Graham Haynes

Back in the early 2000s, I performed at Tonic with artists ranging from Regina Spektor to Frank Lowe. The programming there was eclectic and often kind of cutting edge. I used to go to check out all kinds of stuff and Graham Haynes was always there checking things out. He was familiar enough that we used to say Hello. I knew who he was, but I don’t think he knew who I was. 

Fast forward almost 20 years and I had the opportunity to interview him for The New York City Jazz Record for their December 2020 issue, which coincided with his visit to New York and a performance that would be streamed (as was done during those pandemic times) from Roulette in Brooklyn. 

As a drummer myself, I would have loved to pick his brain a bit about his father, Roy Haynes, who is jazz royalty. Maybe someday. But Graham is a truly original artist and his own story is more vast than we had time to cover, so I appreciate the connections we were able to make. 

You can read the published interview here. 

Below is a much more complete transcript, which covers more ground than could fit within the limits of a newspaper article. We spoke via Zoom and had some connection issues at times, so some of his words were lost. 

via Zoom, October 30, 2020 

Anders Griffen: Going back to Hollis, Queens, if I may, I understand your neighbors were, among others, Roy Eldridge, Jaki Byard, and Milt Jackson, so, I was just wondering how old you were when you moved to Queens? Because I read you were born in Brooklyn. 

Graham Haynes: Well, my parents were living in Queens. It just so happened that my mother, who was from Brooklyn, had to go there to deliver, but they were living in Queens. We were in Hollis by that time. 

AG: So, you’re from Hollis. 

GH: I’m from Hollis. I was born, technically, in Brooklyn, I always put that because Brooklyn people get a kick out of it. You know, most people don’t know where the hell Hollis is, so if I tell them I’m from Hollis, Queens, they don’t know where that is. 

AG: Well, my first association with Hollis, Queens is Run-DMC. 

GH: Right, yeah, all the hip-hop people know. The hip-hop people know where Hollis is, but what people don’t know is that between Hollis and other surrounding neighborhoods – Hollis, St. Albans, Jamaica, South Jamaica – I think probably 90% of the jazz musicians, particularly the Black jazz musicians lived there. At one point we had Roy Eldridge, like I said, my house was right in back of Roy Eldridge’s house. So my backyard was facing Roy Eldridge’s backyard. If I went into my yard and Roy came into his yard, then I’d see him and we’d talk, you know? But, also Jaki Byard lived up the street, and, okay, so, then there was another area where Coltrane lived in the 60s for a minute, and that area also had… Ella Fitzgerald lived there, Count Basie lived there, guys from Duke Ellington’s band lived there. Fats Waller had lived there in the 40s. Fats was one of the first musicians to move there. Fats Waller lived there, and he went out there because James P. Johnson went out there. So, all these jazz musicians started coming out there because, what it was was, these guys were living up in Harlem when, and some of them were living in midtown in hotels and stuff. When they started having families and wanted to buy properties, there weren’t that many places that would sell to Black people. So, this was one of the few places because there were a lot of Germans living there - this was right after the second world war, during the second world war, really. Fats Waller moved out there in the early 1940s. So, you know, they would sell, they sold property. They sold James P. Johnson a house, and then they sold Fats Waller a house, and then Count Basie, and the guys from Duke Ellington’s band. Buck Clayton lived there, a lot of the other Ellington guys lived there. James Brown lived around the corner from Count Basie (nods and smiles) …  So, yeah, that’s kind of, you know, I grew up - there were clubs. Back in those days there were a lot of clubs. And also…  the reason that the hip-hop and the bands, like, dance bands, funk bands, and stuff after, because people had houses. So, you could rehearse your band in the basement, or rehearse your band in the garage, and people wouldn’t really mess with you too much, ‘cause it’s not like living…  you know, in the Bronx. Even though there are houses in the Bronx too, but they’re a little, it…  there was an area in the Bronx, you know, Scarsdale was another area that was selling to Blacks and there were a couple of…  I think Sidney Poitier one time lived in Scarsdale, and then Stan Getz lived in Scarsdale. As a kid I went to Stan Getz’s house with my father. He lived in a big mansion in Scarsdale. 

[Could he mean the Shadowbrook Estate in Irvington?]. 

