The unique voice of Mr. Manzarek

Ray Manzarek left us yesterday. Ray has a special place in music history. He had a unique and uncommon voice in a very understated way. In many ways he was the sound of the Doors. Swap out Krieger or Densmore and the sound is different, but it's still the Doors. Swap out Jim Morrison or Ray Manzarek, and it's just another band. It's no longer the Doors without those two. Jim got the headlines but Ray made the sound of that band with his perfect foundation for Jim's velvet voice. Remove Ray from behind Morrison, and I don't think Jim commands the same place in history.

Ray sounded like no other keyboardist. And frankly, no other keyboardist ever adopted his sound or approach. It's rare that someone that unique and popular does not inspire imitation like Wakeman, Jan Hammer, Jon Lord, Keith Emerson, Chick, McCoy, Herbie and others did. He was a bit like Herbie Nichols or Dominico Scarlatti - a very different voice in his time...appreciated, but rarely imitated and not stylisticaly influential like his peers. His individuality was unquestionable, he copied nobody and had the rarest of gifts - the ability to speak authentically from within.

Manzarek was the epitome of excellence in accompaniment. He "got it" when it came to making the lead voice sound great. He kept his foundation fresh but never got in the way. Like Hendrix, he made his instrument sound different and went places that others never even thought of. Check out the energy he provides in Touch Me, behind Curtis Amy's sax solo. Also listen to how he weaves a harpsichord behind Morrison's vocals. Who else would conceive of that color in a rock tune?

Who else would go on national TV with his keyboards half disassembled so that he could tweak them if necessary to get the perfect sound? Ray's gift was making the band and soloist sound amazing. His goals were clear, and he accomplished them with rare consistency.

Listen to his high-speed vibrato Rhodes mood setting in Riders on the Storm. Without Ray, it's just another tune. With Ray, it's an all time classic. His solo on that tune demonstrates a unique authenticity in both the rock and jazz idioms. Others tried hard to crossover between the two music forms. Ray just went there naturally, without exposing a bias towards one or the other.

Check out how he sets Whiskey Bar up with a polka feel, complete with an accordion/harpsichord tonality to support Morrison's playful lyric. It's hip and very courageous. Like Stevie Wonder's Village Ghetto Land, Ray introduces a sonic pallet that should be out of place for the tune and the musical idiom, but he makes it sound completely at home and natural. Again, take Ray out and...just another tune. Add Ray and it's magic!

Ray was also unique in his ability to cover the baselines with his trusty Rhodes Piano Bass. Left hand bass was unheard of in rock keyboard circles, still is to this day. But Ray covered it perfectly for his entire career.  His time and feel were perfect and the groove was always solid, alive, but never intrusive.

Ray left behind a great legacy and I would expect his influence, and the appreciation for his rare gifts, to increase over time. As a musician, I envy his natural ability to speak from a different place...as Ray and nobody else. And his courage to take the music to places that others never imagined. Most of all, I respect his sensibilities to do this while also supporting one of the great vocalists of his time, never in the way, but always enhancing that voice. Morrison would never be Morrison without Ray. I get that, and I suspect many others will in the years ahead.

The Finish Line

The tougher the goal, the more fulfilling it is to reach it. Goals drive us to reach new heights. As Thomas Jefferson said "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal."

Running a marathon is among the toughest goals I've reached for in recent years.  26.2 miles is a very long distance to travel by foot. Occasionally I will track that distance in my car for perspective - New Haven to Weston, CT for example - and it seems like forever....in the car.

The legendary runner Bill Rodgers won both the NYC and prestigious Boston Marathons, four times each. This was his perspective - "The marathon can humble you."

I'm a late entry into this game. I attempted my very first marathon at the age of 56, in St. Croix, where the heat and humidity bake runners. I signed up for the half, felt good and figured that I'd give the full marathon a shot. I remember about 16 miles in, realizing that I was going to figure out a way to get this thing done. I crossed the finish line in 4:08 and I was hooked! No goal had felt more distant prior, which made it feel that much more rewarding to achieve it.

