And So Flows The River

We were knee deep in the recording sessions before I thought to organize the music by genre, and I’m not sure why I decided right then that it was important. After all, we were committed to the tunes, and it would have been shocking if we realized we had too many original tunes, not enough early music, or that our idea of what a song could be was totally off the mark. Then what?

I made my three columns (Early Music, New, and Songs) and they were notably even. There are always questions. Lachrymae by John Dowland is also the song, Flow my Teares. Does it go in the early music column or the song column? It is a piece that I’ve known as a song for fifty years, and it is also one of the most famous lute solos of all time. It has been played by as many lutenists as the Recercada Primera and Segunda by Diego Ortiz have been played by gamba players.

There are a gazillion YouTube videos of the Ortiz. But none of them have Yousif and Ronn. The world has heard the Bach Sinfonia once or twice. In fact, when we were comparing notes on a road trip, we discovered that we both heard it for the first time in 1968 - on the album Switched on Bach, thank you Wendy Carlos. But Ronn’s arrangement is a revelation.

Why? Why record them? Why record Over the Rainbow? Or Shenandoah and The Water is Wide? I Wonder as I Wander? Beach Spring? Sometimes it’s because Ronn has walked into our rehearsal with an arrangement so beautiful and so perfect for our two instruments, that we have to share it. Sometimes it’s personal - the first time I ever played Over the Rainbow, just a single gamba playing the melody, was in my father’s hospital room in the weeks before he died, ten years ago.

There are songs that the gamba can sing. Some of those songs run deep in our memories, some of them speak of home, or childhood, or mystery. And we love them.

Where do the Gymnopédies fit? I remember the first time I heard them, and I was struck by the way that these three incredibly simple pieces of music could fire the imagination so completely. I am sure that the picture in my mind’s eye, is not the same as Ronn’s when we are playing them. We are neither an accordian, nor piano.

Each of the original pieces tells a story. W. Lee’s Reel is a tribute to Ronn’s father, who deeply preferred W. Lee to Wilbur, and whose adventurous life took him from West Virginia to World War II to Costa Rica and then to Maryland. Clear Creek harkens back to vacations in West Virginia, traveling down a long dirt road to Ronn’s grandmother’s house where Uncle Austin took that young man under his wing, teaching him some of the most important lessons in life. Some deeply practical. You should ask him…
We sit together on Saturday mornings. We’re preparing for concerts, or bringing new material, or testing new ideas about old pieces and sometimes Ronn reaches into his backpack and pulls out a new tune. It is always remarkable. Usually it doesn’t have a name. There’s a place in Cora, Wyoming, Where Mountains Meet the Sky. It is a huge vista, where the light changes, the sky goes on forever, and the quiet is unparalleled, and that’s what I heard when we started to play that piece.

I wrote Liane’s Ocean when my daughter was little and we were visiting a friend at the beach. Those days held all of the glorious mystery that one could hope for - a halcyon summer that would not last. Liane’s song lives in my memory, describing a place where time does not exist, with silence saying more than music ever can.

Finally, Greenmount Avenue.

When my world fell apart in 2014, I started working at a church in Baltimore. I have a choice every morning of driving north on an expressway and then passing through lovely neighborhoods with excellent private schools, or going through town and up Greenmount Avenue. Most days I go through town.

 It’s usually about 7:30am when I turn right on Biddle Street, where the row houses are abandoned, with boarded up doors, missing windows, and the roofs long since collapsed. If you go a little further north on Greenmount you can score drugs in the vacant lot near 25th Street. Or stop at Mimi’s Liquors and grab a beer. Sometimes the prostitutes are coming home, still dressed for work. And the kids are waiting for the bus.

On Greenmount Avenue there’s beauty everywhere, and despair. Helplessness, and rage. There are things you will see that you will never forget. I chose the 16th century French tune for this set of variations, Belle Qui Tiens Ma Vie - learned long ago, when destruction was all around, and when the most terrible and most beautiful things lived side by side.

We are the sum of our experiences. Our lives moving like water, from the creeks in West Virginia to the streets of Baltimore. Music is our language, motion our friend, and our instruments, home. We chose this music with intention, and so flows the river.

The Process
Ronn and I have both lived in Maryland for most of our lives. Ellicott City is the town he calls home, and for me it’s Crownsville, outside of Annapolis. It’s easy for us to rehearse together, he jumps in the car, and drives 25 minutes east. I make him a cup of tea and have something delicious waiting on the table. He is always on time, and the tea is always hot. We have the good fortune of being able to play together regularly, unheard of in the lives of musicians whose bands are made up of people spread across this big country, but we do not have a percussionist in the neighborhood.

We were looking for the right person for this project and I made some calls. Jan Hagiwara, a remarkable fellow musician in New York recommended Yousif Sheronick. And incredibly, he was available not only in the week we were recording, but also for a Sunday rehearsal, two weeks before the sessions were to start. Ronn and I headed up the New Jersey Turnpike on a Saturday evening in my 2005 Mercedes wagon (with a six CD changer in the glovebox - perfect for a road trip,) and we spent the night in a hotel right off the highway near Newark. The next morning, with limited breakfast options nearby, we sped off to The Parkway Cafe in Scarsdale, leaving the hotel early, and hoping for a Sunday morning miracle.