So, you were talking about Jaki, and then Bud Powell’s wife. Bud Powell and his family lived in Paris. And he died in Paris, in ’63, I think. And then his wife moved with their kids to Hollis from Paris. They lived right across the street from me and she used to babysit me when I was a kid. So, my mother, and Buttercup, who was Bud Powell’s wife, and Jaki Byard’s wife, they would all hang out and talk about 52nd Street and talk about Bird and Bud Powell and Miles and Fats Navarro and all this stuff when I was about 6 or 7 years old. And then Buttercup took me to Alice Coltrane’s house. That was, like, right after John Coltrane died. Because, apparently, Alice Coltrane took lessons with Bud Powell in Paris. Alice Coltrane was in Paris for a little, for about a year, before she met John, and she took lessons from Bud Powell. So, we all went to their house in Long Island, by that time Coltrane had moved out to Long Island. He was living in St. Albans, which was just one neighborhood away from mine, but he moved from there to Dix Hills, which is further out in Long Island. So, that’s where we went. 

AG: So, you grew up with the music anyway, but then with all of these people in your community you were really steeped in it. 

GH: Yeah. I was really steeped in it. 

AG: So, when did you pick up a horn? When did you start playing…  trumpet, I guess? 

GH: Yeah, I started with trumpet. I started playing trumpet, and I was about 13 and…  you know, I picked up the horn and started playing in junior high school, you know, they had an orchestra, they had a band. So, that’s where I started playing, I was about 13 years old. That was about 1973. 

AG: So, on those Steve Coleman records were you playing the trumpet or cornet by then? 

GH: I was playing trumpet. I switched to cornet shortly after then but, see I had a cornet when I was 16, but everybody told me, “well, no, you gotta play trumpet, you gotta play trumpet.” Then it was actually Olu Dara who said, you know, “fuck that, if you wanna play cornet, play cornet.” Then I got a cornet that was the same make that his was. He told me which one to buy. And I bought that model. 

AG: What kind of cornet is that? 

GH: It’s an Olds Ambassador. It’s an Olds A3. I still play it. 

AG: Yeah, I was gonna say, it looks like I’ve always seen the same silver cornet. 

GH: Yeah, that’s the same horn I’ve been playing… when I was 16 I got a Yamaha, my Dad got me a Yamaha at the Yamaha factory in Tokyo, Japan, but that horn got stolen. So when I was 16 I played cornet and trumpet and then…  then my cornet got stolen, then I was just playing trumpet. At some point I got another cornet, but then people say, “no, you gotta play trumpet, you gotta play trumpet.” I switched to cornet because I got tired of playing, I got tired of playing in sections, and in big bands. I wanted to be a soloist. So, I figured if I switched to cornet people would stop calling me to play in big bands. (Laughs)  [obscured: I was playing [cornet?] when Jaki Byard hired me.] 

AG: I was gonna say, people said you gotta play trumpet because they were hiring you for a section or, or wanted you to play a certain role? 

GH: Yeah, well, I was getting a lot of calls to play in sections. A lot of people wanted me to play in sections. In those days there were a lot of bands. There were a lot of large groups, there were a lot of dance bands. I was playing in calypso bands and salsa bands and doing all that stuff. I did a tour with Toots & the Maytals – you know Toots just died a month ago – I was on the road with him for three months. After that, that’s when I switched to cornet. I said, “I’m not playing in the section anymore.” I mean I loved playing with him, it was great playing with him, but I just got tired of playing the same thing night after night and, you know? 

AG: That was 70s/80s? 

GH: That was 87. So that’s when I switched. I switched in ’87 or ’88. Right after that tour. That’s when I got that Olds cornet and then I never went back to the trumpet. I sold my trumpet. 

AG: Got it. 

GH: The Steve Coleman records I’m still playing trumpet, that was ’86, early ’87. 85, 86, 87, when I was playing with Steve, I was playing trumpet. Then… then after I switched, I went back, I don’t think I recorded with him after that but I did do a couple of gigs with him after that. But then in ’90 I moved to Paris, so…  

AG: Here we go. (holds up Sine Die LP by Steve Coleman and Five Elements (Pangaea, 1988))   

GH: Yeah. I remember that record well. 

AG: That was mind blowing when I heard that because…  I was listening with some friends and, you know, some of it sounds pretty funky and we were just grooving and then somebody said on some piece, “what meter is this in?”  And I said, “oh, no!” [laughs]  I couldn’t count it, at the time. There was something…  I think it was on that record, it seemed like a changing meter, and it really…  blew my mind because, you know, it just grooves and you don’t think about meter when you’re grooving, you know? 