Most runners are winding down their running careers by age 56 but I was just getting started. I figured you never really know what you're capable of doing until you give it a shot. In the words of the great Michelangelo “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

My obsession with the marathon has led me to run several over the past two years leading to my 10th in Miami yesterday. However this one  didn't seem to be in the cards after a string of issues derailed my training. Early in January I got a high fever from pneumonia, got delirious, blacked out and fell which created a bloody hole in my head and sent me to the hospital ER to get treated. This all dropped my lung capacity and stopped my training for over two weeks. When I finally got back on the road I quickly suffered a bad ankle sprain and ligament damage a quarter mile into a 15k race that I continued to run through leading to a foot that I could barely walk on, let alone do a marathon with. The marathon was just a week away and I doubted that I would be in position to participate.

Enter Dr. Andrew Rice, my podiatrist. Like me, he loves to run. He also recognizes that guys my age, also his age, don't have a lot of miles left in the tank. "Run while you still can" he's told me repeatedly. He connected my goal with my ankle condition and rushed me into a week of physical therapy which reduced the swelling and got me to the start line without pain. They don't come any better than Dr. Rice!

I started the race not knowing how far I could go. I had visions of dropping out after a few miles, or flipping over to the half-marathon finish line and calling it a day. I kept fearing that the ankle would swell at any  moment or I would just run out of lung capacity and have to stop. But I pressed on. I ran slow, and had to stop and walk a few times due to my lung capacity, but I made it. The sight of that finish line at 4:14 was as beautiful a site as I've ever seen in a race.

While in Miami, I also met legendary marathon runner Bart Yasso. Bart is also around my age and he offered a quote that drove me through those 26.2 miles yesterday. "There will come a day when I can no longer run a marathon....but today is not that day."

I must have repeated that phrase 20 times during the race. It got me to the finish line and I hope it gets me to a few more. Thanks, Dr. Rice. Thanks, Bart Yasso.

Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook Benefit Run

Perhaps the Mayan calendar was accurate after all. We're still physically walking the earth today but the recent event in Sandy Hook makes me question just how alive we still are.

I participated in a benefit run for Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning. About 125 runners showed up on a blustery cold first day of Winter to show solidarity and raise funds for the children of Sandy Hook. The event attracted runners from several states including champion ultramaraton runner David James. Athletes love to use their gifts to support worthy causes, and this was unquestionably a perfect candidate. Kudos to Brian Vanderheiden for quickly organizing this event, which raised over $5,000. The world needs more people like Brian.

Brian advised us all to put out our iPods back in the car and use the 12 mile run to get to know each other and share our stories, about life, and about the Sandy Hook tragedy. Good call.

We kicked off at 9 AM running the first 26 seconds in total silence before proceeding to run the cold, barren course over the hills of northern Connecticut. To avoid creating more noise in a town that is already overrun, Brian organized the race to start a few towns upstate in Roxbury and finish at the center of Sandy Hook. Although grey skies, and barren trees painted a languid landscape, the inner beauty of rural Connecticut was conspicuous. 

As I began the run, I couldn't get the vision of the massacre out of my mind. I pictured Adam Lanza, still a child himself, bursting into a classroom that was filled with bright young cherub faces full of pre-holiday joy with smiles on their faces, and then unleashing the wrath of a military grade weapon en mass. I couldn't stop visualizing the horror on the childrens' faces in those few moments that bridged their innocence to  instant morbidity.  All their hopes, dreams, joys, and relationships gone forever. Extended families decimated forever. There are no nightmares that even approach the horror that took place.

I imagined myself as one of the parents of those children. How would I feel if I dropped my daughter off for school one day and she never came home again? Unfathomable. I thought about the joy, love, happiness, pride and challenges that Deb and I have shared with Danielle - what if none of that ever happened? How incredibly empty our lives would have been by comparison. What if we never got to know Danielle's friends and their parents - some of the most lasting relationships of our lives? Would our marriage have even survived such a catastrophic event?

