Interview with Mpho Muthubi

Mpho is a new friend of mine. Already, I have had with him some of the most inspiring conversations I have ever known. He is a brilliant and selfless human being. He gives of himself to the world unconditionally.

I met Mpho at events connected with the Unreasonable Institute.  

http://unreasonableinstitute.org/

If you're not already familiar with what this incredible organization is doing, please check it out.  It's unbelievable.  It's the future.  Whoa.

Through conversations with Mpho, I learned that there is a powerful misconception that has taken hold in the world.

     There is a belief that there are massive, complicated, unsolvable
     problems in Africa.

     This is not true!

     The problems in Africa are actually massive, simple, and relatively
     easy to solve.

This misunderstanding is represented as the truth so consistently in the media that even the people of Africa have started to believe it.  Know that it is not true.  The problems in Africa are solvable.  They are problems that have already been solved in the “first world.”  If we can recognize this and we can work together, we can challenge this misconception and empower countless people. The world will change...quickly.

The following interview took place Monday, July 23, 2012 at the Yellow Deli in Boulder, CO.

Danny Meyer: You love to travel.  Why do you love to travel?

Mpho Muthubi: Yes, I do.  Traveling makes me...it gives me a lot of energy.  It makes me get in touch with a lot of cultures and to understand more about humanity.  To see if what I’m experiencing or going through as a person in my own country has anything akin to what other people are going through.  

DM:  What has been great about traveling to Boulder?

MM:  Well, a lot of things.  I’ve seen a lot of things that made me say, “Wow, this is the real first world.”  We talk about the first world and people talk about the third world...coming from Africa, we are the third world...developing.  I looked at stuff around here and I said, “This place is complete.  There is nothing else to be done here.  You guys are thinking that you still need to improve more, but for me, that’s about it.  You guys have everything here.  

What actually intrigued me, though, was that it was amazing how I moved around the places and there were no trash bins along the roads and stuff like that and still there is no litter.  I said, “Wow...it’s nothing like that in Africa!” [Laughs] I said, “What sort of mentality is this?”  Are you much more aware of the [idea of] environmental upkeep than we are?  We’ve got all sorts of trash bins, but still we find people throwing stuff and you guys don’t have a lot of them, but the place is clean.  

I remember [walking in Boulder holding] a can of some soda for a long distance and I was looking for a trash can.  There was nothing.  What if I were in my country?  What would I have done with that thing?  I probably would have thrown it, and it would have probably accumulated into a heap of [trash].  So, I said, "Ok, fine.  I'm going to behave, here."  So, it taught me something.

In the streets, your motorists respect pedestrians.  The standard that I come from is quite different.  You guys will wait for a pedestrian crossing - even if it is coming from afar - you wait.  We don't do that!  In my country - or most countries that I know.  No way!  You'll see that when you come to Africa.  I'll show you.  If you try and stop, they may bump on you.  [laughs]
So, I saw the opposite of everything and everything has been good for me so far.

I went to a lot of restaurants and stuff, and one thing that sort of peeved me was that the price [of food] is very expensive.  Boulder is a bit expensive compared to other places.

DM:  So you intersected the Unreasonable Institute here.  We both saw the event yesterday [the Unreasonable Climax] and we were both very moved.  Could you talk some about the Unreasonable Institute and what your experiences were with it?

MM: The Unreasonable Institute: it's one hell of an undertaking.  I know the intentions that Daniel Epstein laid out yesterday - it's amazing.  Yes, I think they could match the Richard Branson type of thing.  The Virgin model.  And I wish they could do that, because what Richard Branson really does…he's a maverick and I love him for being a maverick.  Sort of turning everything upside down and making sure that people don't just get stuck into the old ways of doing things.  So, the disruption of traditional stuff has to happen.

For me, the Unreasonable Institute has been good. Not only good, but excellent, because it brought in people from all over the world - Asia, Africa, South America, America, Britain as well, and Europe.  By bring them together like that…the tapestry is now coming together.  All the threads are coming together and people are starting to understand that what [they] have in [their own] country, it’s not dissimilar than the problems other country are having.  Same problems globally.  For example, the transport of goods across borders. This is a problem in Mexico.  We have it as well.  People are able to solve problems together.  To help whoever needs to be helped. It's a team of people.  

Another thing is that I don't think I'll stop coming here.  [laughs]  I'm sold.  

DM:  Why do you write?

MM:  Why do I write? [pause] I try to read a lot of books.  Although the books that I read are not so much romantic books.  I'm kind of a cold person, maybe.  I read books that want to add value.  I'm not saying that romantic books are not adding value - they maybe adding value for couples or whatever, but for me it's all about wanting to help take a [group of] people from point A to point B and as they travel that area, they must make sure that they are enhancing peoples lives.  So, it's all about information.

DM:  So your next book that will be coming out, Voetsek, why did you write this book?  With this book you're trying to take "who" to "where."

MM:  I've used my country- South Africa - as a point of reference.  I've seen that there is some kind of laxity.  People are laid back, not wanting to tackle issues that are important.  It's to try to apply some shocks onto them and say, "Come on.  Do this.  Let's go."  Because other people in the vicinity are looking up to us.  Although we are not America…ok…but we're stable.  We have our problems, but relatively speaking, we're stable.  In the rest of Africa, we are called the "Gateway of Africa."  That's what we're called.  Whether we are like that, I don't know.  Maybe we're moving on to became the "Doormat of Africa."  [laughs] Could be, because I don't think that international conglomerates, when they do come to Africa, ask South Africa for permission to come.  They don't do that.  They just go and do whatever they want to do, anyway.  So, it's not like we are a gateway.  It's not like we are gatekeepers and the whole world must come to us asking.  They just go.  So, for me, that kind of title is undeserved and doesn't work.  That mentality - if South Africans are thinking that they are like that, I want to challenge them.  To say, "Unh Uh.  You are not.  Wake up," because other countries are doing the very same things that you're doing.  So, if you're going to think like that, you're going to be late.  The train will just pass you by.  So, wake up.  Be effective. Get into other countries.  Do your part, so that the problems that they have don't spill into our country, thereby creating a lot of commotion and stuff like that.  So, let's go and do things.

DM:  Who is the audience that you are hoping will read this book?

MM:  Ok, there is a saying in our country that says, “If you want to hide anything from a black person, put it in a book.”  Which means, a lot of people don’t read.  When they do read, it is when they want to pass exams.  So, exams and general books that teach a lot of things are two different things.  You’re talking academic and you’re talking groundbreaking books that make people to do things.  And most of the times, it’s groundbreaking books that turn things around.  