GH: Right, you don’t notice…  It’s not until you start analyzing that you notice the time signature. To me that’s the difference, that’s one of the differences between him and a lot of guys now who are doing a lot of time signature stuff. They make it obvious (laughs) We tried to make it seamless. The feel is more important than the time signature. 

AG: I’m curious about a couple of individuals; I was curious if you ever played with my man Frank Lowe.  

GH: I met Frank when I came back from Paris. I probably met him before, but when I came back, there were these people who…  actually I was hanging out in Europe with. When I moved back to New York, they all moved back to New York. So, this guy Daniel Moreno, he’s a percussionist who I met through Don Cherry, actually, and then he became friends with Frank. Yeah, there was something called, there was something called the Walker Stage. It was a place called Walker Stage on Walker Street in Tribeca, and it was like a studio slash performance space. And Daniel lived in that place and they ran a jam session once a week and they recorded a lot of stuff there and Frank would come down there sometimes. But I also knew Frank through Butch. When I was working with Butch Morris and Butch was tight with Frank. So, yeah, I knew Frank a little bit. I didn’t know him well, but I knew him, you know. 

…  [carpentry … they lost the place, which was a drag … ]  

AG: Looking at your biography, it mentions that Robert Moog was at Queens College when you studied there, but I wondered if you actually studied with him or was he a significant influence? 

GH: I didn’t actually get to study with him. I didn’t get to take that course, because [of] something with my course load I couldn’t take another elective in music. So, I didn’t get to take it, but I didn’t kind of hang around the classes and check out the equipment and stuff. They had theremins and all kinds of stuff in Queens College at that time. Then I met Bob Moog at Moogfest because I played at the first Moogfest and I met him and I told him, “I was a student at Queens College when you were there,”  and he said, “oh, really?” So, he really got a kick out of it. And then I had a Minimoog and it needed some work so he was gonna try and get it hooked up for me to get it fixed, but then the Minimoog got destroyed in Hurricane Sandy. And then he died, so… 

AG: Was electronics already in your arsenal, so to speak, or did your time at Queens help plant that seed? 

GH: Yeah, my time at Queens was probably what helped plant the seed…  Well, I was always interested in processing. From the time I saw… two influences, two huge influences on me when I was 16, 17, 18 were Miles and Sun Ra. I got to see both of them live several times in the 70s. And I was always into processing, through them. Then through listening to a lot of music on WKCR. They had some shows on KCR that played electronic music, so that also got me into it. Then also, Moog at Queens College. But, you know, in high school, in grade school, I had friends that were messing around with synthesizers and stuff. I had a friend who was into computer synthesis and he was also like an audiophile. He was kind of into gear, into digital before there was digital, you know. (Laughs)  He was into computer processing and all this stuff before. So, he was way into all this stuff and he could tell me technically what was happening. All I knew was that I liked the sound. This guy was a trumpet player, he was my age and we went to high school together. So, from the time I was about 14, I was interested. And also I have to say, Sly & the Family Stone also blew my mind when I was…  11 or something. So, you know, they were processing. Whether it was pedals or overdriving the amp or whatever it was, I was into that and I got into that probably first [from] Sly & the Family Stone. That would have been 1969, something like that. So, that’s pretty early. 

AG: Was any of that…  were you drawn to it by, like, a futuristic idea or the sound of the future, science fiction or just purely…

GH: I was just purely drawn to the sound. I don’t know why, but I will tell you this: I was always a big film geek. I always loved films and science fiction films and all kinds of things. So, I probably related that sound with science fiction films, or some films I had seen or something. But by the time I started getting to Sun Ra – because, for him, it was all about interplanetary travel and it’s all related, interplanetary travel and all this stuff. 

AG: Okay, so, jumping ahead and thinking about composition, I understand you later worked with George Russell, and I wonder how he may have been influential in your development, especially as a composer, I suppose, or any way he was influential. 

