by Jeff Gere 8/08
Appears in ‘Storytelling Duets’ , a Book of writings due out in September, 2010
Compiled & Edited by Jonatha & Harold Wright
My name is Jeff Gere. I’m a storyteller in Hawaii who runs it’s biggest storytelling festival (Talk Story Festival) each fall. As Oahu’s Drama Specialist in the Parks Department, I talk to humans of every age and income all year long, usually alone. I look upon these as ‘warm ups’ for the REAL storytelling event: tandem telling with musicians. I've done LOTS of these in lots of configurations for lots of years. My master’s degree is in ‘Inter-Relating the Arts’, an inter-disciplinary performance and discussion curriculum exploring the languages and idioms of the various arts. HearSay was a story/band trio, which morphed into a duet which built an evening show around the ballad, The Two Sisters (Wind ‘n Rain) (shadow puppets, music and telling.) I toured one summer with a symphonic quintet. I told Arabian Night tales for 18 months of Saturdays to sold-out shows in a swank Chinatown bar with a belly dancer and two musicians- THAT was fun!
OK, but let’s talk about WHY I love telling with tunes.
As a painting student at the University of California, Davis, I painted all night until, nodding into sleep, I’d suddenly jerk awake with a command ringing in my ear: ‘paint that out’. I’d rise, paint, sit and nod; Jerk and paint again. The mornings revealed paintings I had not intended to paint! Painting was my initial method of having a dialogue with the subconscious. In my storytelling, I seek this same authentic dialogue and resonance. Music can trigger that.
OK, so that’s the WHY, but HOW do you do that?
Let’s face it: It’s easy to recite your precious clever story patter while a musician plunks along behind. I’ve done it- nothing sensational emerges. Creative musicians get frustrated and quit. Little is risked, little gained. That’s no 'event', that’s not what grips me. Remember, I want the subconscious dialogue, want a revelation.
What GRIPS, THRILLS, and MOTIVATES me in recording and performing with improvising musicians, my MAIN EVENT, is this: If I can split myself open, keeping one ear on the music while speaking, taking audio directions while leading, I myself get lead. Music helps me to let go, to step over the cliff, to dare to walk onto the water, to dwell in the creative moment of NOW. I stop knowing what will happen next.
Huh? Say what?
If talented, attentive, inventive, bold musician(s) are really INVITED to PARTICIPATE with me in the tell, I start to get distracted by the rhythm, the percussion, and the cadence of notes. Yes, I get deliciously confused within the story I know well, and it becomes new again, fresh as the first time I spoke it. Whole new things come up! The STORY begins speaking ME! REALLY! Speaking while listening to playing to your speaking... it is all happening so fast that I’m tellin’ by instinct! Spiritual (in essence), collaborative (surprising), fun (PLENTY!), infectious. You can FEEL the LIFE of such a tell with your EARS! You can hear it in the recordings, the audience can feel it in the room. The stories come ALIVE!
What's your PROCESS in this equation?
I tell by watching the story unfold in my mind. There’s no script, there’s just the movie in my mind’s eye. When one tells in this way, and we drop in the musical score, I can only talk it out as it unfolds. However, I’ve seen this ‘tune-telling’ work well with ‘reciters’ too, especially when the teller's cadence leaves spaces between sentence clusters (thoughts) for the musician to respond. I remind myself to use this technique because my tendency is to plunge forward and talk right on top of the music, in overlays, which is exciting but not always appropriate. It also means the musicians have to be more aggressive with me. Diversity and variety enrich artistic creations.
Another PERSONAL note: my goal in performance and recording is to mesmerize, enchant, and hold the listener absorbed in the grip of the tell. I want my tells to be moving, unforgettable EVENTS. For me, this means a well-crafted study in posession. Music helps me break open the well-known, precious, honed Xerox performance of myself. Going for the 'alive', I accept warts: in my eyes, they add personality and presence.
My favorite partner is Les Adam, Wille Nelson's piano player on Maui. He’s an improvisation wizard who speaks his thoughts with his fingers. He’s known for playing to silent movies at the Maui Film Festival- he never previews the films. He just sits and plays as he watches. We talk LOTS about these collaborations, trying to understand rationally what is principally a developed, practiced intuitive skill. He LOVES this work and the fearsome freedom of CREATION: no chorus, verse, bridge or solos! Les talks of setting up patterns to break them, about not clinging, of ignoring his internal judgements of ‘what’s working, or isn’t’. He’s often surprised hearing his ‘mistakes’ working wonderfully. After a ‘story/music’ session, he says he plays his folk/ rock/ blues music in new ways. He returns refreshed and plays freely. We both love the invigorating aesthetic of surprise. Adhering to this value, Les surprises me by inviting other musicians into the studio sessions, and also by showing up at these recording events alone.
