radical upheaval in the music business. I'm constantly poised to find a new synthesis, one that allows me to make a living at this while still honoring my conviction that the music I write should be freely available to anyone who would care to listen.

The usual dualistic debates strike me as ludicrous and naïve; it's not so cut and dry that we can say music should or should not be free. One of the rules of a network economy is that value is driven by ubiquity. The only remaining scarcity, in a world where the costs of information and production are swiftly approaching zero, is attention. Thus, the more people who know (or rely on) your product or service, the more it is worth - regardless of how much it costs to make. If nobody has heard of your music, a hundred-thousand dollar studio project is worth nothing. If you're a huge star, people scramble over each other for your bedroom demos.

This is why emerging artists are often so eager to give away their recordings (thus generating an audience), while so many established artists have been fighting p2p digital distribution as if it were a plague. We need to embrace a new understanding of economic value that I'm not sure our culture is willing to accept: after all, most people would agree that the majority of well-known music out there is worth a lot less, in an artistic sense, than the craft of relative unknowns.

(We can think of this as kinetic versus potential energy. At their best, A&R reps are cultural catalysts, doing for the realm of ideas what oil hunters do for the realm of industrial power supply. Likewise, record labels and oil magnates have a lot in common: both have lost sight of their empowering ideals and started to choke the flow of resources.)

Back to the matter at hand. These two issues - polyamory and copyright law - are operating on totally different scales, in different arenas of our lives. Or are they? After all, I've seen bumper stickers professing that "Music = Love." On some deep level, both of these are symptoms of a deep struggle that we as individuals and as a society are having with the concept of ownership.

Consequently, I find romance a very useful metaphor for the music scene: When major labels are saying, "You can't just release your album for free online!," I think what they mean is, "I thought I was special to you, and now you're sleeping with someone else!" The label is dependent on the exclusive relationship it has with its artists. As in many supposedly monogamous relationships, however, the deal is a double standard - the contract itself favors the interests of one partner over the interests of the other. Since one of them has something that the other cannot (or believes they cannot) provide for themselves, truly mutual negotiation is an illusion.

But of course, before you can love another person or really be loved, you must first love yourself. Without question, the most successful relationships are those in which both partners are involved out of choice, rather than necessity. The most satisfying partnerships are between people who enter them from a place of autonomy, as a gift, unafraid of standing on their own.

In the worst kind of relationship, your partner is sweet to you when you do as she likes, and makes your life a living hell when you don't. In the best kind of relationship, you are internally motivated to care for her out of your gratitude. In the best kind of relationship, musicians would be more than happy to sign a contract with a major label, because the label recognizes that happy artists make better music.

I wonder what this all will mean in the era toward which we seem to be headed: one in which audiences will have unlimited access to streaming music, but no real ownership of copyright to speak of. It'll sound like this: "You can have me whenever you like, but you will never own me."

I imagine the mature response would be: "That's okay; you're more enjoyable when I allow you to live as you desire, rather than under exacting specifications."

What is so precious about possessing a thing that we would rather pay dearly to own it than to have unobstructed use of it for free? Especially when dictated ownership, as has been demonstrated again and again through history, tends to squeeze the life out of land, the joy out of material goods, the exuberance out of a lover, and the soul out of music?

Music is more fun when the musicians are able to follow their muse, rather than the demands of some clueless middleman, enforced by contract and manipulation. I think we have lost faith that there is such a thing as gratitude for a job well done - that there are plenty with the willingness and the means to support good art.

Most traditional cultures take good care of their artists, who are often revered as healers and behave accordingly. It was patronage that enabled the renaissance. So it will be again.

Music and love are both like water; there is a sense in which they both "want" to flow free. We build dams and harness their energy - but destroy the local ecosystem in the process. What most of the music business can't seem to grasp is how to let a river to bend its natural course and call it irrigation. The passive abundance of the network economy is simply beyond the industrial assembly of music as big business knows it today.

Nonetheless, there are signs of change: as record sales plummet, licensing profits are higher than ever. The energy of commerce is following public attention in a much more fluid, natural way. Allow the artists to do what they will, and audiences to pay for what rings their bells.