GH: Well, somebody gave him my telephone number, because he was looking for somebody to put together a sextet. Somebody gave him my number and he called me, and we did a tour. We did a short tour in the states and then we played at Sweet Basil’s for a week. And that kind of really opened me up. I didn’t really know George’s work, I knew who he was. I knew that he was around Miles during The Birth of the Cool and all this. So, because of this I was really into working with him, but I didn’t really know his work that well until I worked with him. And, you know, we did that tour and I tell you, that tour was hard because the first gig… it was a short tour, it was three dates or something: San Francisco, Albuquerque, New Mexico and then Sweet Basil. The first gig in San Francisco, I had a tooth abscess, by the time we got to San Francisco. We had to play the gig and my mouth was completely out. But, of course, I had to play the gig.  (Laughs)  I had a piece of chewing gum that I took and I stuck right where the abscess was,  because every time air would hit my tooth, it was like my brain would blow open or something. So, that’s how I played the gig, I had a piece of chewing gum sitting up, wedged up between the teeth. So, then, every time I would see George…  We did that tour…  actually, I think I went to the dentist in San Francisco, and he fixed it, then we came to New York and did Sweet Basil, and that was really a cool week. And then I would see George – and we didn’t work after that – but I would see George around with his big band. I would run into him like in Europe or run into him in places, and he would always say, “How’s your teeth?” (Laughs)  

AG: (Laughs) Yeah. 

GH: He’d always ask me that. But I would ask George…  when we were on the road I would ask him about the lydian chromatic concept, because, you know, I had heard – that’s the other thing, okay, so George was known for the lydian chromatic concept and I’d been hearing about this since I started playing, and I never really knew what it entailed. I mean, I knew it had something to do with modes, and using modes as scales and stuff, but when I asked him about the concept  he said, “well, you know, you gotta buy the book.”  That’s what he said. (Laughs)  

AG: (Laughs) Comedy. 

GH: So, I didn’t buy the book and he didn’t give me a book, so I never really learned the theory.  (Laughs) So that was… George was kind of a cranky character, but he was cool.  

AG: Have you seen that book? Because it’s pretty far out. Some of the things he says, it’s like…  I mean, some of it doesn’t sort of help you learn what he’s talking about. I looked at it a little bit, mostly it seems like you just have to get into the sound of it.  I wish I could give you an example, like a quote, but some of his language is pretty far out. It’s like, he’s not even describing music. He’s describing, like, the physics of sound in kind of an esoteric way. 

GH: Yeah, well, George was an esoteric guy.  He was a pretty esoteric guy and his music was out there for its time. And even for now, it’s still…  George was ahead of his time. If it wasn’t for George, there probably wouldn’t have been…  What's that record that Miles made with “So What”? That record probably wouldn’t have been made. 

AG:  Oh, right. Yeah, the modal thing that Miles came up with kind of came from George. 

GH: Yeah, it came from George, and Bill Evans was working with George. Miles got Bill Evans through George. Bill Evans was a student and was working and hanging around with George. That’s how Miles met him. So, you know, Miles was looking for somebody, he was looking for a certain sound and then George said, “Well, try this guy.”  And that’s how Bill Evans [ended up] with Miles. So, George was always ahead of his time.  He was always ahead of the curve. And, yeah, he was a very esoteric guy. 

AG: So, just to finish up on George Russell, did you get a handle on that lydian chromatic concept? 

GH: No, I never got the book and I never read the book. I glanced at it a few times, but I never read it, and that was that. I’m curious about it, I always wanted to…  I didn’t learn the lydian chromatic system, which a lot of guys knew. That was like the system, in the 70s and 80s. That was the system that, if you went to Berkeley or New England Conservatory, some place like that, that was what everybody was using. When I started, when I started playing, most educated musicians who’d gone to school had learned that system. So, everybody was talking about, you know, phrygian and lydian and Locrian. I was like, “what the fuck?” you know. ‘Cause all I knew was minor 7th and major 7th, raised seventh. You know, there’s an augmented and diminished, I didn’t know that system. 

AG: I wanted to ask you about Butch Morris. It seems like there’s been an increasing number of practitioners of the conduction method over the years and  I wondered when you were introduced to that, if it happened to be with that David Murray Big Band or if you were introduced to it previously? 

