upon oanda's wing

Last spring Gary received an email in Japanese, which he couldn't read.  He thought it was spam and deleted it.  A week later he got another email like it, and deleted it again.  In May he received an email in English from the same sender.  He was a man from Tokyo, wondering if Gary had gotten his prior emails, and explaining that he worked for a Japanese record company and they were interested in re-releasing his second album, "Upon Oanda's Wing," which Gary recorded many years ago.   Contracts we drawn up and signed right before we left for our summer trip.

They have been a wonderful company to deal with.  The re-release of the album happened quite quickly -- at the end of this summer.  So far record sales are going well.  "Upon Oanda's Wing" is being sold all over Japan and currently there are displays in three Tower record stores.  Pretty cool!

Here is the record company's listing of the album.

This is a YouTube of the first song on the album called Sailing.
          
This June the Japanese company sent Gary interview questions to use in their promotion.  This inspired me to interview him about his entire musical career to date.  One of this things I most admire about Gary is his unwavering focus on his goals and dreams, and his confidence.  He has had this quality since he was a young man, as you will see.  So this is part of Gary's music story, about the first two albums he made, when he was in his early twenties.  It is a story of perseverance, talent and Grace.     

When I was twenty years old I was very excited to have gotten a great gig in New York every Saturday night playing at the ultra modern, ultra hip Mercer Arts Center.  The Mercer Arts Center was seven stories of music, modern video art, paintings, an eclectic mix of what they thought was great art of the times.  One night a recording engineer named Michael Tapes heard my gig and asked to speak with me.  My best friend Kerry knew him and had suggested he come see my gig.  Michael said, “I am an engineer at Ultra Sonic Studio in New York.”  Sixteen tracks!  At the time this was a wonder.  He said, "I’d be willing to record you for free if you are interested.  Do you have a band?"  I didn’t but I said yes.  And off I went to look for a band to record my first record with.   The problem was, I wasn't meeting a lot of musicians at that time that could play music as complicated, harmonically and rhythmically, as the songs I was writing. 

So while in Boston one weekend, I started wandering around the New England Conservatory, listening in to all of the practice rooms, trying to find a potential band member.   After a couple hours of no luck, I finally heard someone that perked my ears up.  It was incredible piano playing.  It was jazz.  He was improvising.  And when the music stopped I knocked on the door.  This is how I met Michael Cochrane for the first time.  Of course I had my guitar with me.  I never went anywhere without it.  I said, “I am recording an album in New York.  Do you want to be my piano player?” 

He said, “I don’t know man.”  So without being asked I sat down crossed legged on the practice room floor, unhooked my guitar case, took out my 12-string, and played him one of my songs. 

We started working on it together and after 1/2 hour he said, “I’m in.” 

I said, “Good, do you know any great guitar players?  

He said “Yeah, one.  He’s at the Berklee School of Music and his name is John Scofield.” 

So off I went across town to find John.  I finally met John at his apartment in Boston.  John was 21 at the time.  I entered his living room, which was carpeted with song charts everywhere.  There were pathways to walk through and he would play his guitar looking down at his floor, playing through dozens of songs a day.  I played him a few of my songs and he said, “Let’s do it.” 

And I said, “Great.  Do you know any great vibes players?” 

And he said, “One.”  That was David Samuels.  The core of the Gathering band had been formed. 

Recording "Gathering" was one of the wildest experiences of my life.  None of us had ever even been in a recording studio before.  It looked like an Apollo Space capsule to us – cramped and filled with electronics and blinking lights of every color.  We were shown to a big room where we all set up our gear.  We had no idea that we could record tracks over each other.  We just assumed we were going to play everything live.  And the engineer assumed that we wanted to do it that way.  So he didn’t say anything!  We ended up sitting in a big circle so we all see each other’s instruments and faces.  John Scofield played electric and six-string guitar, Chip White was on drums, David Samuels played vibes, and drums on one song, Michael Cochrane was on piano, Paul Brickey played bass, and there I was, with a microphone in front of my mouth, and another one pointed at my twelve-string guitar.  We all had headphones on, we all knew the stories we wanted to tell, so the tapes started rolling, and we recorded everything live, in one take.  It was a very good day!

My older brother loaned me $1000 to print the records.  They pressed 500 and I gave them to everyone I met.  One day I got a call from a famous jazz player named Carla Bley.  She said that she and her husband Paul Bley had started a record company called JCOA (Jazz Composers Organization of America) and offered me to be on the label.  I accepted.

