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When I was ten, my parents sent me to a summer music day camp in Boonton, NJ. I learned to play the guitar. One of the songs we played on the concert was "Blowin' in the Wind," we of the tiny hands and half chords. I remember my father grumbling about the choice of the song on the way home, and my mother saying, "But Paul, those innocent young voices singing those things - it gets you." My brother and his friend, Paul Raspante, would spend hours in the playroom listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary, and banging out the songs from the Peter, Paul and Mary songbook. From them, I learned "Great Mandella," and "A-Soulin'," "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (to which my mother sternly lectured, "My sons and my daughters are NOT beyond my command!") and dozens of other PPM classics. Paul R. especially would enthusiastically pound the guitar, whether or not he was actually playing the right chords ("Never took a lesson in my life," he'd say cheerfully. Pound, pound, pound). But it was when I first heard Mary Travers sing "There is a Ship," PPM's version of "The Water is Wide", that I honestly fell in love with folk music. There was a simplicity to it, a beauty and clarity, that brought tears to my eyes even then. And a compelling longing to her voice that few have ever matched. Kids know what's honest, what's real, and that was. That recording still gets me. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZWvh0aEs8w) PPM sang at the 1963 March on Washington. For one of the first times in American history, black and white people sang together with them in large numbers on "If I Had a Hammer." Their very choice of music - including black spirituals and blues numbers - was revolutionary, a validating of the black experience in America at a time when white America wanted nothing more than to look away. I understand in later years, she became very hard-edged, difficult to work with. Paul Stookey's post says as much. I remember talking to David Amram at the Clearwater Festival about fourteen years ago - we were both playing, as was PPM - and Peter Yarrow walked up and joined the discussion. David, an icon in his own right, asked Peter if he could sit in. Peter smiled apologetically. "I'd like it Dave," he said, "but you know how Mary is." I wonder how much of it came from their unfairly court-enforced breakup, clearly designed to silence their voices of dissent rather than to mete out justice. She had a right to be angry, as we all did. I hope the anger didn't ruin her enjoyment of the music she made, which she did for as long as she could stand. In the end, as part of PPM, Mary Travers used her voice to help bring about a better world. May we all be able to say the same when our time is done.  Second day back from a week teaching and playing at, and a weekend festival playing at, Common Ground on the Hill in Westminster, MD. Common Ground is a school and festival that strives to bring together musicians, artists, and dancers from all over the world in an attempt to share our common humanity. What an amazing week! Some highlights: 1. A.J. and I taught a wonderful week-long class on voice. Our students were very willing, and brave! 2. I also taught pennywhistle to a fantastic group of beginners who were playing reels by week’s end. 3. A.J. accompanied “Songs of the Movement,” for Derrick McQueen. 4. We played with the Gospel Choir, and I did arrangements – we had a rocking horn section this year! 5. We played three late-night dances and then went to some “crackin’” (as the Scots would say) sessions. 6. We hung out with some of our favorite people and made some new friends, including Santa Cruz River Bandites Ted Ramirez and Michael Ronstadt (who is friends with straw bale building gods Bill and Athena Steen), and nykelharpa master Peter Hedlund, who taught us some – uh, useful phrases in Swedish. 7. Samaritans at the Border Shura Wallin and Randy Mayer from New Mexico came to talk about their work, helping Mexican immigrants who are dying in the desert. 8. Paul Creighton spoke about his work instituting a program teaching non-violence across Scotland. 9. We got our first glimpse of a bowed dulcimer. Not kidding. 10. Scott Ainslee’s inspired set on Blues Night. 11. Mike Baytop, just a few months after a stroke, back on the stage on Blues Night playing harmonica and bones – with both hands. 12. Howie Burnsen’s humor, wine, and great performance on the faculty concert. 13. Port Righ’s lovely festival set at the amphiteater on harp and pipes. 14. Hearing Pitz Quattone play didgeridoo on Blues Night. 15. Harry Orlove’s masterful electric guitar work with the gospel choir and blues bands. 16. Watching the Sankofa Dance Theater. Wow. 17. Jonathan Gilmore’s set on Blues Night. 18. Playing with Lea Gilmore on Blues Night. 19. Hearing jazz on the oud. 20. Hearing “Billie Jean is Not My Love” played on hammered dulcimers. 21. Watching the Mexican dance troupe, headed by former CGOTH student Eddie Cervantes. 22. Being given a gorgeous garden stone - and a flugelhorn! - by Jim MacDowell. 23. Lee Francis’s spoken word piece at the faculty concert – PARTY! And his great rap contribution to Gospel Choir on “Lovely Day.” 24. Shelly Ensor and her shining spirit. 25. Walt Michael. Period. 26. Jeremy, for a beautiful work of sculpture. 27. The Saturday night dinner at the Thai restaurant, which was the best family gathering I’ve ever been at. 28. The Sunday party, where I got to talk with Joe Hickerson about Catskill folk songs, listen to Guy Davis play blues at my crab table, and then hear Ted and Michael do Mexican songs at the round robin. 29. David Carrasco’s moving tribute to Ira Zepp in “Search for Common Ground.” 30. Ralph Stanley’s rendition of “Oh Death” on the Saturday concert. 