Sangeeta Michael Berardi: The Mr P Sessions
There are a few people in life who, no matter how different are your lives or personalities, you recognize as beings with whom you are deeply connected. In my musical life so far, two people I have had this closeness with are also connected with each other. They are Arthur Rhames and Sangeeta Michael Berardi.
Strangely and fortuitously, I met them both in 1980 through doing guitarist Steve Geraci’s record date for producer Bruce Calabrese’s Beat City Records. This led to an immediate and fruitful collaboration with Arthur through the first half of the 80’s. I remember Arthur would go to sessions with Pharoah Sanders, Rashied Ali and others at Sangeeta’s loft on 7th Ave after we finished playing gigs at Ali’s Alley and other venues in Greenwich Village, but I somehow never went and lost track of Sangeeta.
Sangeeta, in the meantime had completed two recordings for Beat City: Divine Song and The Manhattan Sessions, the former of which had a limited vinyl release while the latter remains unreleased. The lineup of artists on these sessions include Rashied Ali, Joe Diorio, Eddie Gomez, Roswell Rudd, Archie Shepp, Mario Pavone and Vea Williams. Both dates are due for release on Sunjump in 2014.
While living in Woodstock in 1995, I received a phone call from Sangeeta, reintroducing himself and saying that he was living in California but would be in Woodstock for a week and was looking for musicians to play with. Our mutual friend Mikhail Horowitz had recommended me. We got together and played duets a few times and the music was so right that Sangeeta promised to come back in a few months and record. I was tasked with putting the right musicians for the date together. They were Pete O’Brien, Hill Greene and saxophonist Jim Finn. Two days of this 1996 recording yielded Earth Ship and Calling Coltrane, two extraordinary CDs of music that I released some years later on the Sunjump label.
This was my first experience with Sangeeta’s method of working in the studio. Like a great film director choosing actors, he knew that if he had the right musicians, with open ears and open hearts, all that was left to do was to come in with sketches suggesting possibilities. He said very little and instead indicated the direction and feel of the music with his guitar. He drew music out of the musicians with such a deep sense of the spirit that it would have been impossible to arrive at it all using the standard detailed charts. He even insisted on recording some guitar/drums duet tracks with me that I still listen to with pleasure. His playing produced a level of music that I would not have thought possible with me playing drum set, an instrument that I felt nowhere near as experienced and confident as I did on piano. I still don’t know how I played what I did but I know he drew the music out of me.
Of the 17 tracks from this session, Rodgers’ My Favorite Things, Coltrane’s Wise One, Sangeeta’s Earth Ship, and my Pharaoh’s Dance were the only pieces that were chord based, formal songs and the first two became extended guitar/drums expansive duets.The remainder of the pieces were comprised of a few measures of melody or bass line or were free improvisations. The resulting music was orchestral and inspirational.
When I next saw Sangeeta, ten years had passed. He was still living in California and was visiting New York for a few weeks. When we met again, I found that he was struggling with Parkinson’s disease and the tremors made it nearly impossible for him to play the electric guitar. He was still writing poetry and making drawings and paintings. I invited him to speak to my students at Bard College about his life as an artist. He did and the students were wonderfully receptive.
I brought him back six months later. Video artist Laura Steele put together a slideshow of 40 paintings, projected behind poet Mikhail Horowitz reading six of Sangeeta’s poems. After each poem we played a track from Earthship. Sangeeta said it was the first time all three areas of his work had been shown simultaneously. I think this is the point at which I became determined to help get Sangeeta’s work before the public. Had he still been playing guitar at this point, I would have probably just gone into the studio immediately, but his physical condition made this impossible. So I began to talk with Sangeeta about what could be done musically in the future.
During this visit Sangeeta met film maker Burrill Crohn in Woodstock, NY and the documentary film project on Sangeeta and his life’s work was begun. The film Playing With Parkinson’s is due for release in Fall 2013. The CD project The Mr P Sessions grew out of discussions I had with Sangeeta and Burrill Crohn about how Sangeeta has adapted his creative process to life with a debilitating illness.
Due to the need to raise funds for such a substantial project, the limitations set by winter in the North East and Parkinsonian susceptibility to the cold temperatures, it took a year before Sangeeta was able to come in from California and make the recording. Again, I had no idea what we were going to record until a few days before the session. To my surprise, Sangeeta decided to sing and brought lyrics but no written music to the rehearsal the day before the session. He had realized that Parkinson’s takes away the ability to speak and had been countering it by singing every day for the previous year. He had never sung before.
Mikhail Horowitz agreed to read some of Sangeeta’s poems but had a theater commitment during the two day session, so we recorded him alone and improvised to the tracks later. The musicians were paired up with the poems after a brief discussion with Sangeeta at the session. The instrumental pieces, like before, grew from just a few bars of melody or were totally improvised. The only pre-set form was Feeling Down And Lonely, a Blues.
In addition to singing, Sangeeta played some nylon string acoustic guitar, electric guitar and, through the kindness of Woodstock Chimes owner Gary Kvistad, Tibetan and Japanese singing bowls. We tried to fashion the music to give everyone the chance to bring their personal voice to the project, so we had Kendra Shank with electronic loops, Rosi Hertlein singing harmonies with her violin, Mitch Kessler on most of the woodwind family from bass clarinet to flute, and the twin rhythm pillars bassist Hill Greene and drummer Peter O’Brien.
In addition to playing piano, I broke out a Marine Band harmonica, an instrument I hadn’t played since I was 17, for the Blues and Bought Him Like A Pet. We were even joined by bassist Hill Greene’s child James. He’s a toddler and can’t speak yet but plays a mean singing bowl.
The whole thing was shot on video for the Playing with Parkinson’s documentary and I’m told it forms a substantial part of the film. I was complimented by the musicians on my production skills and how smoothly such a complicated session with 8 ½ musicians went, but I think I probably don’t deserve it. It was easy. Sangeeta’s ability to center the music, project his spirit and draw the music out by just being there singing in his beautiful raspy voice, playing a few gentle phrases on guitar and tapping bowls really is what made it all work. It’s called Love and it was so easy.
– John Esposito 2013