I continued to tour around sometimes with the band, sometimes solo.  Later that summer, I was offered a couple of gigs at some prestigious clubs in Europe to play the songs from Gathering.  I had never been out of America before, so I eagerly went overseas to play my songs for a whole new world.   I played in Amsterdam, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, London, Paris.

When I came back to America in the fall I decided to make a big change.  I asked Michael Cochrane if he would be willing to teach me piano.  I was 23 and was concerned that I might be too old to learn piano from the beginning.  But after the first lesson, Michael said, “Go home and write a song in C.”  I did, it was called “Seascape.”  And I knew after that that I was going to be able to have a great relationship with the piano.  It eventually became my main instrument. 

Two years after very intensive lessons with Michael, I moved to Santa Barbara, California.  I wanted to be close to LA, but not too close.  I was never much of a city person.  Santa Barbara was beautiful.  While hanging out at the university, I met a local DJ named Glen Albert.  Glen became a fan of mine and started playing my music on the radio station.  One day while we were at his house, he asked me to sit down and take a serious listen to a piano player with a new record out.  His name was Art Lande, the record was called Red Lanta.  Red Lanta was an anagram of his name.   After hearing the record I said to Glen, “I don’t know where in the world this guy lives, but wherever he is, I’m moving.  He’s my next teacher.” 

Glen told me, “You’re in luck. He’s only 6 hours down the road in Berkeley.”

Art’s music was totally unique.  His piano playing was different than another improvisational piano player of the time, Keith Jarrett.  Art’s music was a combination of totally wild, but totally contained sound.  He was a natural composer, so even his solos, as wild as they were, sounded like songs.  And his compositions were gorgeous and crazy at the same time.  His band, Rubisa Patrol, (ECM Records) mirrored his wild containment perfectly.

So one Saturday morning I pulled up to the nearest telephone booth in Berkeley, looked up his name in the phonebook, and amazingly enough, he was listed!  So I drove to his street, found his house, and knocked on his door.  It was 10:30 in the morning.  He answered the door in a bathrobe.  He had balding red hair and a red curly beard and certainly didn’t recognize me.  He looked like he had just woken up.  I said, "Hi my name is Gary.  And if you teach, I’m your student." 

He said, “I do teach, but I have a waiting list of about twenty people.” 

I said, “I just drove all the way from Santa Barbara just to meet you."

He looked me over, trying to figure out what he was getting himself into, and the said, "Alright, come in, practice on my piano for awhile.  I’m gonna take a shower.  I’ll be right out.”  And we had our first lesson.  Afterwards he said, “OK, I’ll teach you.”  So I moved to Berkeley.

A one point during a lesson I mentioned that I had recorded an album and left him a copy.  When I came back the next lesson our relationship changed.  He told me I was a really good writer and began to challenge me a lot more in our lessons.   After a lesson I would basically say, “I can’t do all that.” 

And he would say, “Of course you can.”   So practicing piano was pretty much all I did fitting in songwriting in my off hours.  I was surviving on playing solo gigs here and there.  I couldn’t afford anything more than an old beat up Worlitzer electric piano. 

In 1976 I recorded “Upon Oanda’s Wing.”  Art and Rubisa Patrol agreed to be my new band for the album.  The band consisted of Art Lande on piano (although he insisted I play piano on some of my songs), Bill Douglass on bass and flute, Mark Isham on trumpet, and Kurt Wortman on drums.   We recorded at Arch Street Studios in Berkeley, which usually only recorded classical and jazz masters.  Art Lande was my connection to that studio and the amazing engineer that worked there.  Each one of these players thought compositionally, which was a perfect fit for the way I had begun to arrange with bands—not focusing on the brilliance of the players but on the songs and the words.  Art was a great writer and a great composer in his own right and Mark Isham ended up being a great film score writer for modern day movies.

Oanda received a lot of great reviews.  One in particular was in Jazz magazine.  He said my arrangements reminded him of Milton Naciomento.  Of course this was a great honor for me.  

Oanda's Wing is an anagram for my best friend at the time, Gina Dawson, who was not only a friend, but a big support of my music.  She introduced me to jazz, she befriended all of the band members.  When I opened up for Keith Jarret one time, he liked her so much he gave her a private concert.  She just had that kind of allure with people.   
 
p.s.
In 2007 a company from the Netherlands re-released his first album, "Gathering."  Gary jokes that at this rate, his current albums will be released when he is in his 90's!

 Gary recording his third album, "Thoughts of Why"