31. Amazing weather, all week long! Start planning NOW for next year’s Common Ground on the Hill. It will fuel you for the rest of the year. There are few people in the history of music who have used their musical talent to create as much beneficial social change as Pete Seeger. From his support of the labor movement, to civil rights, to standing up to the witchhunters on HUAC by claiming First Amendment Rights, to the anti-war movement, to the environmental movement and the still hearty Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Pete Seeger is a model of what one person can do to make the world better. I am one of the thousands of people who have volunteered on the Clearwater, and it was in this capacity that I came to meet Mr. Seeger. (I call him that, though my friend Peter Blue says, "The last person to call him 'Mr. Seeger' was probably on HUAC." No matter. It's an appellation of respect, and if he hasn't earned that, no one has). I first met him on a Pumpkin Sail back in 1990 or so, when he eased himself down into the cabin, sat down at the table, and started singing. I remember that night; he joined us in concert at a local high school. We sang "Sailin' Up." He began it and graciously let me take the first verse. I was so awestruck at being onstage with him that I just stood there like an idiot. (He came around to me later in the song and gave me another chance.) When I edited "For the Beauty of the Earth" in 1992, Mr. Seeger called me to offer suggestions for songs to be included. I'll never forget him singing "Only Remembered" over the telephone to me in his old, quavering voice. When I was in a fight to save a local mountain in overdeveloped Morris County, NJ, (where development is a religion) I called him for advice. Mr. Seeger offered me this pearl of wisdom: "Growth, growth, growth. Growth is like a drug. It feels good, but only for the moment." He went on to point out that small towns pay small taxes, medium towns pay medium taxes, and big towns pay big taxes. I used that to our advantage and wound up with two hundred angry taxpayers waving their tax stubs (the suburban form of pitchforks) at the next town council meeting. (Note: We saved the mountain. It's now called Pyramid Mountain Natural Historic Area, and it's a Morris County Park). Mostly when I think of Pete Seeger, though, I think of the guy who hangs around at Revival every year to pick up trash, because, well, somebody has to do it. Happy Birthday to the Real Deal. May you have ninety more.  We had a blast playing the Old Songs Festival this year. A.J. and I accompanied blues and gospel goddess Lea Gilmore. We opened the Festival on Friday night. She, as always, tore the place up. It's a thrill to play with Lea. It's also a thrill to play this festival; I used to come up every year with a New Jersey contingent when I was younger and wonder what it was like to perform there! Answer: a lot of fun. In addition to the Friday performance, we also got to share workshops with Peggy Seeger, Josh White Jr., Toby Walker, the Amidons, and Tony Barrand, not to mention backing the wonderful participant Gospel Choir! December 3, 2008 - Just wanted to say something about the death of folk/roots music goddess Odetta. She was scheduled to sing at Barack Obama's inauguration, but died yesterday. If you don't know who she was, shame on you. Go right now to youtube and watch. Odetta was an icon, a fixture of the Civil Rights movement in the 60's. She was primarily known for her blues and spirituals, and the ferocity with which she gave voice to the pain of her life, of racism, and of the times. Accompanying herself on guitar, she had a voice that not only filled the hall, but filled the soul of everyone who heard. Accounts mention that she was Rosa Parks' favorite singer. She marched with Dr. King on many occasions and sang at the March on Washington in 1963 as a precursor to the "I Have a Dream" speech. I was priviliged to not only hear Odetta in a small venue, but to meet and know her a little bit. A folk music organization I belonged to presented a concert in which she was the feature. I served as her driver; I still remember picking her up and watching her (she was a big woman in full African regalia) pour herself into the front seat of my tiny Dodge Colt. We spoke of the blustery day ("Like Winnie-the-Pooh," she said), what I did for a living, a Chinese restaurant she'd found near the hotel ("You MUST go there," she ordered with great firmness). She seemed to be in a somber mood. At the gig, she was quirky and superstitious and drove the presenter a little crazy; she did not speak to people during intermission of her performance, insisted on a CLEAR bandaid for one of her fingers, and burned an incense which protruded from the headstock of her guitar. Her performance had the beauty and intensity of a religious experience; she gave everything she had to the music, and to all of us listening. She went out with about a half-dozen of us after the show, and was personable, funny, and approachable, and yet had the aura and quiet dignity of a queen. She spoke softly and with great authority. She smoked way too many cigerettes that night, drank way too much, ate way too much food, talked about the sixties and Bleeker Street and how people played music all night long, and lamented the breakup of her latest romance. That's how I remember her; big, alive, regal, hungering for more life, more beauty, more love. She was a large woman from a large time who lived a grand and large life. After I drove her back to her hotel, I carried her guitar to the door. She was in a much better mood than on the trip down. "I wasn't in very good shape on the way in," she confided graciously to me, "but you really cheered me up. Thank you." She parted from me with a bow and the words, "Bless you." I was flattered when I met up with her in later years and she remembered me, and even more flattered to appear onstage with her at the finale of the Clearwater Festival in 1995, at which we both played. Just to take up musical space with that magnificent presence is a memory I will always cherish. The Inauguration Committee will have to find someone else to sing on January 20. But, as I told my students today, they can never replace her.  October 17, 2005