DM:  One thing you’ve said is that right now it’s not necessarily cool to learn in Africa.

MM:  In a way, yes.  A guy would go to buy a case of beer, which will cost him $50.  He can pay for that, but the same guy would not go and buy a book that would help him to get more beers.  [laughs] In the book, that’s where he’s going to get more ideas.  He’s not going to do that.  He’ll go for a beer, which he’s going to drink now and then it’s gone.  He’s not even sharing with his family.  So, for me, it’s kind of dumb for a person to do that.  That should be the cherry on top.  If you have already done all that you’re going to do, then fine.  Enjoy that.  

I think it was Obama that said that, "Children care more about their hair than what is in their head."  Something like that.  They go and get these nice hair styles and all these other things and earrings on their head, but what's inside there...  Nothing.

DM:  They're celebrating, but they haven't learned anything yet.

MM:  That's not right.  So, that's what I want to address.  To say, "Guys, come on.  Get the fundamentals right.”  The fundamentals are reading, getting skills, and stuff like that.  Then, you go and decorate yourself.  Do it.  Do that, but you can't decorate yourself without having the fundamentals right.

DM:  What is something that you see that Africa can learn from America...something that is clear to us, that your people overlook?

MM:  I think maybe it has to do with you being a homogeneous country.  Africa is not homogeneous.  Most Americans seem to think like that - that Africa is homogeneous.  It’s not.  It’s about 53 countries with all sorts of different objectives.  An American will say, “Hi, how are you doing?”  
“Fine.”  
“Where do you come from?”  
I say, “Africa.”
He’ll say, “Do you know a person named...?”  [Laughs]
What kind of...?  No.  

DM:  This is as ridiculous as if I told someone, “I am from the United States - from Colorado,” and someone were to say, “Oh! I’ve got a friend in Venezuela!”  

MM:  Yeah! [laughs] And I keep on hearing this!  I say, “What are you talking about?  Don’t you know?”

DM:  Ok, so we’re homogenized.  

MM:  Yeah.  We’re not.

DM:  So what could Africans learn from that gives us access, too?

MM:  Africans can learn something about tackling issues like you Americans do.  Obviously, we’re going to have to do that.  At first, we’re going to have to do that as individual countries, because we’ve got our own laws and borders; but where issues are common, then we have to think about coming together and solving the problem together.  That’s the thing.

DM:  Great answer.  The best answer!  

So, then what about the other way?  What could the American people learn from Africa?

MM:  Well, what you could learn is how you guys take things for granted.  

[Also,] there are a lot of opportunities that individual Americans can tap into or take advantage of in those developing countries, that for now you seem to have lost to the Chinese.  It’s true.  It’s that simple.  I hear the American president saying - I can’t quote him, but things like, “You’ve gotta lead.”  I’m not seeing that.  I’m not seeing the leading anymore.  I’m seeing the following; because those guys - the Chinese guys - are actually doing it.  

DM:  You were saying earlier that they [the Chinese] are intersecting the communities [in Africa] in a way that is supportive - that they are teaming up with other countries, rather than going and “imposing” or going and “taking.”

MM:  Yeah, that has to be done.  I know that at the governmental level they are tied up with bureaucracy.  These guys are tied up with a lot of policies and borders to go around.  The issue of party comes up.  Democrats and Republicans...

But individual Americans, they have to do that.  In fact, they have to drag the government by the nose and say, “This is what we’re doing.”  If you don’t do that, you stay irrelevant to a lot of developing countries in the world.  

So, if you come in and say you want to help out - whether it’s with angel funds or whatever it is, that’s what people appreciate and people will start thinking, “Whoa! They’re doing something!”  But if you don’t do that, and [the Chinese] do it, and you complain about...maybe their policies, people will say, “No.  Stuff it!  They’re helping!”  

Maybe in 10 years or 20 years time, it will be catastrophic or whatever; people now don’t think about that.  They think about what’s happening to them now.  If you come now and pontificate and say all sorts of thing like, “These are bad guys...”  I want to see.  Is there bread on my table, NOW?  Are my kids going to school, NOW?  Not then.  So whoever says, “Here’s bread.  Here’s education.”  I go for that person.  So, that is something that individual Americans must think about and say, “Let’s do these things.”  And then you will remain leaders.  Leaders in incorporation with others not imposing leaders.  

DM:  That is very important.  

Now, this next part gets fun for a minute.  You grew up listening to jazz.

MM:  Yes.

DM:  Why do you love listening to jazz?

MM:  It’s therapeutic.  

DM:  Why is it therapeutic?

MM:  Jazz kind of resonates with what we went through [in Africa] even as kids.  In Africa, these things are there.  Let’s take for instance, the blues.  That’s what happens all the time.  You find a woman, maybe grinding corn or something like that, it will be like blues.  There will be singing and all these things.  When they’re happy, when they’re sad, there will be that kind of blues kind of thing that goes on.  Those things have been there all the time.  

I’ll take you to go experience a certain dance called “ticona.” It’s played with a lot of different types of reed [instruments].  Like an ensemble of saxophones and clarinets and whatever you’ve got.  Their instruments, though.  You’ll hear different sounds.  And the music is long.  Very long.  

Other songs [in Africa] are played as a dirge.  If you’re not educated to hear the songs, you’ll think it’s just monotonous sounds, but it’s not monotonous sounds.  

DM:  What do you love about American jazz?

MM:  [I] grew up listening to American jazz.  John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, Duke Ellington, Shirley Scott, Satchmo.  For me, it’s something that makes me think.  American jazz makes me think.  And it’s kind of a spiritual type of thing, because someone is kind of talking.  When I saw you playing the other day, it was like you were talking.  

DM:  It is language.

MM:  It’s also an inner dialogue kind of thing.  I looked at this and thought, “Wow!”  It’s kind of well structured.  But it makes me think, more than anything.  It makes me think deeper. I get deeper into myself and think about lots of things.  It’s creativity.  Its kind of creativity flows into me and and produces more creativity.  So, when I listened to Ben Webster, that baritone... like...you know how Ben Webster plays...kind of like “Vuvuvu” [does an impression of Ben Webster’s sound and vibrato].  It makes me so happy.  It’s unique.  

So, for me, After Hours by Dizzy Gillespie, Back to Back by Duke Ellington, My Favorite Things by John Coltrane.  These recordings make me think.  There is another one...The Creator Has A Master Plan by Pharoah Sanders.  

DM:  That’s a great record!

