Patrick Moraz ...Etudes, Sonatas, Preludes

http://www.patrickmoraz.com/sound-1.htm

Please go to the above link and learn why I gush over this man to any who will listen to me.

I was absolutely mortified at myself to realize that hadn't written anything about this man or this album when it came out. Patrick's career goes back to the early 70s, and includes working with people like Chick Corea, Yes, The Moody Blues, Syrinx, Bill Bruford.....His virtuosity and extraordinary talent get lost to the backdrop of "pop" or more properly termed popular music, but I tell you this man is a modern Mozart.
All the others will fall to the wayside overtime, but I know what this man has composed, especially on the above album will live on for generations.

I am something of a classical music buff, though only something of. My ears know what works and what doesn't and the best of the classical world is usually a musical challenge to the player. Patrick composes and plays his own work, as he has for most of his 60-odd years. I can tell you something about the man by describing how I know he recorded this album.He doesn't even have to verify this- I know it is how he works. If the entire piece didn't work, felt wrong or didn't sound right on a playback, he recorded it again, as you hear it, verbatim. There is no manipulating in the studio.

Why? Because that is how he is.

Back in the mid 1990s, he did a small show tour of the US, playing for audiences often less than 100 at a seating. I was with him in Dallas for the show there, and witnessed something most of us will never experience again.
Patrick came out into the audience before the show, shook hands with and talked to everyone in the room, including bartenders, staff, me....I'd been with him much of the day at that point. The whole show was Patrick and a baby Grand piano, nothing else- not even any amplification. After going back to the stage he said "Thank you all for coming. I would like to now give back some of what you have just given me."

The man sat down and began a completely improvised piece of music, encompassing every emotion in the spectrum, drawing all those in the room into his world, his music, and making us all part of each other in the process.

One and a half HOURS later......he started the concert. We were all drained, put thru an emotional wringer, and still, he caught us up even further and took us on a journey even further into his world. My level of elation and exhaustion was unmeasurable. All of the people I went with were unable to speak about the experience for hours afterwards. There were no words. It was one of those moments that elude even the best poet. To this day I have not experienced a more intense, moving and utterly engulfing concert. I am not sure I could survive another.

But then again...what an astounding way to leave this mortal coil, if that be the case.

I haven't felt like writing much in the last year or so, for reasons I would have trouble explaining. This movie is probably going to bring out in me a whole lot of new thoughts. At the very least, every one who can, needs to see this film- Music truly IS Everything.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2012/apr/12/alive-inside-documentary-healing-music

San Antonio ain't totally lame.

http://morrisorchids.bandcamp.com/

Ok, this city isn't always as exciting as I would like, but maybe that's a good thing? It might be better for those who do strive to be heard to have the ability to be heard over the din in,say,Austin. Here, one might actually be able to find someone new who doesn't have to leave town to get a break. I saw these fellows, or part of the band anyway under a different name, and am now sorry I didn't buy a tee-shirt or something to support their efforts. This is by far the best thing to come out of the city in a long time- new that is. My regs are still there, and I remain a fan, but it is always nice to hear something new be given space.

I've been mostly busy being a photographer, not the writer, but will endeavour to bring some more of what's being going on around here to the light. namaste!

In Pace Requisact

I haven't had the words. I don't know that I ever will. He's not here anymore, and I am. Life really sucks sometimes.

Somethings One Cannot Predict

I am headed shortly to Hamburg Germany, and intend to tour some of the more famous places (or what's left of them)that had to do with the very early Beatles. Before they became a household name, they had to pay their dues- unlike too many "idols" trying to get around the lessons to be learned on that path.
As I was studying the info online and in books about what and where, I came across this, ironically in an article about computer tomography. I recently started a new job in that business- it is better known in the world as Catscan, or CT scan. What a wild connection to make in the same brief timespan!

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The Beatles greatest gift... is to science


As the penultimate activity for Highgate Science Week, on Friday 18 March Dr Ben Timmis, Consultant Radiologist at the Whittington Hospital, gave a lecture about the invention, development and future of the CT scanner – and what the chart-topping band The Beatles did to help its production.



Many people have had their lives saved by the pioneering scanning device, which enables doctors to view the internal structures of patients’ bodies by taking very thin (often a fraction of a centimetre) x-ray ‘slices’ across the body. Dr Timmis hailed the scanner as having had “a profound impact on modern medicine” and claimed it as one of the top five medical developments of the twentieth century.



Using the CT scanner radiologists are able to view the soft tissues in the body, which cannot easily be seen by conventional x-ray techniques, so any abnormalities can more easily be detected, lessening the need for diagnostic operations.



As a direct result of The Beatles’ success, Dr Timmis claimed, the scanner’s inventor, Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, was able to devote about four years developing the scanner from its 1968 prototype, to something that could be used in a clinical setting. His work was done in the Central Research Laboratory, a facility near Heathrow airport that was part of the EMI Group. Having sold 200 million of the Fab Four’s singles, (at seven inches, almost enough vinyl to stretch the length of the equator) the Beatles’ record company, EMI, was able to fund Hounsfield to do his research and the scanner was ready be used in hospitals in the 1970’s.



Dr Timmis said that EMI’s research had initially estimated a worldwide need for only 25 of the machines, but thanks to their decision to invest in the pioneering technology, now there are thousands of the scanners worldwide being used in hospitals every day.


http://www.whittington.nhs.uk/default.asp?c=2804&t=1