GH: Well, for the most part, that was the first conduction. Actually, the first conductions that I did… and I’m trying to  remember if it was before those David Murray recordings or after. I knew David first through Blueitt. Because Hamiett Bluiett had a big band that used to play in a club… there used to be a club on 6th Avenue, I forget the name of it. It was at 10th Street on 6th Avenue in New York, and every Monday he had a Big Band there. So, I used to play in his big band, and it was through him that I met Murray.  So, David called me, I think right before I moved to Paris, and he said, “Yeah, Butch Morris is gonna do this conduction thing for a TV series, and we’re gonna record a pilot for it.” And I can’t remember if it was Butch or David who called me, but, yeah, there was a TV series. It was called A Man Called Hawk. It wasn’t on for very long.  And it was the guy - who’s the black guy who was in Star Trek?  The bald guy. 

AG: Oh, it was that actor?  Gosh, I don’t know. 

GH: I can’t recall his name now, but he was close friends with Butch.  Butch was friends with him,  and he had a commitment from, I think, ABC TV to do this series.  It was the first Black action hero that had a series on TV.  Kind of like a futuristic action hero guy.  They called Butch to do the music. So, Butch did a conduction at the pilot. It’s kind of a test pilot. 

AG: Avery Brooks.

GH: Avery Brooks. Yeah, Avery was tight with Butch. Avery and Butch were tight. I actually met Avery a few times. Avery was a musician as well. He was a great singer. Great, kind of a baritone voice. He was classically trained. But he had this pilot and Butch did the music. The series ran for a while, and Butch did the music for a while. Then I moved out of the country, so I don’t know exactly how long it went before they cut it. 

AG: I just looked it up while we were talking, that’s how I got the name. One season, 13 episodes. 

GH: Yeah. They just did one. So, that was my introduction to conduction, that was my first conduction. And, you know, probably [Vincent] Chancey was on that. I don’t know, he might have been. But I know David was on it. Maybe Craig Harris. Fred Hopkins, probably. But, yeah, Butch, that was my introduction to conduction.  

AG: Introduction to conduction. So, how long did it take, kind of incorporating that into what you do? 

GH: Yeah, when I’ve been doing conduction, I’ve been doing it as…  as a way to…  I really got into the orchestra through working with Butch, through playing with Butch. I got really further and further into the orchestra. I’ve always been interested in orchestral composition and everything but, I mean, this was another thing. This took me in a whole other zone, a whole other direction, and I became quite close with Butch.  Butch and I were friends and used to hang out and smoke cigars and drink single malt whiskey and stuff even before I played with him. We would just hang out. Butch would call me up, or I’d call him up, and say, “yeah, meet me at such and such a place, we’ll go to such and such a place.” And then we’d go to the cigar bars, which were kind of like the thing in the late 90s. So…  but I’ve been working with conduction, I’ve been conducting kind of large-ish groups. I’m looking forward to doing more. I’ve been doing a couple of residencies at universities and I did Banff with Tyshawn Sorey where I conducted and he played in the conduction, and then he conducted and I played in the conduction.  Tyshawn has taken the conduction to another level. You know, the conduction thing, in as much as it […]  There are more and more people that are working with it. There are a lot of people that have their own take on it and they’re taking it into other places. Tyshawn also studied with Anthony Braxton, so he’s taking something from Braxton and mixing it with what Butch did. So, it’s interesting. I have a friend down here in Brazil - yeah, because, I don’t know if you know there’s a book on conduction.  

AG: No, I don’t know that. 

GH: Yeah, there’s a book, I can maybe send you a link or something on it. So, Butch was working on the book, and then this friend of mine, an Italian woman by the name of Daniela Veronesi, she actually helped him compile the notes to make the book. The book was finished after he died, but now it is published. When the book came out, Daniela came to Brazil to do a short tour of the book, and she befriended this guy who I became friends with, Guilerme Peluci. He’s in Sao Paulo here. And he did something really interesting; he did an online series with all the people that  are working – well not all of them, with about 50 or 60 different people in different parts of the world that are doing conducted improvisation.  And it’s really interesting. I watched the whole series. He would do three or four of them a week.  He’d interview somebody.  I really got into this.  So now, you know, I’m down here in Brazil. He’s  here. So, we’re talking about trying to put together some conduction orchestra in Sao Paulo. I actually  worked with Butch in Sao Paulo once, through Nublu.  I don’t know if you know  Ilhan Ersahin and Nublu,  that whole kind of…   posse of people that are around in Nublu, but there was a group called the Nublu Orchestra, and Butch would conduct them every Monday night for a series of years, and I was a part of that. So, I recorded and toured with them and we came to Brazil.  