MM:  Yeah...I said, “Wow, this is something else!”

DM:  Something that you’ve said is, “Those who look inside themselves know what is inside another.”  Can you talk about that?

MM:  It comes from being honest with yourself, because human issues are human issues.  If I get hurt by something, whether it’s a death of a person or a relative or whatever, or there is some kind of happiness that another one is enjoying, it resonates with me.  It’s not like if I’m in Guatemala, and somebody dies in Guatemala, it won’t be the same feeling in India.   It will be the same feeling in India!  Whether you’ve got a billion pounds or you’ve a nickel, if that strikes, same pain.  You go through the same pain.  It’s not going to be different.

Let’s talk about what happened now in Aurora.  

DM:  The shooting.

MM:  Yes.  It shook...jolted the whole nation.  For you guys, this is rare.  For us, not as rare, but I feel the pain.  I understand.  Same pain.  Whether it’s been done by whoever, wherever, it’s the same pain.  It shouldn’t have happened.  We shouldn’t have allowed it to happen, but when it happens, we feel the same pain.  It comes to us like...you can’t believe it.  

So, whether you’re Bill Gates or whoever.  Same thing.  If I’m going to eat an egg and he eats an egg, same egg.  I mean, it comes from a chicken, doesn’t it?  There’s no golden egg.  It’s the same egg.  Even if, maybe, you go to a restaurant where they pay $5000 per plate, whatever they’re eating, if it’s egg, it’s going to be the egg I eat.  So, even when it comes to pay, it’s that kind of thing as well.  

If we have to look inside ourselves and be honest with ourselves, we will find out that we’re just the same.  Inside them? Same.  Sorrow? Same.  Happiness? Same.  We’re all looking for joy.  This joy thing.  It sort of escapes us because sometimes we look for it in another direction [and it] is not there.  We look for it in, maybe, materials.  We want to gain more material stuff.  Maybe, kill this one and take his stuff to get more and more, but it [joy] keeps escaping us.  

The simple people in the world, funny enough, they find joy.  The other day, I looked at some guys that were scavenging [for] food in trash cans and eating that stuff.  And these guys are healthy and we are not healthy.  How is that?  I do not understand.  We go with probiotics and eat all these nice things...organic...and blah, blah, blah.  These guys go to a trash can, and somehow, nature or the universe just protects them; gives them health.  You can’t try that.  [laughs].  So, that’s it.  

DM:  So you’re saying that you don’t find it outside of yourself.

MM:  Yeah, you have to first find it inside you.  It’s inside you.  I think those that are more into the Bible will say that the Kingdom of God is not there, or there, or over there [points], it’s in you.  You’ve got to look into yourself to get it.  

When you are going to do something, your conscience tells you, “Don’t,” or, “Do it.”  When you feel like it’s pinching you and your spirit gets a bit sour or bitter, you know you’re not supposed to do it.  [It’s] what you call a gut feeling.  It tells [us], but we don’t do that 9/10 times.  We just do our thing and we land into trouble.  So we have to look into ourselves first.  Then we will see that a lot of things will help out.  

DM:  You’ve also said that you are “passionate about all people of the planet who present themselves as clear and unfettered by chains of bigotry and express first-class self-serving status.”  Can you talk more about what those things are and why those are important?

MM:  This ties up with what I said before; that we don’t have to think that we are...how do I put it...  In the the 20th century, some guy called Hitler thought that maybe he was this special guy and that his race was so special that he decided to get rid of other people who didn’t look like him.  He thought that if you were not like that, you were not supposed to live.  What he forgot was that it’s not like everything has to be the same, because if everything is the same, then life will be boring.  That variety in itself - some people say it’s the spice of life - it’s necessary to be there.  Why is it like that?  Because it adds spice to life; it brings out challenges that [provide opportunities for] all those that have answers to add to show their prowess; to show their skills, to help out.  And for those, you don’t have to say, “Hey guys, please help.”  It’s not that they don’t know the answers themselves, it’s just that they can’t do anything about this.  And even though some people can do some things, they must not think [that] they are better, because those other ones might have something better in terms of...in our country we call it Ubuntu.  

Nelson Mandela speaking about Ubuntu

Ubuntu basically means: you’re a person because of me.  I am a person because of you.  I think it was John Donne that said, “No man is an island unto himself.”  We are a piece of each other.  If you cry, I feel the pain.  We should actually be everybody’s keeper.  We have to be like that.  If we don’t do that and we think we are this special species, [then] life will be boring to us.

I read an article where someone was bemoaning the fact that in America some people do not have a sense of community, and that the only thing that will bring them together is when there is war.  When there is war, Americans will come together, but when there is no war, everybody is sort of independent.  They do their own thing.  “I don’t care what you’re doing, it’s my thing.  Go to hell!”  Something like that.  That makes people resort to getting into drugs because they want to try to kill that thing...that loneliness in the midst of beautiful things.  You know what I mean?  Here’s a person that’s got everything that is lonely.  Why?  Because there is no impact on another human being.  

If you’re not going to be able to touch...there’s a song that you guys [have]... “reach out and touch somebody’s hand and make the world a better place.”   So, if you don’t do that, you end up getting frustrated and end up doing drugs just to cool yourself out or to get high, because you’re not doing anything to help anyone.  So clever Americans, those that actually saw that this was killing them, they moved out to other countries and said they wanted to help (like what you want to do).  That will then give you a lot of peace within yourself.  You will see that you are doing something meaningful.  

When I was saying, “You guys take things for granted...”  [It was] because everything is here.  Ok for us, things like Wi-Fi, we have it here and there.  That restaurant there, you’ve got got to get in there and buy something.  But for you, almost every place has got a Wi-Fi.  It means you’re connected.  You get information quickly.  We don’t get that.  All we can do is go to what is called an internet cafe and pay money.  Or have our own and [for that] we’ve got to have a career or a business.  Sometimes, I don’t have money, and that means I won’t get information.  That is something that you take for granted.  

DM:  There is something we should talk about.  This is something that we found today talking together.  I think there is a misunderstanding. [I think] that Americans think that there are massive, complicated, unsolvable problems in Africa, and that is not the truth.  There are actually massive, simple, relatively easy to solve problems in Africa.  

MM:  And they don’t require a lot of things.  They just need the presence of people who have knowledge about the problem to share ideas and say, “Look we’ve been here.  We know how to tackle this thing.  This is how it has to be done.”  There could be variations there, but basically to say, “We know about this thing.”  And people will listen to you more because they know you’ve been there, and everything that comes to them has happened before [in America].   