About 3 miles in I met Joyce. Like me, she has kids that define her life. She talked about her son, a strong swimmer, who recently did a triathlon with her. I told her how proud I was that my daughter had started running 5Ks. Then we touched on the tragedy and what the hell would we do if that ever happened? Joyce paused and then said that a part of her actually hoped that yesterday would be the actual apocalypse.....it would forever numb the pain that we're all feeling.

At mile 10, we stopped at the bridge into town to wait for the other runners. Brian had planned for all of us to run into Sandy Hook together as a sign of solidarity. While we were waiting, a woman was running past us in the opposite direction with her pitbull Grace. She stopped and told us that she lives in Sandy Hook and her son attends the Elementary School. She used to run in town but she can't take the pandemonium that has overrun Sandy Hook: 

"Most people mean well but we can't even go to the store to get milk. People are taking each other's pictures in front of the memorials. I'm sorry but there are no Sandy Hook T-shirts for sale. I wish it would quiet down so we can get back to our lives and sort through this."

The runners finally lined up behind a Fire Truck that escorted us the final two miles into town playing Amazing Grace. We ran in silence, perceiving the increasing solemnity of the town as we neared the center. 

When we reached town, we saw the memorials - hundreds of Teddy Bears, Christmas trees decorated with ornaments in tribute of the slain children, messages of love and support from all over the world. At that moment, Satan reached his claws deep into my chest and tore my heart out. Tears started to flow from my eyes as I saw the faces of the children and the empty arms of all the teddy bears who were now all homeless. I looked around and most of the other runners were in a similar state, not many dry eyes. You can't help but be emotionally overwhelmed. 

I now understand the decimated look on President Obama's face Sunday evening when he stared at the same ghosts that I was seeing. Evil of this magnitude is truly difficult to digest and comprehend.

One of the runners' fathers was kind enough to drive several of us back to Roxbury to get our cars. We passed the Southbury Training Institute along the way. He told us that it's nearly empty now. Funding for mental health has dried up. The deficit is too high and austerity calls for available funding to go to defense, more guns, less compassion for those who need help the most. So they go unassisted, some of them dangerous to society. Kind of a fitting ending message for today's journey. 

I got in my car and cried my way back home. I'm so glad that I was able to participate in this event and help the children of Sandy Hook in some tiny way, but I doubt that I'll ever see life the same way again. Perhaps the Mayans were right after all.

Marathon Long Run

Few things are as therapeutic as the "long run" in marathon training. Two plus hours of solitude where your blood is flowing vigorously through every inch of your body, you're one with nature, accepting both her gifts and challenges, and you can focus deeply on the music in your earphones and your thoughts with no distractions. 

You feel incredibly alive while also getting your body and mind conditioned to sustained physical pain in pursuit of one of the greatest challenges in sports - 26.2 miles. It's a time to reflect on many things in life - work, play, family, and relationships. It brings peace to your world - it's magic!

Weston Long Run

Quassy

Just back from probably the most miserable racing experience I've ever had - at the Rev3 Olympic Triathlon in Middlebury, CT. The rain, wind, and cold combined to present the greatest challenge I've yet faced in a race.


The swim went OK, my pace continues to improve and I felt comfortable in the water. However, after we  rounded the last red buoy and I could see the shore in the distance, it just felt like forever to finally get to the transition. Mentally, I was visualizing the impending agony of pulling off the wetsuit and getting on the bike for 26 miles of tough hills in the pouring rain.


On the bike, from the beginning to the end it was persistent rain and an endless parade of hills. People have told me that Quassy is a tough bike course, and the weather just exacerbated the challenge to another level. On the seemingly few occasions when we hit flat land, it was typically at higher elevations where the wind was gusting and almost blowing me off the road. Usually the downhills are fun and a great opportunity to pick up your pace. However, they weren't fun when you were on dangerous rain-soaked roads and your brakes were totally non-responsive. It was our version of Quassy's amusement park thrills - heading down a hill at 40 mph in the wind and rain with no brakes! Athlete #901 summed it up best around mile 22 when she turned to me and said "This sucks!"

Off the bike, the run initially felt great. The rain had lightened to a drizzle and the route began relatively  flat. However, by mile three, we were headed back up some long hills and it started to pour again - just to remind us that this was a finish line that we were going to really appreciate.




