Artist's Statement
Down through the ages, music has been a carrier of memory.
Before the written word, music (along with pictorial art, sculpture and textiles) was one of the prime methods of preserving cultural knowledge from generation to generation.
The spoken word was rhymed, rhythmicized, and given a melody, thus making it more memorable. Everything from epic tales to cooking recipes to instructions on agriculture and animal husbandry were carried along this way.
Music has also been a motivator: to war, to work, to worship, to love. It also speaks to parts of our experience which are untranslatable into words. In its purest form, it has the possibility of giving us a glimpse of a view of reality which is multi-dimensional, harmonic, and fractal.
I have always been moved by individual artists, whether alone or in small groups, who were capable of embodying some sense of this magic in such a way that, if the lights were to go out and the grid were to go down, the magic would still be there. Like storytelling around a campfire.
Some of my most profound experiences as a listener have had just this quality. Keith Jarrett alone at the piano, Jeff Buckley with his Fender Telecaster in a small cafe, Joni Mitchell & drummer Brian Blade performing as a duo in a small club, Sheila Dhar singing ragas in a downtown New York City loft. And many, many unknown artists playing for tiny audiences in living rooms around the world.
It is just this sort of embodiment that I aspire to as a musician. To put what I know, what I believe, what I love, and what I wish for into my song, and to do it with whatever is at hand: sometimes just me and my voice, alone in a chapel, a cave, on a mountaintop or in a field.
And sometimes with you.