DM:  What’s next for you?  You’ll release your next book, and then what are your plans?

MM:  After this book is released, I intend to travel to Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, Cameroon, Sri Lanka, and probably to  India.  How that is going to happen? We’re talking finance now. I don’t know, but I’ll try to get to one place before December.  If it doesn’t happen, then it will spill over into January and February.  Also, I would love to connect with this book back to the Unreasonable Institute.  If [that can happen] just think about where and how far it could go.  


_______________________________________
We can do great things if we do them together.

Music and Living

My path has been to look for how everything can be understood as essentially the same expression. To look for an underlying simplicity in things.

As a musician, I’ve looked at how all of music - regardless of what it sounds like - is of the same simple nature.

First, how the elements of music - harmony, rhythm, form, pitch, etc - are just subtly different expressions of the same thing.

Then, how all of the arts - music, dance, art, etc - are the same.  They are language.

How all languages are the same tool - a way of expressing thinking about living.

Essentially, all of this is just about living, so I looked for how music and life are the same thing. An expression of creation. Divinity.

What I’ve ended up with is this tool that I’ve been building for the last 10 years that allows me to better understand life and thus better understand everything. What I learn as a musician informs my life. What I learn as a person informs my music. I have a tool that allows me clarity to move forward.


The punchline, then, is this:
It doesn’t matter what you do. It only matters that you do it honestly and deeply. Then it becomes a tool. A tool that you can use to find peace, love, joy, and beauty.

Colorado Connections Concert Series

I'm excited to announce the first Colorado Connections Concert:


Colorado Connections is a concert series I am hosting that will bring back musicians from Colorado who currently live in other cities.  In addition to performing at Dazzle, they will be connecting with the community as clinicians, mentors, and teachers.
 

Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge
November 20th, 2011

Colin Stranahan - Drums

Mark Clifford - Vibraphone

Kent McLagan - Bass

Danny Meyer Saxophone

(This event will be sponsored by JJ's Sweets (a local and amazing candy company), Dazzle and Beacon Concert Series.

In addition to this concert, Colin and Mark will also be teaching a clinic at Denver School for the Arts - the school they both attended while growing up in Colorado.  They will be available for lessons and other clinics during that time, so please feel free to contact me with any ideas. 

*UPDATE*
This was a wonderful event.  It was wonderful to play with my old friends.  They're the coolest.

Here's a tune from the concert.

Children by Danny Meyer

Mark Clifford - Vibraphone

Danny Meyer - Saxophone

Kent McLagan - Bass

Colin Stranahan - Drums

Art Lande Interview Part 1

Art Lande is an institution.  Here's an excerpt from his bio just in case you aren't already familiar with his (really heavy) career.  

Grammy-nominated Art Lande is an internationally known pianist, composer, improviser, drummer and educator who has performed with a long list of the Who's Who in jazz, including Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Bobby Hutcherson, Steve Swallow, Charlie Haden, Kenny Wheeler, Sheila Jordan, Mark Isham, Paul McCandless, Jan Garbarek and many others.

His band, Rubisa Patrol, was formed in the mid 70's and worked through 1983, traveling to Europe often and recording with ECM Records.

Art is also a wonderful teacher.  This a list of places he has taught:

Lone Mountain College, San Francisco (1978-1979) 

Cornish Institute, Seattle (1979-1983)

San Jose State College, San Jose, California (1983-1984)

Jazz School of Migros Klubschule, St. Gallen, Switzerland (1984-1987)

Jazz School Lausanne, Switzerland (1986-1987)

Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado (1987-1989)

Students of Art Lande include Eric Deutsch, Colin Stranahan, members of KneeBody, Mike Thies and just about every other great musician to come out of Colorado. Moral of the story:  If you're in Colorado, take some lessons with Art Lande.  Seriously. 

If you've never heard Art Lande and would like a good place to start, here are my recommendations.

Art Lande and Jan Garbarek - Red Lanta 

This is art's first album on ECM.  He's all of 26-years-old.  

Friday the 13th: Art Lande Plays Monk - Live at Vartan Jazz

Art Lande Solo Piano

Rubisa Patrol - Rubisa Patrol

More people should know this music.  

Shift in the Wind - Art Lande, Eliott Zigmund, Gary Peacock
Art Lande/Paul McCandless, Peter Barshay, Alan Hall - Shapeshifter
Beautiful playing.

You can also hear a recording of Art Lande (drums and speaking) playing with Sam Yulsman (Piano), Kent McLagan (Bass), and I here:

http://danny-meyer.com/live/

A record featuring this band will be out by Spring 2012.

And that's your introduction to Art Lande. 

_______________________________

<Special thanks to Andrew Trim who was nice to proof-read this interview for me.  Andrew is a great guitarist, composer, and friend currently living in Chicago.  Check him out.>

DM:           Can we talk about finding balance as a musician – being a whole person.  Being a musician that really connects with all of the aspects of their life.  I think a lot of musicians have a trouble with that.

AL:            I think it’s important to remember that music is not about music – that it’s about life.  It’s an expression.  It’s a form.  It’s just like a language like Portuguese is a language to talk about life.  Music is just a language to talk about life.   Of course, just as somebody has to learn vocabulary and how to be understood in their language, there are elements of practicing and of learning enough tools in order to be able to communicate.  But then, the other part is to remember why you’re learning those things, which is to talk about the life you are living.  Therefore, you must live.  Connect with nature, connect with beings, connect with yourself, connect with the physical, emotional, spiritual, and the intellectual.  If you read a book on philosophy and then play a piece, it’s different than if you haven’t read the book.  If you go and hang out by a pond and then play a piece, it’s in there.  So, when you get so insular about your art form that everything is self-referencing, then you’re out of touch somehow.   In terms of connecting with other people, you should remember that most people don’t know much about music.  So, you can’t play music about music.  They could care less if you play a minor chord or a diminished scale; that has no meaning to them.   If you play the minor chord because of some somber sense of the universe and they feel the somber sense of the universe, they don’t have to know that you’ve used a minor chord.  They can just hear that sound from your life experience that’s in common with theirs. 