During the race, I was thinking about how all of the athletes are facing the same conditions. We're all reaching for the goal that we've been working so hard to prepare for, and the weather, albeit miserable, is not going to prevent us from getting there. We probably all had crappy bike splits today, but the playing field was level and it's a race that none of us are likely to forget anytime soon.


This finish line felt more rewarding than most!

Racing is exactly like life in that regard. We face challenges every day and we need to persist and adapt to achieve our goals. Not all projects at work have the perfect combination of resources to meet the goal, but we adapt and persist. There have been countless musical performances where the crowd is unresponsive, or the musicians aren't clicking, but we adapt and persist. Personal and family relationships often get strained and go through very difficult times, but we evolve and persist.


If every project was perfect, and every gig was amazing, and every relationship was consistently fulfilling and without strain, and every race was sunny and gorgeous, it wouldn't feel nearly as rewarding as it does when you need to struggle through adversity to achieve your goal. That's a big part of what makes life so challenging, and frustrating, yet incredibly fulfilling. We work through the obstacles, regroup, and arrive at the next challenge that much better prepared. It's all about the journey!


My goal today was to win my division....I placed third.

Miami Fun!

Just got back from the Nautica South Beach Olympic Triathlon. What a blast this race was!

First off, the location is perfect for a northerner's late Winter escape. The beach is endless and peaceful. The water temperature couldn't be more perfect, and the water is crystal clear albeit very salty. I stretched the trip into 6 days and got plenty of open water swimming in while I was there. Ocean Drive has  a countless string of hotel restaurants for dining and drinking - I didn't have a bad meal at any of them. Tobacco women parade up and down the drive with a good selection of cigars to top off a great meal. If you enjoy people watching, Ocean Drive is a treat!

As for the race, it was a fast and fun course. The swim was amazing; the ocean was relatively still on Sunday morning when we started just before 7 AM. As we were swimming the 1,500m length, the sun was coming up on our left which made for a breathtaking morning experience to start the race. The ocean swim left plenty of room for athletes to swim without much contact. Although my time was not great, 42 min, the experience made for a peaceful start to the race.

My bike split was the best I've yet done in a Tri - 21mph over the 25 mile course. It's Miami....and flat. The biggest hills were the causeway bridges. Good crowds were along the course cheering us on and keeping us motivated. I got to pass several cyclists on the bike leg as I caught up from my poor swim.  The course was very similar to the ING Miami Marathon course I did in January although it was a lot easier on the Kestrel than it was on foot!

The run was a steamy out and back along the beach and I got through it just in time as the Miami heat and humidity was firing up as the morning progressed. My run time was good - 8:13 pace, which is borderline acceptable for the final stage of a long Tri. Overall I placed 10th in my division (out of 26), which is not awful but definitely not as good as I would have liked. I need to work more on all three sports, especially the swim.

I stayed in South Beach for a few days after the race. Took in a Yankee game at the beautiful new Marlins ballpark (after first going to the wrong stadium and missing 5 innings). Interestingly, there appeared to be more Yankee fans than Marlins fans. Hopefully the new ballpark will increase local interest and fan support for the Marlins.

With each trip to Miami, my affinity for that city increases. It's a multi-cultural city that has a unique combination of Latin and Jewish roots. Unlike LA, which dominated my racing season last year, Miami is closer and South Beach is a perfect place for open water swimming, dining and shopping. You don't need a car to have a great time as there is plenty to do within walking distance. Like LA however, if you do get into a car, be prepared to sit...and sit...and sit...in traffic.

Both winter races that I've done this year in Miami are definitely on the list for 2013.

My Musical Father

Music has been the foundation of my life since I was 13 years old. Through the decades of study and appreciation, one man has given me the best path to pursue my love of this art form - Miles Davis.

Miles has always led me to what's relevant in music, generation after generation. His bands have always featured the greatest, most relevant artists of their times and he either defined the moment in the jazz world or, at the very least, left me on the doorsteps of what was truly important.