When I imagine the future of artist-label relationship, the first company that comes to mind is Magnatune, out of Berkeley, California. Flying the motto, "We are not evil," Magnatune signs nonexclusive distribution agreements with its artists - and allows customers to pay what they think the music is worth, rather than arbitrarily assigning a market price. The result is that they have two charts: the best-selling music, and the music that has sold for the most money. For people who trust the voice of the crowd, the most valuable music is sifted into visibility - motivating artists to craft something evocative and enduring. What more, Magnatune offers three free copies of each download to all of its buyers:

"While other record labels are busy suing their customers for introducing their friends to great music... At Magnatune, we want you to copy our music for your friends."

Meanwhile, the label gains the trust of its customers and artists alike with the integrity of its value structure and the permissibility of its practices.

Leave it to Berkeley to prove free love as a business model! Magnatune's artist agreement basically says, "You are free to work with other distribution agencies if you wish, but you will be required to cancel our agreement if you sign an exclusive contract with any of them." In other words, "I don't mind you dating other people, but as soon as you start dating someone who does have a problem with, we're through." It's called being a responsible open lover, and it marks a sea change in how we conduct our business and romance.

The new role of the label is to do what it was always meant to do: sort through music for its audiences, get the right vibrations into the right ears, take a cut for the service, and do its job transparently enough that there is no suspicion on any side. It's easier than ever to make a professional recording without going into debt, or signing an "agreement" with someone whose interests conflict your own and who you can never completely trust. Labels can no longer legitimately position themselves as a necessity.

We're seeing something now akin to the emergence of the woman in the workforce: suddenly it's her decision to get married, rather than a requirement, because she can take care of herself. Of course teamwork is still easier, and marriage as an institution persists (even in polyamorous relationships). Likewise, the label will endure because it allows the artists to focus on what they do best - but there's no fooling anybody anymore. The future of love and music is choice and trust - stable agency and empowering communion. Action in consonance with passion, instead of fear.

What we have now, institutionalized in both our love and music, is an unhealthy focus on personal gain and securing turf. No one is exempt; musicians are just as much to blame for pretending to own their music as the labels are. (The most honest artists admit that the world wrote those songs through them, and so they cannot authentically lay claim to any of their work.)

But slowly, surely, we are learning about the benefit of complementarity, how to help, how to share (you get what you give). Sooner or later, music and love will both be restored to the throne, in their rightful place as sacred services to the community. Ask not what your culture can do for you...

Yoga instructor Seane Corn has said this about her own labor of love, teaching yoga to the impoverished:

“I’ve found that service is addictive. I’ve never been more confident. I’ve never felt better about myself, never been less interested in my wounds, my own drama, in my own small-minded crisis... Being in service, being an activist and looking at the world, has allowed me to live in absolute gratitude for every aspect of my life. That’s been the greatest gift I’ve ever experienced.”

Imagine the day when this is the attitude musicians and record labels bring to their work. When giving is a greater motivation in our intimate relationships than getting. When the love of song and the song of love are both entered with willingness and glee. When everyone recognizes the exceptional talent they have to offer the world, and the world sings back in gratitude.

It starts by loosening our fixation on owning the things we desire.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Garfield is intent on demonstrating that everything is equally art, science, and spiritual practice - to revive cultural and individual investment in the renaissance thinking that finds equal value in thinking and feeling, description and experience. Working as a scientific illustrator and essayist by day, and a live electronic musician and performance painter by night, Michael divides his attentions between exploring and celebrating the vast complex vibratory spectacle that is our musical universe. His work has been featured at integralnaked.org, realitysandwich.com, and paullonely.com, and in Cause & Effect Magazine, iMAGE Magazine, and H+. Links to his painting gallery, live and studio recordings, and visionary music blog can be found at myspace.com/michaelgarfield.

By Mark Hinson, Tallahassee Democrat

It's the voice. That husky contralto that packs so much depth and authority. It'll stop you cold.

Mavis Staples suddenly burst into song when she started talking excitedly about recording her jaw-dropping 2007 album We'll Never Turn Back with producer-guitarist Ry Cooder. "Ry didn't want do it (record 'Jesus Is On the Main Line') so I just started singing while he had his back turned and was tuning his guitar," Staples said before she started belting the opening lines of the gospel standard. "Jesus is on that mainline, tell him what you want," Staples sang over the phone. "Jesus is on that mainline, tell him what you want... You've gotta call him up and tell him what you want."

Staples brought her unmistakable voice — which has only gotten more commanding with age — to Tallahassee, FL this past week when she kicked off the marathon that is the Seven Days of Opening Nights arts festival. She shared the bill at Bethel AME Church with fellow gospel travelers The Blind Boys of Alabama, who won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award and another one for best gospel album of the year at this year's Grammy Awards.