This also applies to the relationships musicians have with each other.  What we know and what we don’t know divides us.  Instead of integrating us, it can separate us.  That fact that somebody knows how to do cool things with their dominant chords and someone doesn’t – you should be able to play together.  A lot of times, people don’t do that because it’s all about that instead of, “you touched that note because you’re trying to bring tension.”  It’s simpler.  It’s not about all of the technique.  Somebody might know forty ways to talk about tension and another person might know ten, but that doesn’t matter so much.  When it does matter, it’s a problem.  Just like the listener , if the players are only playing about music, they feel “I can’t hang with that.”  It’s set up to be divisive.  It’s set up in a way that says, “this is a certain thing and only certain people that are in to this can get anything out of it.”  I think it should be rooted in simpler principals.  We should be asking, “Why do you play this slow thing?  Why do you play the dissonant note”  “Why do you play that kind of exciting rhythm.”  It might be in 15/8.  I might not even know how many beats there are, or maybe I do, but it’s not the point.  We can make beats that are erratic if we are talking about the erratic nature of life as it’s lived. 

            It’s about realizing when technique or knowledge is used for itself or it’s used to communicate something that’s more universal.  It matters most that you’re making something together in a band and that they’re trying to work with your language.  Even there, you can have a lot of different so-called levels or kinds of understanding that can exist in even the same group as long as technique is not the point. 

I also think that some of these art forms are divisive in a way that is just talking about style.  Instead of people worrying about whether it’s folk music or rock music, or reggae, or jazz, or something like that, we can go beyond the style thing as being the most important thing and just be more direct.  It’s important to be able to jump over the idea of style things and to really feel what is actually happening.  I think that sometimes, whether it’s because of insecurity or people – as you’re saying – not being balanced enough to integrate it with the entirety of their life, it becomes out-of-proportion.  The important thing becomes the genre or the specific knowledge that’s needed – to be in the "in" club.  Then there’s an "out" club.  To me, the art that really speaks is not made of that and it’s available for everyone. 

Personally, [when I’m in the audience] I try to go into everything as though it’s there and it’s my opportunity to connect with it.  I try to leave my prejudices at home.  Instead of asking how one piece is better or worse or more refined or more important than another, I just try to enjoy how yellow looks or crookedness feels. 

DM:            I think that something that you are particularly good about is creating a space for community and I think a lot of that has to do with what you just said about everyone being allowed to play.

AL:            Yeah.  It’s an invitation.  This is really essential.  The arts – or whatever it can be…basketball…it can be everything – are in invitation rather than a challenge. Its not about asking, “can you deal with this.”  To come to a concert and say, “Well, if you’re hip enough, you can enjoy my music.”  Who needs that?  It’s more to say, “I welcome you into this realm and I invite you to have your experience with it.  It’s about welcoming rather than intimidation.

DM:            Could you talk about the way that you think about being a teacher?  I think you’re a great teacher and you have helped a lot of people become better people and musicians, myself included.  So, how do you approach teaching.

AL:            Well, it’s very similar in the sense that the impetus needs to come from the person who wants to learn or be exposed to something.  So, I never advertise my teaching or try to get people to learn from me.  It has to come from the person saying, “I would like to learn about this, are you willing to help me with this?” or “Please help introduce me to this world? or “Help me along on my path?”  So, pretty much every lesson, I ask, “What would you like to do today?" or “What would be helpful for you?”  I think these kinds of questions are important.  “What are you interested in?  What are you curious about?  What are you excited about?  What do you want to go deeper into?  What are you ignorant about that maybe I can help you to discover?"  So, it’s definitely centered on the person who wants to learn and not on the teacher.  I’m not sure every teacher works like that.  A lot of them teach their things that they want to teach.  I think it’s really important that the student is the one who feels the energy and sets the topics and it’s the job of the teacher to keep checking in and asking, “Is this what you want to be doing?”  I think it’s important to honor the wisdom in the person. 

            The other main thing is that I don’t have knowledge, or secrets, or something special that you don’t have.  You actually have them.  We’re born musical somehow.  We’re born with all the knowledge.  It’s just about learning to make an environment where it can be accessed and that we do it together.  So, it’s not, “I know this and you don’t.”  That’s not accurate.  I might have a little more experience in something or remember my connection to that a little easier than you.  So then to create an environment so that you can come into that – you can be invited in – so you can see it and you can experience it.  That’s my job. 

            We can both be excited about what we can discover.  I need to learn in the lesson, too.  I don’t just spout my things.  It’s more like, “Let’s find out something about long notes, or playing fast” Finally, we forget who’s the teacher and who’s the student.  It’s more that we participate in something together.  That’s to me the essence of the relationship.  It needs to be alive for both people.

            It’s an inquiry.  I think that’s a key in performing, teaching…actually anything.  It’s not an answer.  When there’s an answer, then there is right and wrong.  When it’s an inquiry, then it’s always a process.  We’re actually living something together.  This is where there is real energy.  Life energy.  The rest is just, again, divisive. 

All these things…good, bad, right, wrong, true, false.  I think this is the advantage of the arts.  The arts aren’t about right and wrong.  At least the playing I try to open up is not about that.  Like, “When you played that note, how did that affect you?”  And it may be different, how it affected you.  Well, when you played it, I thought it was funny.  When you played it, it made you angry.  Cool, man.  When you want to make me laugh and you want to feel angry, play that.  E-flat.  Play that note at that point.  And maybe the next time, it will even have a different effect.  It’s much more playful.  It’s not all this black and white; it’s a lot of different colors. 

DM:            What are your thoughts on being a composer?  In music, what do compositions represent for you?

AL:            I think there are a couple aspects.  To me, the music is flowing all the time.  If you start singing, other songs are coming through all the time.  I don’t know who’s they are, whether they’re in your head or they're flying through the atmosphere, they’re being sent by Chopin or by a rhinoceros…I have no idea [laughs].  But if you want to go into the stream, just as there is air flowing or thoughts or anything, there is music playing all the time and you can access it.  Sometimes, we can transcribe that and we can fix it.  Then it can be something we can work with later.  So it’s kind of like canning for the winter.  You can actually put it down…freeze it…this moment of the passing music.  

It’s just a resource.  For me, it’s not that important whether you do that or you don’t do that.  I’m kind of neutral on that.  There was a time earlier in my life where it was more important because I think I was trying to elucidate things that mattered to me.  Now, everything is more or less equal - everything matters to me and in another sense nothing matters.  So, to have it just fly past or to grab it for the moment and let it go, this feels appropriate to this time in my life, which is more about letting go of everything – including my own life as I get older and closer to death than I am to birth.  So, it’s more about relinquishing and letting go than it is about keeping or showing, “here’s me” or “here what I hear.” 

