December 27, 2007
Loss
…listen
…about the musicSlipping, away.
Cycles of loss can be very beautiful. Secrets are revealed. Details previously obscured suddenly show us a fresh view of something we thought we knew well. These trees down the road from my house boast a level of magnificent intricacy I couldn’t have seen a few months ago. Winter, and what it takes with it, can be enlightening.
And it can be harsh and painful. And inexplicable and unfair. As solstice began last week, one of my very close friends died. Dan Morris couldn’t have been more than 40, and those four decades had spent themselves creating a brilliant person with immense talent and a huge heart. If only they had created better kidneys for him, while they were at it. A phenomenal musician with an otherworldly sensitivity, he was not only a percussionist and a composer, but a visual artist. His love for birds, action figures, his wife Marie, and sushi knew few bounds. And he was the most generous, wry witted friend one could ever hope for.
We take the artifacts of our daily lives for granted and sometimes barely notice the items that fill our spaces over time. As Dan lay in a coma 1200 miles south of me, my eyes kept stubbing themselves on small things that have lived in my studio over the years. The teal ceramic Turkish dumbek he gave me and taught me so patiently to play. The pastel he drew of one of his seven parrots. His Tranzport remote that allows me to record live in another room while single-handing my sequencer. The myriad of tiny action figure muses he gifted me with to inspire fearless creativity. The stack of Fripp and Eno CDs we both loved that I kept meaning to return to him.
The magnificent intricacy of my friend was constantly unfolding, season after season. In his permanent absence, I’ll continue to see and to discover. And to smile. I’m convinced that a person’s legacy is in the memories he leaves with the survivors who loved him.
One of Dan’s last, amazing recordings graces my new CD. You can hear a small excerpt of him joyously playing a slew of different drums from around the world on the first track, Slipping, above. I know that he would be far more pleased to have his remembrance on my little blog accompanied by this silly piece than with some serious elegy.
Winter, and what it takes with it. The cycle of loss is unavoidable. It’s up to me to find the beauty in it, somewhere.
Glenn Buttkus said,
December 27, 2007 @ 8:29 am
Yes, almost 40 is way too young. My mother died at 39. But for Dan Morris, his flame burned just that long, and it sounds like it burned brilliantly. A nice dichotomy you have created, looking affectionately at Winter, the one season that dances with death, and yet doesn’t; puts things into a naked state of dormancy, waiting patiently in mud and moss for the rites of spring, fecund squirming and rebirth. It will be the same for Dan. Keep your eyes peeled as your years click off, because since you loved him, he may return in your life, through a child, or a pet, or a stranger who gives you that look of recognition, or in your dreams where no one ever dies. Life is energy. Energy cannot be extinquished or destroyed, it can only be altered, and changed into something else, somewhere else. So, yes, the beauty you seek is all around you, waiting for you to notice it on one of your walks.
Ironically, this very morning I took a long listen to the first cut on NOTES FROM THE KELP, a little piece called SLIPPING, 9 minutes, 34 seconds, brought into this world by Ms. Shapiro in 2006. I let it play with my mind, my imagination –and when that happens, when music takes me on a journey, it can be magnificent.
I started with the dance of love, the Tango, and the slit skirts rode up high, and the kicks were spectacular, and the passion palpable–sliding into rock and roll, just a few bars of the old stuff, 56 or 58, doo wop, brassy, breezy –slipping back into baroque as that harpsicord tickled my fancy, put me on tip toes, with Dan on those divers drums, setting the pace, underscoring the meter, pounding every which way, like a heart beat, like a thousand heartbeats –sliding into the Orient, the Forbidden City, everything plated in gold, fringed with blood red curtains –sliding into Crete and the Greek Isles with Anthony Quinn telling us that every man needs a little madness in order to let go the rope, and be free –slipping somewhere in between, oriental and Mediterranean mingling, procreating, creating a glimpse of their spawn –sliding into a jazz violin, that was fearless, erect, and ready to penetrate more rock riffs, rolling thick into what felt classical, ancient, musty, with a tinge, a tinkle of Broadway, big sounds held long, and a quick dash past some cloggers in the Appalacians; with perky string pluckings that boldly puncuate segues, –sliding to the Waterfront, a deep busy port late at night, with husky tugs pushing around huge freighters and luxury liners –sliding to the South Pacific, Fiji, Tahiti, Hawaii; long sorrowful horns twisted into grotesque shapes, and yet emitting beautiful breathes, ode to a stark brilliant sunset on the flat Polynesian horizon, and like a sea bird, the sun plunges into the dark water, leaving a tiny stain of blood on the azure surface, pulling puffy clouds down, down, to the other side, letting the darkness gather, as long hand-carved canoes slip through the sudden fog, with flashes of strong arms paddling, skimming forever on the shallow reef, moving inexorably toward a new day, blasting the night with light, saved by strings, and soon smothered in bird song; birds of every color, racing those fat insects from flower to flower, shaking the wet petals with their collective wings, spraying the dew into a mist –sliding into an island barrenness, like Easter Island, covered with multiple stone figures, hundreds of stern oversized faces, pounding, pulsating, overpowering –and yet midst the passion, love seems to exist, drifting high and sweet above us, within us, with a brown couple, nearly naked, strolling hand in hand on a black beach; first walking but when they heard the drums, the urgency of that beat, they began to run, and soon everything and everyone was running, the tempo increasing, their many legs a blur, like a manic giant centipede caught in a stampede of people and animals, fleeing the huge wave, the high pitching hum and pounding of its wet thunder, all rolling, racing, one on top of the other; until exhaustion and some form of closure; eyes closed, tongues panting, arms and limbs intertwined, interlocked, a thousand as one, all the beasts togehter there on high ground, lying in the now hot sun watching the waters recede.
Glenn
Alex Shapiro said,
December 27, 2007 @ 9:32 pm
I composed all that??
Damn.
No wonder I’m a little tired.
😉
Johnster said,
December 29, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Very sorry for your loss.
Jonathan Dimond said,
January 20, 2008 @ 12:47 am
My recent return to Los Angeles couldn’t have been better timed for this bad news. I attended the funeral and am pleased to report that, despite the suddenness of this tradgedy, it was quite well attended with people from diverse areas coming to say good-bye to Dan Morris. Thanks, Alex, for your touching eulogy.