It appeared that nothing had changed that fabulous, tiny, corner restaurant since the mid 1950’s. There was a long counter with red plastic covered stools, a row of tiny tables by the window, hash browns sizzling on the grill, and the fanciest thing on the menu was a Greek omelet. Indeed, the potatoes were glorious, the sausage was perfectly browned, and the eggs were delicious.

Then, because we were apparently on a universe-approved-mission, the annual antique car show was being set up on the street next to the cafe. I love old cars, and the people who have done every little thing to make that 1942 Packard beautiful. After chatting and ogling, we sped off to our rehearsal in Tuckahoe, the town next door, not knowing anything except that Yousif had a reputation for being incredibly creative and perhaps most importantly, a great collaborator.

His studio was just big enough for the three of us, and on the left was a wall of shelves, filled with a staggering variety of drums from around the world. Our rehearsal at his house was intentional. We didn’t want him to come to Maryland with some of his instruments that might work. We wanted to be in his studio, where every option for sound and timbre was available.

The act of making a CD is both emotional and practical. We love the music. We arrange it. We tinker. We take the musical idea perhaps a little farther than we should, and we pull back. We think about each second of sound, and we craft the entire 55 minutes. We hope that when each track starts, a new journey begins, and that when you are finished listening, you will remember those places you visited, and how you felt while you were there.

Our goal that day was to expand the colors and textures, to intensify the ideas inside the music, and create an even wider sonic field. With all of his instruments, and that great well of experience, we were able to try one drum, and then another, and then another.

Those hours were a revelation. Ronn and I had been working on these tunes for many months, some for a couple of years, and we clearly understand the limitations of working as a duo. While there are many sounds that can be made by a lute and a viola da gamba (some conventional and some at the other end of the spectrum), in the end, there are still only two instruments. That day, we were able to take the musical gestures that existed, and bring an additional dimension. It could be a little. It could be a lot. It could imply the Middle East, he could bring thunder, sound could shimmer or wail.

Did I mention that Yousif can cook? And has a wonderful family?

We were back on the road in the afternoon, thinking about the day, talking, and listening back in our heads to the avenues we had explored.

On the Sunday before our sessions began, Lindsey Nelson, our executive producer who had flown in a few days earlier from LA, planned a scrumptious dinner. Dan Merceruio, our beloved producer, arrived from North Carolina and Brian Doser, our engineer, flew in from Boston.

Ronn and I sat in the concert space in Barn House and played everything that was going to be recorded. Lindsey cooked. Dan took notes. The dogs slept. We caught up with each other’s lives over dinner, and set a schedule for the week.

Each day, those of us staying in Annapolis met at 8:00 in the morning, filled up on coffee, tea and whatever delicious thing was coming off the stove, and listened to music. One day it was Pablo Aslan and Argentinian Tango. Another day was Bonnie Raitt. We turned up the volume on Fjärlin and The Flowers of the Forest by Ensemble Galilei and marveled at the chaos and the emotional depth. We listened for content and production values. We listened for the things that made us cry. We sometimes had music in the background, and sometimes we all stopped everything to hear that thing that was just plain brilliant.

On Monday, when we arrived at Tonal Park, we were ready to hold just one thing in our minds - the piece of music before us. Charlie Pilzer, the very first producer I worked with in my adult musical life, built the recording studio in 2010 with every detail in mind. The space, the stone walls, the wood, the colors, the microphones and isolation booth - the kitchen. And Mike Petillo the studio manager, was there to trouble shoot and unlock a treasure trove of microphones.

Brian and Dan chose the microphones, worked on placement, found the perfect spot for each of us to sit, changed it around, tried something different, and in the end, created a rich and beautiful soundscape in which our instruments could bloom.

Lindsey hired Alexandra Salomon to manage the day to day details and she showed up with a notebook full of restaurant menus so we could order lunch in a timely fashion.

We started each session with the most challenging piece on the schedule for that day. And we knew that it would be humbling, and would take hours. It would take as many hours as it was going to take. That is a luxury. A glorious, fabulous luxury. Ronn and I were well prepared. We were not winging it. We were not struggling with technical difficulties. We were not arranging on the fly. We just needed time to make the music sparkle and we had five full days.

Yousif came down to record on Tuesday and Wednesday. We used every minute. Alexandra catered a surprise birthday party for Lindsey on Wednesday night and we filled Tonal Park with friends.

On Friday morning Bernard McWilliams joined our merry band to document the day. He fit right in. He was invisible (and very, very quiet) as he shot the photos that so poignantly describe our work together. We finished that afternoon with Ronn recording Lachrymae by John Dowland - a perfect last tune. By Saturday morning, everyone had scattered to the four winds. The tracking was done, the editing was coming, the mixing and mastering would be in Charlie’s hands, and through the work and the chatter, the laughter and the tears, we had brought forth the secret life of the music we love so much.