When I was younger, it did help me understand my own sense of the world, because I was trying to grasp that.  There was some sense of forming…I was forming.  Now I’m falling apart.  At that point I was still forming.  I was growing.  I was still becoming something instead of not something.  Also, it was an opportunity for me to create a something that was comfortable for me, because there were less places where I was comfortable.  So, I would make these worlds where I could breathe well and I could express myself.  My compositions were a place that I could live rather than always having to live in the worlds of other peoples’ songs and places where I was - in varying degrees – uncomfortable.  It’s like building your own little “huts” or places to play.  “Here’s my idea of a playhouse.  It has a high ceiling and it’s this temperature.”

            Also, most of my pieces are dedicated to something.  A piece is also an acknowledgment.  [You can] go on a walk in a certain time of year and then come home and be filled up with that and hear the song of that.  You can just improvise it and let it go away like the walk goes away or you can write the poem about it or write the piece about it.  In almost a devotional way, you’re saying, “I honor that.”  And also, I want to share that experience without having to talk about it.  I talk about it through the music or through the poem or through the painting.  You can visit that with me even though you weren’t there. 

DM:            Something that is inspiring to me about your path is that you have been able to maintain very long musical relationships with people. 

AL:            These are life-long friends – someone like Bruce Williamson or Mark Miller.  These are people I met forty years ago and we were young and learning together about music.  [We were] finding out about music together and playing each other’s songs.  [We were] finding out about relationships, marriages, divorces, and babies.  I remember Mark – soon after I met him – we went to Yosemite and he had Aaron – who is now thirty-four; my older boy – on his back.  We had only known each other a few months, but we went on this weekend together.  Then, last Sunday, we played a gig together with Aaron who is not three months old anymore. 

So, the reason that they are long musical relationships is because they’re long relationships.  Because we keep producing life energy: heart, joy, challenge, truth. It’s a wellspring that never ends.  It’s still fun and exciting and crazy and beautiful to be together.  And when we play music, it has all that in it.  

Three Way Stop

Sam Yulsman - Rhodes

Danny Meyer - Saxophone

Art Lande - Drums 

(Art Lande is also a great drummer)

This is a video from a performance at Absolute Vinyl in Colorado.

DM:            Were there any important mentors that helped you form your ideas about life and music?

AL:            Well, yeah…my mind just floods.  In the music area, I think of my Dad who was a kind of jazz piano player.  That wasn’t his profession when I was growing up, but he would play every Sunday for a couple of hours and I would lie on the couch and listen.  He would play all of the standards.  They went in me.  I kind of liked it.  I didn’t have to do anything…I would just lay there and listen and every once in a while, I could play a little bit with him.

            Another man we called Uncle that wasn’t really an uncle, but a very close family friend.  He was also a pianist.  He hardly ever played, but he played such gorgeous chords.  He was the station manager of a radio station in New York and he would bring me records – Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner, Marian McPartland.  So, that was a lot of my education of hearing jazz was through the records he’d bring.  Then he’d sit at the piano and he played so different than my Dad – my Dad had this really bombastic style – and he played so gentle and so naturally.  He didn’t even know really what he was doing, but he a great ear and a beautiful touch somehow without much training.  I would just listen to him play.

            Then, my classical teacher was Joe Conn who played with the NBC symphony.  He was a fantastic classical musician.  He was just a friend of the family – he lived down the block.  My Dad was kind of a hard guy, but Joe was so sweet and so nice.  A lesson with Joe, I mean, he had so much knowledge, but he was so generous with me.  I’m a bad student.  I didn’t practice enough.  I’m still bad at arpeggios because I don’t like practicing these hard things that aren’t fun…that aren’t so musical.  I’d hardly practice the arpeggios or this one piece that I didn’t like or was too hard and he’d say, “Oh, well it’s getting better.  You know, things take time.”  And I would feel like a moron.  Like, “I should practice more.  Joe is so nice and he should be telling me I’m full of it and instead he’s saying, ‘It’s ok.’”  It was just the opposite of my Dad who would yell at me.  That generosity was so great and it would inspire me to practice more.  He didn’t make me into some prodigy; he was more interested in how beautiful the melodies were or in bringing out different voices because they sounded nice.  [With him] I played a lot of Chopin and Bach and because he was so into the beauty of it, I could enjoy the music instead of it being about whether I was any good or not.  He would always say it was good even when I played bad.  So, that was a very good environment. 

Also, he was my friend.  I could go over to his house and sit around.  And when I got excited about jazz I could go over to his house and play him things that I like and he would say, “That’s great.  I never learned jazz like that” or “I really liked that piece.”  He was just so encouraging and good-hearted.  It was about the spirit of the music and not just about getting great. 

DM:            Were there any other teachers – maybe as you got older – that were really helpful.

AL:            There was actually a teacher before Joe.  He was a little bit of a hard-ass, but he was good, too.  His name was Morton Estrin.  After Joe, I didn’t study at all for a long time.  I took music in college, but it was more just classes about common practice harmony and stuff like that.  I didn’t take private lessons again until I was twenty-five.  From eighteen until twenty-five I didn’t take a lesson. 

Then, I was living in San Francisco and I was driving by the San Francisco Conservatory and not even knowing why, I pulled my car over and I parked and I went in and there was this class in progress.  [It was being taught by] this guy named Bill Mathieu, who later was called Allaudin Mathieu who was the arranger for Stan Kenton for years and subsequently a teacher at Mills College.  [He was] really a master of harmony and someone who could teach improvisation well and had a lot of knowledge about overtones and things I didn’t really know a lot about.  So, I walked into this class and people were doing this thing called, “News of the Week in Review.”  A person would play a piece and they had to play it about something they had experienced in life.  Like, “I had an argument with my Grandmother” or something like that and during the piece – the improvised piece - they had to say the sentence that told what it was very clearly.  They had to make a commitment to what the piece was about.  It was a fascinating class.  It was really great.  After the class ended, I meekly went up to him...maybe not totally meekly...because I was already playing with Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw and people like that.  But, something hit me about the way that this guy taught and his energy and I said, “I think I could learn something from you if you’d let me” and he said, “Sure, come on.”  Then I studied with him for six months every week.  I mostly learned about voice leading and harmony and overtones and these were really…they completely changed my playing and my perception of music as well as informed the way I teach as well.  [I remember] that when he told me about the overtone series, I got so angry.  It was like, “How could I be a musician for all of the years and nobody ever told me that?”  It’s like the birds and the bees of music.  It’s the science of what is sound.  I was so grateful to him for showing me that. 