AG: So…  gosh, this might make me jump ahead… 

GH: Yeah, we already jumped ahead (laughs) but… 

AG: Right, you know, it can go in whatever direction, but…  what are you doing in Brazil? 

GH: Well, for the moment, I’m living here. I’m pretty much living and working now.  I was commissioned to write some music for a dance piece, for a choreographer. And, so, I recorded some stuff here with some folks here, and I gotta come to New York and mix the stuff, but then I’m coming back here. And I’m just kind of, you know, hanging out and, and…  I’m working on my own things.  Like, right now I’m really into studying the orchestra and composing for orchestra. So, I’m doing that, kind of apart from what’s happening here.  But right now there’s no live music here anyway.  Just like there’s no live music in the states. But, when live music comes back, I’m sure a bunch of stuff will jump off and I’ll be involved in that too. But right now, I’m just studying and writing  and doing that. I’m working on a requiem now. 

AG: Amazing. I want to learn more… How long have you been down there? 

GH: I’ve been here since August 1st [2020], but I’ve been here before. I’ve been coming back and forth down here since the last 12, 13 years or so. But this time, I’m kind of like, here  (laughs)  semi-permanently. 

AG: Are you in a slightly different time zone?  

GH: I’m one hour later than you. 

AG: Okay. 

GH: What time is it there? 

AG: 4:53 

GH: Yeah, so it’s 5:53 here. 

AG: So, speaking of the orchestra – especially where we’re coming from, talking about origins and through Steve Coleman and David Murray and everything – I had this idea that there’s a tendency for people, maybe journalists, to genre-fy music as a means of communicating to others what it is. Like, trying to help tell people whether they want to check it out or something. One thing I noticed in your bio was…  “aspirations to push jazz beyond its traditional boundaries.”  I mean, it seems like you’ve done that to the point of, you know, a lot of what you do or have done maybe wouldn’t be considered ”jazz” at all, and it’s difficult to put language on it, but do you have any terminology that you use to describe what you do? 

GH: Describe my music?  No, no I don’t have anything whatsoever. I’ve never, you know, I’ve never, I don’t recognize […] I just don’t recognize them. I just do what I want to do. Because of that, you know, I’ve suffered for that too. (Laughs)  But I do what I want to do, you know? I’ve always, pretty much,  just done what I want to do. Whether it’s a trend, or whether it’s marketable, or whether it’s in a certain style or not, I just do pretty much do what I want to do, musically. That doesn’t always make sense economically, but I’ve been able to do it up until now. 

AG:  So, that’s how you know where to go? You are motivated by some intuitive “this is what I want to do,” so you pursue that, or do you find yourself sometimes looking for it? 

GH: Well, it’s kind of, I look at it as a chronological…  it’s, it’s a…  I look at it as a progression. I mean, the things that I was hearing as a kid, are the things that I’m chasing after now. Things that I saw Sun Ra do, the things that I saw Miles do in ‘74, the things that I heard Miles do with Gil Evans. You know…  The things I’ve learned from Butch, and then all, everything in between.  I went to Queens College and I studied classical music, but then, when I went to Queens, I studied classical up until a point, and then I left because I wanted to play. I wanted to be a player. You know, I wanted to be on the scene. In those days you had a lot of places to play, and learn, and I did that. So now that I know how to do that, I’m going back full circle to where I started. You know, I have my books, my theory, harmony, counterpoint, and… 

AG: Back to school. 

GH: Back to school. You know, I got my books and  (Laughs)  that’s what I work on. And it’s not, you know, I don’t want to be a classical musician, or be a classical composer.  I do want to work with the orchestra, and I do want to continue working with electronics.  And I did work at a time with quote unquote “world music,” and I’m still interested in that. I don’t look at any of those things in a stylistic way.  I look at the elements, you know. I’m trying to make music, I’m not really interested in how people are going to label it. But, for all intents and purposes, now, because I’m interested in orchestral music, then it will probably fall into the category of either jazz or classical. And because I have a history of working with electronics, and I will probably introduce electronics into the orchestra, then…  you know. 

AG: You haven’t done that yet. 