EXAMPLES: ARABIAN NIGHTS: Jullanar of the Sea. After I’d left the final rehersal, the flute-player and percussionist invented an underwater duet swirling around a bowed metal sheet (think singing saw). During the show, the Prince pursues his love back to her underwater kingdom to confront her father, known to be wreckless, quick to anger, and cruel. The Prince dives in, SPLASH! I freeze, hearing this new ‘underwater’ score… and my body and voices "undulates-es, and-and I-I start-art to-to echo-ow my-my self-elf as-as I-I said-ed the-yee lines-es of-uf thuh-wuhw-yuhwuh prince"… I described the schools of fish I now see coming to guide the Prince down (they never came before), and they’re swimming in patterns (that’s new too). When the King appears, NOW he’s got the face of a Balinese mask on my wall at home. So MY face becomes that mask and my movements grow Balinese with flaring toes, fingers and eyebrows. Fresh and absolutely THRILLING for me, musicians, and audience (of course). "And-and I-I spoke-eke in-in rhy-iy-iyme-mmmmz too-uhh." It’s a story-jazz improve, tune tale verse tell: they responding to me responding to them while telling the tale...listening as we make noise, and SINGING IT! It can be REAL MAGIC!
Resource: MANA’O RADIO: I heard a comedy/ poem in pidgin on a new non-commercial radio station on Maui. I sought out its creator, Kathy Collins, a DJ who founded Mana’o Radio (with her husband.) I talked her into performing 20 minutes of stories in pidgin at my Talk Story Festival. She rocked the house! Five years later now, she sells out her story concerts. We’re good friends. And Mana’o Radio has a small recording studio downstairs. I record often when I go to Maui. Technically, recording musical tellings is pretty easy. Sure, I pay everyone something, but this studio and musical sessions are priceless to me. Now 'recording' is both precious and normal- like walking onto a stage, right? And before the mic, I kick myself NOT to shrink, but to expand and MAKE THE MOST of this moment. So, expand yourself, good reader, and go find yourself friends too. Yes you can. Wonderful things result. Door open if you step off your porch for a walk.
Recording ‘RANK DEVIL MOUNTAIN’ CD I showed up at Mana’o Radio shaking- I’d just driven through the smoke of a burning shopping center- smoke SO THICK that I had to pulled over to a stop. Raging furious burning flames are terrifying. In the studio, Les Adam sat at the piano, Sandra Lee Akaka was by a table of percussion toys, and there’s a new face: Alana Cini with three didgeridoos! “Hold on- we’re going to hell” said I. “This session is all about FIRE!” Without another word (about the stories, for example) we just started and soon had zipped gleefully through three stories straight. Our listening to each other was SO INTENSE, the music SO GRAPHIC, that once I just stopped to think, “this is what HELL sounds like.” In my mind's eye, the room turned red! Listening to these tracks you start to sweat. I don’t mean loud, I mean EVOCATIVE… and the words (mine!) changed to suit the scene sketched by the sounds.
In that session, recording Jack And The Evil Mountain Spirit, Jack gets into a fix freeing the Princess cursed by the Evil Mountain Spirit. He has to tell her three times what she’s thinking. This requires him to fly behind her each night going inside the mountain to report to the Evil Spirit- it's scarier each time. So in the recording session, I have Jack rise out of bed to fly up to follow the Princess. I’m ready to move on, but Les on piano is playing a delicate, tinkly little child’s melody. His tune is SO DELICIOUS that Jack pauses, looks up and says a little prayer poem to a star (yep, absolutely new) … and then we all went on together. THIS IS THRILLING!
Recording SILLY ‘N SPOOKY CD: Hawaiian Airlines invited me to put stories for children on their in-flight audio program. They wanted recordings in two weeks. “Sure, OK.” I knew the stories, but had NONE RECORDED! I called Les and flew over. We did two sessions with various partners one afternoon, continuing exhausted in his house that night as the rain fell. The next day after two sets with a small group of young kids (sigh), an an hour before departing for the plane, the GOLDEN HOUR occurred. Loose, tired, way warmed up, we flowed together laughing, making up sections on the spot. Most of the CD was done in that hour. Record sales soared (for me) with this CD (via Hawaiian Airlines). People bought what they heard. Stamina and fatigue are factors in this work. Didn't I mention it? Fatigue contributes to liberating the reins of conscious control.