I played for him the first lesson and he said, “Well, I’ll never be able to play jazz like you - you’re an amazing jazz player – but you’re only hearing about a quarter of the music you’re playing.  He said, “Play a chord” and I played a chord.   Then he said, “Just sing the second highest note.”  I couldn’t.  Then he said, “Just sing the bottom note.”  I couldn’t.  I could only sing the top one.  Then, he said, “Well, it’s amazing that you play what you’re playing, you don’t even hear it.  Also, you’re missing out on three-quarters of the music.”  And I said, “Wow, I want to hear more.  That sounds exciting.”  So, we worked on all these kind of ear training exercises and physical exercises.  I played five-part Bach fugues and I had to sing all the parts.  He helped me come more into the life…feeling my fingers on the keys and the shapes I was making and understanding the music intellectually and then relating it all to overtones.  It just made it more actual.  That was an explosion for me.  And after six months, he said, “Well, I could teach you counter-point, but you actually understand it perfectly without me giving you all the technical things.  I’ve shown you everything I know and you seem to get it, so have fun now.  Bye.”  So, that was my time with Allaudin. 

We’ve stayed really close friends and he comes when I play concerts near where he lives in Northern California and he kisses me after the sets and tells me how wonderful it is.  If I show him my chorals or something that came really out of his lessons, he just laughs and says, “These are all jokes.”  He said, “You trick our ears and then you make it seem like something is happening, but you’re making jokes.”  He was just playing through them and laughing the whole time and I thought that was really fun, because he basically opened up that world for me.  So I’d say he was the most important teacher I’ve ever had.

Then, there are all the players I’ve played with and continue to play with that have things to teach me.  The famous ones…Gary Peacock and Charlie Haden,Tom Rainey and Ralph Alessi…I’ve learned something from all of them.   Even the ones that are much younger than me, like you or Amy Shelly.  They teach me something whether it’s patience or simplicity.  [There are] all kinds of mentors.  Even when a person knows hardly anything, they might be more adept at something than you.  They have more insight into energy or wildness or low notes or something [laughs].  “Yeah, man…this person really plays some low notes.  So, these times of playing in bands, with great players, touring, or recording, you learn some things that you can take with you.  It’s a cast of thousands, actually.

DM:            Is there anything you would like to say about your time playing with some of the better-known players?  Maybe what you learned from playing with that kind of player.

AL:            Well, the bass players, for instance.  I was thinking of both Charlie [Haden] and Gary [Peacock].  Although I’m not saying that those were the most successful collaborations.  As far as successful collaborations go, I think of Bill Douglas in San Francisco, Johannes Weidenmueller, and Dwight Kilian who I played with a lot longer and went a lot deeper and further with.  But, just the sense with those bassists that they were the “Lords of the Underworld” and that I had no idea what notes that they were ever going to play or even what beats they might play on – Kent McLagan is another one.  So, it really forced me to be collaborative.  It wasn’t good enough for me to know the song or read the chart.  I had to actually be present to deal with what they were making.  I had to be totally on it, listening, paying attention, being smart, and leaving space.  “Ok, he did that, what am I going to do?  I have no idea, so I’m just going to be silent.  Now, I’m just going to hold this note and see what happens.”  They forced me into present time of listening and working with what they put out there because they were so inventive…so courageous about their choices.  So, that was really inspiring. 

            The drummers…Tom Rainey, Eddie Marshall, Alan Hall, and Zakir Hussain…Some of these people are so adept with rhythm, so really they can play anything against anything – Tony Moreno is another one.  So, if they are taking eight bars or something and I don’t pay amazing attention and really keep track of what’s going on, I have absolutely no clue of where I am.  [It’s surprising] how easy it is to get thrown because they’re so amazing at playing what they play and keeping form.  I have to be completely focused and if not, in one second I’m completely lost. 

Eddie Marshall was so kind to me when I was young.  He’d play sixteen bars and I’d come in on the wrong beat and then afterwards, I’d say, “Eddie, how do you put up with me” and he’d say, “You’re doing great.  Everything sounds great.  Don’t worry about it” Again, that kindness…when I knew that I was barely hanging on for dear life to play with this guy. 

I remember having a rehearsal here at my house with Tom Rainey and in the middle of his solo realizing I had no clue and then coming in and him getting kind of mad.  I realized that if I’m going to play during his solo, I better play my entrance correctly because he’s building this whole thing based on the fact that I’m going to play my kicks in the right places.  So, either I lay out and just admit that I have no chance or I really do it well.  He’s building his house upon that foundation.  He’s so skilled and also so dynamically and emotionally involved in what he’s playing that if I come in on the “and of one” instead of “one” that the whole solo makes no sense.  It doesn’t work.  

            I was thinking of Chet Baker.  It was not that long before he died and he wasn’t well, but just the way that he would sit by me when I soloed and listen to my solo with the same intensity that he played.  No difference.  That it was the music and it was the piece and that he valued my contribution at such an essence level. 

Also, just how integrated he was.  You know, this thing about singing through your instrument.  That all through the evening, I couldn’t tell whether he was playing his trumpet or singing.  I play a lot with my eyes closed and I would think, “Oh, Chet’s singing now” and it would be the trumpet.  I was tricked every time.  It was amazing how completely he had made the trumpet his voice so that it sounded exactly like when he sang.  That was unbelievable to me.  Also, I could try to track his melodies – and he’s more or less a mainstream player – but so original, so intuitive in his playing.  You could never pigeonhole him.  I would think, “Oh, I know what he’s going to do here.  He’s going to hit a G.”  He would never hit the G.  I was wrong ever time and I loved being wrong every time.  It meant that I hadn’t played with him enough, but it also meant that he wasn’t just formulaic.  Then, when he would hit the “Ab” instead of the “G” I would say, “Oh, of course.  It’s a more alive note.  He’s going to play that!”   But I would be wrong most of the time and I can usually intuit these things.  I loved it, because it meant that he was completely in the moment.  Then, what he ended up doing would be way more eloquent than what you would think he would do.  That gave me tremendous respect for him as an improviser.  All that.  The whole thing. 

The humbleness of him and Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz, and Ron Miles.  These people are so humble.  It just breaks my heart in the best of ways.  To be recording with Kenny Wheeler and have him play this killer solo…this unbelievable solo… and to have him say, “Well, this take is probably ruined by a car horn or something, because this is the first thing I’ve played in this session that is worth anything and this probably won’t be usable.”  Then we listened to the take and we couldn’t use it for some reason and he said, “Told you!” 