I see Miles' musical career as a collection of several eras and styles. The Charlie Parker era (1940s), the Coltrane era (1950s), the great Tony Williams Quintet (1960s), Bitches Brew and Electric Miles (1970s), and the Marcus Miller ressurection era (1980s). If I reflect on how I've focused my studies of Miles' music, it would look like this:

Obviously the Tony Williams era has dominated my focus. For good reason. In my opinion, this was Miles' pinnacle. His playing had matured to incredible levels, his command of his instrument and melodic inventiveness was at its peak. The band that surrounded him was young and innovative. No group before them or since has ever mastered the artistry of space in music to the degree that they did. Wayne Shorter was a phenomenal composer, Herbie Hancock was redefining how jazz piano was approached with his classical virtuosity, Ron Carter had an immovable foundation and the great Tony Williams was emerging as one of the greatest musical forces in the 20th century. No matter how many times I listen to these recordings, I'm enlightened by what this group had to say and humbled by Tony's genius! At 17 years old he changed music forever....time will eventually catch up to him....eventually. We're not there yet.

This morning, my iPod ClockFree radio app woke me at 6:15 midway through Coltrane's solo on Bye Bye Blackbird. I don't think my brain cells have ever snapped to attention and focus faster than they did this morning! It was literally seconds from deep sleep to fully alert. It was an epiphany and a literal wake-up call to put more of that pie chart focus into the Coltrane-era band. I woke up and quickly went to iTunes to purchase a CD that I had somehow missed - Round Midnight. Two cuts on that disc are true masterpieces. 

On 'Round Midnight, Miles sets up the solemnity of Monk's most pensive composition with a sensual muted trumpet statement of Monk's gorgeous melody while Red Garland supports him harmonically. Monk's compositions are harmonically dense and unlike any others. He has yet to be truly recognized for his compositional greatness. After a perfectly framed transition from the melody with punctuation from Philly Joe Jones,  Coltrane takes the tune from Miles and presents a masterpiece statement that makes your head spin! You can sense his comfort with the complexity of Monk's compositions. After all, Coltrane defined his unique style on the bandstand with Monk. Knowing Coltrane's intellectual approach to his improvisation, and his relentless pursuits of endless permutations of harmonic and melodic depth to his solos, you can sense that Coltrane has invested hundreds of hours in making this tune work effortlessly for him. If you ever doubted the return on the investment in practicing your craft, Coltrane provides a clinic here!

Bye Bye Blackbird is a simple composition that opens with a sweet Red Garland introduction. Red was famous for framing a song perfectly out of the gate. There are stories about Miles freezing after Red's intros because he was just captivated to the point of being speechless. Miles states the melody here and proceeds to develop the tune with a focus on extending the melodic line with lots of space. I recall an interview with Miles where he noted that the key to good improvisation was to "play the spaces" not the notes. This is a perfect example of how to execute on that approach.

Coltrane transitions from Miles and just captivates your heart with his lyricism. You can see the musical bridge from Charlie Parker to Michael Brecker in this solo. Like Parker, and Tony Williams a decade later, Coltrane is clearly ahead of the others on this date. His sound, approach, and harmonic reinvention here is far advanced from the others yet he's sensitive to the others in the group and adeptly takes the song from Miles' simplicity to his own intellectual excursion seamlessly. You can sense his incredible genius here and can see where he is heading in the years to come. You really should listen to this solo to appreciate it's magnificence.

Red Garland completes the picture with his unique combination of Bud Powellesque be-bop and Erroll Garner's block chording. Red is so sweet and so warm. Like Herbie Hancock a decade later, he has the rare ability to support soloists perfectly from a harmonic perspective while also redefining the improvisational approach to the piano for his era.

Which takes me back to my musical father. Miles was such an incredible force in 20th century jazz. He never stayed still, he always found the best musicians, best composers, and the people that worked together to create collective greatness...Collective and individual greatness - not easy to do. He did this for several generations and always seemed to locate the defining voice for each generation. All the while, Miles also redefined his own sound and enhanced his skills on his instrument. 

He was true greatness in music!