GH:  I haven’t done that yet, per se, with the exception of some conductions that I’ve done, but I haven’t recorded anything. I was actually in the process, a year ago, of trying to get this record company to record a conduction project that I want to do then the conversation kind of fell apart. But I’m still looking at possibilities to record a conduction orchestra where I would be the featured soloist and I would have people, I would have someone – because like you said, there are more practitioners of conduction now than there were – so I could have someone conduct the orchestra and I would be a soloist in the orchestra. I would write some sketches, I would write some things, but it would be a combination of composed music and conduction, and I would play it. So that’s an idea that I want to work with. But I’m also involved with through-composed music. I’ve been writing chamber music, I have a string quartet, I have a flute quintet, I have a percussion ensemble piece, and the next thing is this requiem that I want to write,  which would be my first time writing for orchestra. I’ve never written for a full orchestra before.  

AG: Always chamber music. 

GH: Yeah. 

AG:  Yeah, I noticed that on one of the documents you sent, with some of those pieces that have been performed…  There are challenges unique to the composer – getting pieces played, having an outlet for the work. I wonder if some of those pieces you’ve done, if you look for opportunities to do them again, or is it more about trying to get to the next one? 

GH: You mean the recordings? 

AG: Like the string quartet… 

GH: Well, the string quartet I had performed one time and I’m looking for opportunities to record it again, but then, I will also compose more string quartets. So, that’s something I want to do. I only wrote one. I wrote string quartet number one, so there will be more to come. But I’m also looking for opportunities to have that one performed, and have some of these other pieces performed. And, eventually, I will perform in some of these pieces too.     

AG: That’s what I’m talking about, trying to revisit those chamber works even while you’re creating new works, and then larger ensembles can come with the other challenges to get them performed and so forth. 

GH: Right. 

AG: Looking online, okay, and this relates to the terminology thing, because it’s easy to find lots of records that you’ve participated with, and some information about you as a player; but the information about you as the composer is a little harder to come by, at least in my searching. I don't know much about your chamber works. I have the list here that you sent me, and maybe if I looked up…  I guess some of these things are related to Roulette. I have to talk to you about Roulette because I understand there’s something happening in December. They’ll be airing a performance of yours from Roulette?   

GH:  Okay, well, the Roulette performance is going to be mostly an improvised concert.  I was going to work with Lucie Vítková. She’s from Czech Republic and she’s actually in Czech Republic and now we’re having problems getting her to New York.  So, it may be that she plays virtually or she might not even be on the gig. We’re still trying to work that out. But then I’m working with a percussionist and I’m gonna use my electronics and it’s gonna be improvised. I haven’t written anything for it. I’m not sure if I will write anything for it. But the Interpretation Series, three pieces were played. I had my string quartet and the flute quintet, and then I played a piece for cornet and electronics. It was recorded, I have the recording of it. There is video of it, which I haven’t seen yet.  But I mean, I haven’t… my composition in that arena, in chamber music, is very small, so, you’re not gonna find a lot of stuff. I haven’t recorded any. That was my first concert of that music in as much as I hope there'll be more.   

AG: Got it. Yeah, it’s interesting, because to compose those pieces, it’s a significant effort, right?  It seems to be a big part of what you’re doing now…  

GH: Yeah, and now I’m trying to focus more in on it. I’m trying to focus more, I’m trying to hone more in on it, which doesn’t always necessarily work with playing the cornet or trumpet because, I mean — your father’s a brass player, you play the trumpet — you’ve got to be playing,  (Laughs)  But the challenge for me is splitting my time between playing, composing and studying.  Then I’ve got to have a personal life too.  (Laughs)  So, that’s the challenge, you know, that’s the challenge right now. Down here in Brazil, it’s a little bit easier for me to just write, even though there’s challenges here, because, the problem I have in New York is there’s so many things going on that if I wanna compose I always have to get out. If I want to write a significant, you know, if I wanted to write a string quartet, I’d pretty much have to leave and, you know, lock myself in the house for three weeks.  (Laughs)  So I could get it done, lock myself in a hotel or someplace out in the mountains or somewhere, because as long as I’m in New York City,  there’s gonna be too many obstacles and too many diversions. 

AG: But you can do it in Sao Paulo? 

GH: I can do it better. Actually, I’m in Bahia, I’m not even in Sao Paulo, I’m in Bahia. I’m in Salvado, which is even smaller.  But, yeah, I’m trying. I’m trying.  (Laughs)  And then there’s the music here, you know, there’s a lot of things here. Brazilian music is vast and I’m a big fan of a lot of the composers from here. I had the honor of meeting Nana Vasconcelos a couple years before he died, and he invited me to come to his school. He’s got a school here, but I never got a chance to do that. And then there’s a lot of really great composers, people doing really incredible stuff here in Brazil. All different. There’s people that are working more with folkloric music, there’s people that are doing more experimental stuff. There’s guys like Hermeto Pascoal, kind of like, I call him the Sun Ra of Brazil. Some great people here. And then there’s Argentina, people doing stuff there. 