These people that everybody admires and wishes they could play like and they just think they’re just so flawed that they don’t deserve to be playing at all.  They can’t imagine why anyone would want to listen to them.  Chet saying after the gig, “Why are the clapping?  I played so badly.”  Lee Konitz…same kind of thing.  How completely self-effacing they are.  It’s totally amazing to them that anyone would even want to play with them or listen to what they do.  These things are inspiring.  They help me. 

Or Barr Phillips…wow.  Doing a whole tour of improvised music with him and how challenging it was to play with him, because he doesn’t play like a bass player.  He doesn’t hold any tones.  He plays melodies the whole time.  “Well, how do I play with that?”  To spend those weeks trying to figure out how to intersect with that and work with that…this kind of earthquake that’s going down below you.  Dave Holland is similar.  These bassists that play a lot of motion...Paul Warburton.  How do I stabilize in the face of this fantastic musician who’s doing something I’m not used to?  How do I find balance while playing with this person?  You just have to be present and keep sensing how to make it work.   They’re such forces and they have such a clear way of playing.  They’re kind of uncompromising…it’s just the way they play.  I want to be able to make music with them, but I can’t run my old stuff.  I have to find what really works with that. 

And while I’m doing that process, Barr is staying at my house and then one morning, he takes Otis [Art’s son].  Otis is one or two-years old at the time.  We wake up in the morning and Otis is gone with Barr and there’s a note from Barr saying, “I took Otis out for an adventure,” and he’s gone all day.  I thought that was incredible.  He comes home and says he says, “We had a great time.”  Otis was smiling.  It was amazing that he had made that bond with my son.  And then Otis ends up becoming a bass player.  Maybe it’s because of that day.  Who knows?

DM:            What are your feelings as to what we do as musicians - and in particular, as musicians who play art music – why that is something that is important to society?

AL:            Well, I’m not sure that it’s important to society, actually.  I just think that it seems to serve a need – no matter how small – a specific need in some people to express their being in a really direct and poetic way.  People – for some of us, it’s important to have a potent and direct way to tell how life is…in action.  To enact who they are and what they’re sensing in a form…whether it’s painting or poetry…and the arts are a way of doing that.  [They] are languages that are… how can I say? - in some ways more specific and in some ways less specific than normal conversation.  So, we need a kind of non-verbal – and I think of poetry as being non-verbal just because we’re using language as sound and using language in sometimes non-linear ways.  Were we can just kind of tell the truth of our existence without having to tell it in linear language way.  And then we can have these discussions in these forms, like in music or in mixed media – mixed arts and we can commune in that way.  So, in that sense, for those of us who have that need and joy in doing that, it’s a way of us getting together.  And then for the people who are not participating directly in that language, for them to get a chance to be a part of that through witnessing it, whether it’s reading something or going to a performance or hearing a CD or whatever.  To participate in that discussion by allowing the things to play on their inner beings – emotional and some other parts of their being that aren’t purely intellectual or practical.  That’s what I think the other side is…the work or commercial world of things, where things are done.  You know, you do this and you get that.  But these things are not about that.  They’re more about, “What is it like to be alive?” and they’re not particularly goal-oriented.  They’re an exchange of energy in a kind of simpler state.  Kind of like animals – they’re physical and emotional…I don’t know…aesthetic or something…they’re not practical and their not “getting stuff done.”  That’s how I see it.  So, in that sense, it does fill a need, however again, I’m not sure it’s important, but it is essential somehow. 

DM:            So then, largely what’s important in society – in the relationship between the arts and society - is the connections that people are allowed to make through the process.

AL:            Exactly, the present time that you can enter of, “that makes me feel like that” and to acknowledge that.  If you’re doing it, you can say, “It makes me feel like that, therefore I make a loud sound.”  That you’re actually, in the moment, able to respond in very primal ways in the communal arts like that.  And in the private arts of painting and writing, then you can say, “I’m going to put more yellow onto this canvas – it makes me feel good when it drips and it looks like that – that’s what I feel like doing.”  Or when you look at it, you feel the freedom in the expression or the joy or the pain, whatever it is that you can connect with.  It’s more open ended.  It’s not what your supposed to do…you’re allowed to sense it in a more personal way than, “turn that cam-shaft so that the car will run.”  Which is very directly about getting a job done – you do this and that happens.  But when you throw the yellow paint, one person might feel joy and another person might feel disgust and another person might feel very little at all.  This open-endedness seems to be part of our essential humanity. 

DM:            So, then how can we continue to develop the connections that we’re able to make in society?  I’m frustrated, because I’ve noticed that a lot of improvised music is still performed in bars and clubs and I think that is more representative of where we’ve been than where we are now.

AL:            I agree with you, but that’s changing.  That’s not where I mostly play, for instance - even internationally.  I play at people’s homes, at little community centers, churches and rooms.  [In] New York, more and more, there are just rooms.  It’s just a room.  There is nothing in it.  It’s just a place where people can make things.  In Santa Fe, my friend, Bruce Dunlop has a place that is called, “Gig.”  It’s just a room.  [Also] realize that we don’t need alcohol and all of these distractions.  We don’t need commerce.  Just charge $10 or $5 or whatever people can pay. 

            I’m doing a concert series at a church in Boulder with the Boy/Girl Band called “Deep Listening.”  People can come to the church and sit and feel things through music.  Just as they would go to meditate in a church for spiritual reasons. 

            So, I think these things are changing.  It’s up to the artists and then the people who have spaces – all you need is a space, right?  People just need to start asking things like, “Hey, would you like to use your furniture store in the evenings for poetry.  It’s happening, actually.  It’s happening more and more.

            So, the creativity has to not only be in the music or the poetry or the drama, but also in answering the questions, “How do we want to present this?”  And we can ask our friends and neighbors, “Hey, would it be fun for you to sponsor this or let us use your space?  Then, people can see your store.  You can have the fun thing of having music in your store or your house or your garage.  Many kinds of spaces are being used like that.  It’s moved away from being about getting away from something – going to the bar and getting drunk.  Instead of it being a relief from normal life, it can function now more like a retreat like we do for mediation or spiritual awakening or joining.  I think of all these as kind of churches.  Places where stuff can happen and people can commune together in these very simple ways.  They’re not doctrinaire, which is what I like about it.  I mean, hopefully their not – I guess they are sometimes, but because it’s not about language and its so open how its interpreted, if you just make noises or play music or just say words or do movements, its not trying to convince someone, “don’t believe in this” or "believe in that."  It’s a lot more open ended. 

<That's part 1 of my interview with Art Lande.  Stay tuned for part 2.  Have a great day.  ~ Danny>