In 2005, Staples also picked up a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for her work in the ground-breaking Staple Singers. The family singing group started performing in the pulpit before they crossed over into Top 40 radio in the '70s at Stax Records in Memphis, Tenn. Their 1972 No. 1 hit "I'll Take You There" raised a lot of eyebrows back at their church.

"They wanted us out of the church," Staples said. "They weren't listening to the lyrics. All they saw was the kids dancing to our song." Then Staples started singing again: "I know a place, ain't nobody cryin', ain't nobody worried, ain't no smilin' faces lyin' to the races."

Wow. It's really hard to concentrate when she does that. "We were talking about heaven," Staples said. "Where else could we be taking you but to heaven? They eventually invited us back to church. And when we got there, the first song they asked us to sing was 'I'll Take You There.' "

In the documentary Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story (which takes its name from a Top 20 song by The Staples Singers), Staples made a very astute observation when she said: "The devil ain't got no music — it's all God's music." "I still believe that," Staples said. "It is all God's music." If Otis Redding was the superstar of Stax Records and Rufus Thomas was the comic relief and Isaac Hayes was the sex symbol, then The Staple Singers were the American institution's spiritual soul. "Lives were changed after you heard Mavis Staples," Stax co-owner Al Bell said in the documentary.

The Staples made a very memorable appearance at Wattstax, a massive concert held in the Los Angeles Coliseum in August 1972 as soul music's much funkier answer to Woodstock. Tickets cost $1 apiece.

"Originally we weren't booked to play Wattstax," Staples said. "We were working at the Sands in Las Vegas opening the show for Sammy Davis, Jr. We couldn't take off. Then Sammy shut the show down for one night to meet with Richard Nixon. You've probably seen that picture (of Nixon and Davis laughing it up onstage). We said, 'We don't have to work tonight, let's go to Wattstax.' It was so amazing. We'd never played in front of 100,000 people before. We played in the morning. Had chicken for lunch and then drove back to Las Vegas."

Unfortunately, bad business deals and mounting bank loans forced Stax to close its doors on McLemore Avenue in 1975. The famed studio, which was housed in an old movie theater, was bulldozed in 1989.

"That was so sad," Staples said. "I don't understand to this day how Memphis let this happen. All we had was a memory... Motown had all the cute stuff but Stax had the funk and the gut." A replica of the studio, called The Stax Museum of American Soul Music, was built on the same McLemore lot and opened in 2003.

Staples spent most of her solo career working with a variety of high-profile producers — Prince, Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Wexler, Bob Dylan, Steve Cropper and others. But Cooder has a special place in her heart. "I feel like ("We'll Never Turn Back") is the best album I've ever done," Staples said. "I'm really proud of that album. I've worked with a lot of geniuses but Ry Cooder is the elder genius."

The songs on "We'll Never Turn Back" were all culled from the Civil Rights era when folk music ruled the Earth. But the raw, stripped-down, gutbucket approach taken by Cooder and Staples sure doesn't sound like some old hippie folk singer strumming a sanitized version of, let's say, "Eyes on the Prize." Astonishingly, all the cuts on the disc were done on the first take.

"Usually, when I'm recording, I like to get a list of the songs the night before and rehearse them at the hotel before we get in the studio," Staples said. "But Ry kept the songs a secret until I got to the studio. He wanted to keep everything spontaneous. ... After I sang the first few songs, I went in and asked if we were ready to lay them down (on tracks). Ry said, 'They're already done.' And I said, 'I like the way you work.' "

Cooder also encouraged Staples to ad lib during the songs by telling stories about her visits to the Jim Crow South as a little girl. She also riffed about personal heroes such as her dad Pops Staples, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr. The Staple Singers often warmed up the crowds with a few songs before King spoke in the '60s.

"When I was a little girl, I thought of him (King) as just one of Pops' friends," Staples said. "It was only after he was gone (that) I started realizing how great he really was." When asked how she liked to personally remember King, the singer was silent for a moment. "My fondest memory was his laughter," Staples said. "He looks so serious and so sad in pictures but he had this joyful laugh. We'd be on our way to a meeting or a rally and Dr. King would be standing in a circle with the rest of the men telling jokes and laughing. You could hear his laugh over all the rest of them."

Reprinted with permission