Recording THE TWO BROTHERS It’s summer, I’m deep into 'three- or- four- shows- a- day' Summer Fun weeks, and I’m bored and tired of my stories at bedtime. I vaguely remember a Grimm’s tale with a seven-headed dragon, and I read it to sleep. It’s long with several tales interlocked. The next day I retell it to kids in Makaha (all Hawaiian)- they won’t let me quit! I start telling it daily- it takes a full hour. We have a BLAST with it.
Six months later, at Mana’o with Les and the twenty-something year old guitar dervish, Vince Esquire, we play/tell for an hour when I say, “want to take on an epic?” For the next two hours, I sketch out a section briefly, and we ride each wave of music/telling to a pause. One section follows another, each different. I start talking in verse, freestyle rhyming. It’s HARD to keep THAT FRESH for THAT long, but WE wouldn’t STOP! Vince calls his evening gig- he’ll be late. We go on, no rehersals. Les later said that it was one of the most demanding sessions he’s ever done. Stamina and fatigue are factors in this work. Nine sections emerged, 75 minutes solid EDITED. It SOUNDS so FRESH and FUN! Not perfect, but what it lacks in shine it makes up for in verve! It's a musical telling poetry free-verse jive- beat song tune event! And the subconscious was short-cutting slow sections and expanding meaty sections as I spoke ‘em! It’s like doing a math problem overhead while you dance. Oh yes, I surprised MYSELF! That’s my litmus test: if it holds MY attention, I know it’ll be worth somebody else’s time.
Recording CULTURES IN COLLISION Remember above I wrote, 'this ‘tune-telling’ works well with ‘reciters’ too, especially when the teller's cadence leaves spaces between sentence clusters (thoughts) for the musician to respond", right? This recording comes out of a live show for a private school where Lyn Ford, Alton Chung and I were challenged to 'show us the face of bigotry and racism, but give us hope with your stories'. We took turns, Les played, for two hours. The kids laughed, wept, and cheered standing to their feet... we listened well to Les. Alton is a 'reciter'...with spaces. It works. Lyn is morganic, but listens. I fly, listening. We agreed it was a tremendous show with content worthy of sharing. Live music can really expand and pull the empathetic emotions up in an audience (which is why they're added to all the movies).
‘Storytelling World’ annually picks outstanding story CDs (free!) in many categories. In 2007 I entered Rank Devil Mountain recording in the ‘teen’ category thinking, ‘wait’ll they hear THIS!’ What a surprise when it was picked to Honor as “Best Storytelling Recording of 2007”. This award was so affirming! From the middle of the Pacific with little contact with the Big World of Storytelling, a voice mixing with music playing each other can stand out. And in 2009 they picked the collaborative CD, Cultures in Collision (with Lyn Ford and Alton Chung, a live show with Les on piano) for Honors as “Best Storytelling Recording of 2009”
SO, TELLING WITH TUNE duets is an exercise in tumbling gracefully beyond the borders of your box of comfort. It is jumping off a cliff with friends, who create, challenge, and support this falling. And then, do it again. Oh, what a delight to have the characters talking in verse in the context of a gorgeous musical soundscape through YOU. All this should be evident enough if you care to listen to the recordings of such EVENTS... but in books, we can only write of this.
And you asked me. www.jeffgere.com (in Hawaii)
PLACES YOU CAN HEAR JEFF/LES STORY/MUSIC PERFORMANCES:
Yakkity-Yak (tales about telling, with many examples of musical duets) online in Storyteller.net Amphitheater (jan. ’08) http://www.storyteller.net/amphitheater/38
blip.tv (search Jeff Gere, storyteller) Several stories are there and more will come. (The Glove & Aiea Heiau with Les Adam; Haunted Hawaii with 3 musicians; ‘Arabian Nights’ with 2 other musicians)
www.itales.com (seach Jeff Gere to find LOTS of recordings to download for nominal fee, including Old Rink Rank, The Shepherd, the Beauty, and the Devil from Rank Devil Mountain)
COMMENTS:
Wow! I think this is a major contribution to the tandem book. He snatches all of us way out of the storytelling box, solo or in tandem, that we know. I do want to hear! Harold Wright
Yes, it is a fascinating report and look into an extremely exciting music/story interface! Truly we must see you two in concert! Thank you for contributing. Such articles as yours really keep me fired up about this project. Thanks, Jonatha Wright