I took a rather sad trip out to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago to play a memorial service for Martin Smith, co-principal horn of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Martin was my horn teacher on and off for four years. In a life, you are lucky to have one real teacher, one who changes who you are forever. Martin was that for me. When Joel Winter (another former teacher) called me to tell me that Martin had died, I found that I was only half there. It wasn’t that I was overcome with grief. I kept thinking I should be, but I hadn’t talked to Martin since about 1990, when I was contemplating leaving my chamber group, Solid Brass. I hadn’t studied with him for ten years at that point, but like many of his former students, I still used to call to talk things over with him and ask his advice. After listening to me describe the situation, he said impatiently, “Well, it sounds like the thing you valued doesn’t exist anymore.” What he meant was, “Do you really need me to tell you these kinds of things forever?” In effect, he kicked me out of the nest that day. So I flew, and I didn’t look back. We never spoke again after that. He wasn’t obligated to assume the role of friend, and didn’t want to, and I think it was for the best. I found I was able to wean myself away from his influence, which was substantial, and become my own person. So when Joel called, it wasn’t that I suddenly felt a gaping hole in my life. But it seemed surreal. My mind kept flickering with disbelief. It’s too soon for this call, I thought. I always knew he suffered from diabetes, I didn’t expect him to make 90. But this was too soon. I thought of something Martin said when a mentor of his died.: “You want me to tell you it will be all right. It won’t be all right. Everyone you love will die. The person you love most and depend on in this world will die. Everything will end in death. It’s the only certainty. Knowing that, what will you do with your life, every moment, now?” I remember crying. I remember a long hug. I remember a lot of moments like that. Let’s be honest – all of Martin’s female students were in love with him from a distance, and maybe some of his male students too. I can say that now. But it was more than that. Martin, we horn students would say only half in jest, was God. Another student joked that she expected to see us wearing little Martin medallions around our necks. It wasn’t far from the truth. We would go into lessons for what we called one-hour Martinizing, and stumble out three hours later, numb for three days. We were a tight group, we Martinites. We shared a very different set of experiences than did most conservatory students. We shared a common language, common confusion, common soul-searching, common jokes, and an uncommon brand of neuroses and insanity that made us all love and hate each other with equal intensity. Martin was the only Master Teacher I ever knew, the only one who could bring the whole world and everything you were into a lesson at once. I still hear his voice in the back of my head when I am afraid to try something new, when something seems too hard, when it’s easier to just try to be like everyone else. “I’ve fixed it,” Martin said at our last lesson, “so that you can never live a normal life – and be happy.” He did, too. That manifested itself in a number of inconvenient ways. For example, I quit playing horn, became a songwriter/folk musician, got involved in environmental activism, worked on a boat on the Hudson River on and off, got engaged to a guy I met a week before, backpacked through Alaska, quit a high paying job and moved to the Catskills, where I live in a straw bale house that my husband and I designed and built ourselves. And that’s mild compared to some of Martin’s other students, some of whom climb mountains in Nepal, and some of whom herd goats in Peru. We (mostly) turned out to be defiantly, joyously, not normal. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but Martin saved me. When he took me on as a student, I was a smart, ugly teenage girl in the 1970’s (imagine how easy life was for me in high school!) Studying with Martin gave me a sense of direction, of importance, of touching a larger world, of understanding music and of how to know and accept myself. He saved a lot of us, not just players sitting major orchestras right now, but people like me that you’ll never hear of. He saved us because most of life is lived by people you never hear of. He saved us because you don’t give to get, you give to give. Maybe that’s his greatest legacy to us, his students. Maybe it’s the greatest legacy any of us can ever hope to leave. I am now primarily a teacher. That’s Martin’s fault. I try to carry with me some of what Martin gave: his willingness to give of his time, his ability to speak the truth when it’s needed, and his wisdom in knowing when a student was ready for that truth. And most of all, the fact that he did it all with a loving heart. Bullshit, Martin would say. That’s your head talking. How do you feel about all this? I feel disjointed. I feel catapulted back through time. I feel unsettled. I feel a dull hollowness. I feel dizzy from the careening worlds of lost possibilities. I feel mostly sad. But I also feel a bittersweet gratitude. Giants walk among us, and when a giant touches a small life, that touch leaves marks upon the soul that never fade. I honestly don’t know if I will miss Martin. Very early on, he became part of my way of thinking, my way of understanding the world. I’m sure that’s true of every student he ever taught. It’s hard to miss someone who has never been, and will never be, truly gone. He was larger than life, and the slight inconvenience of Death does not diminish that. Back to Liza DiSavino | Liza's Rants | | Great Links | Liza's Thoughts | A.J.'s Thoughts | Strawbale | | Return Home | So What's New? | Vane Pig Artists | Our Online Catalog | Our FAQ Page | Please Contact Us | Download Our Music | Where We Will Be | Thoughts and Musings | |
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