AG: Yeah, I imagine there’s so much more, I mean, even though more music has been internationally distributed over the decades, I get the sense there’s just worlds of music we don’t really know about in the states. 

GH: Exactly. Precisely. You know, I’m in the process of learning all this stuff and it’s really a wonderful learning experience, a challenge. The language itself is enough. There’s so much music in the language. There’s so much music in the language.  

AG: How’s your Portuguese? 

GH: It’s coming. It’s coming. At some point I’m going to need to stop what,  I’m going to need to carve out some time. 

AG: So, the Roulette performance. You’re doing that when you come up here? 

GH: Yeah, I’m doing that when I come up. 

AG: In November? Or are you gonna be here a while when you come up in November? 

GH: I’m gonna be there for only 10 days. And then the Roulette concert is the day before I come back here. The Roulette concert is December 4th and I’m coming back here on the 5th. 

AG: So, that’s gonna be you and percussion and, anything else? 

GH: Yeah, that’s gonna be me, Shakur Hakim is a percussionist who worked, actually,  with Wallace Roney quite a bit, and that’s how I first heard about him. And then…  I used to play with Adam Rudolph, and he had this orchestra, Go Organic Orchestra. Shakur played in that group. He’s a really, really great percussionist. He’s very grounded; he comes out of the whole Santeria experience and is very high up in that. He also was trained as a classical percussionist in Philadelphia  when he was younger. And then…  Lucy Ci---cova_  who I met a year ago a year and a half ago in ny  who is a really incredible  musician composer and adventurer of instruments and stuff. She was supposed to be on the gig, and she may still play on the gig, but we have to figure out, logistically, how we can work it out. But she's very interesting. 

AG: So, it’s just going to be the three of you and may still? 

GH:  Yeah. Yeah.   

AG: Okay, cool. We should probably talk about M-Base a little bit. That was one of the parts we jumped over.  But I wonder if the M-Base concept is an ongoing aspect of your approach. Would you consider it so? 

GH: Well, M-Base, to me…  A lot of people, since the time the name was conceived, back then up until now, people always asked me and asked everyone  “well, what is M-Base? What does it mean?”  And I always say, “Well, you should just ask Steve.”  (Laughs)  “He came up with the name.”  But, for me, what it mean is, you know…   It’s a means of learning and gathering all of the elements of music, but not only music, also science and physics and nature and all of this  to make music. And that’s pretty much, what Steve has always done. So, in that sense, I guess you’re right, you know, I’m always interested in learning new experiences about nature and about the world, about science and about  mysticism and things, and all of that stuff goes into the music one way or another – whether it’s direct or deliberate or not. You know, I’m into studying all kinds of things in addition to music but, in the end I will use it to make music, and Steve is pretty much the same. So, I think what you said is pretty accurate in a way. My music is always in some related or unrelated way kind of dealing with the [conception]  of what we were interested in, you know? Five elements, the name five elements came, you know, Steve and I used to go, in the early 1980s, back in those days on 42nd Street, they had all the kung-fu movies in Times Square. 

AG: Oh, yeah! 

GH: So there was a movie called Five Elements, and we didn’t know the five elements, we didn’t know how it related. But in the end, it actually became something that Steve dealt with. I mean, you know, he studies the I-Ching and he uses the I-Ching to compose and all this. I’m in the process of studying it now.  (Laughs)  But I study t’ai-chi. I’ve been studying t’ai chi since  1987. So I do know about chi and the flow of chi and certain things about the elements and all this. 

AG: It feels more intuitive, the way you talk about. Also because I can see how what you’re saying relates to Steve’s work, but I had read an article… 

GH:  I think I’m probably a little more intuitive than he is. He’s a little bit more hands on, more analytical, and his work, I think, probably shows that. I like the intuitive approach, but I’m always  studying, so, like I said, in the end, the things that I’m working on always wind up in the music, particularly now that I’m doing more composition.  

AG: Yeah, I mean like, what you said about M-Base…  to see how that pertains to what Steve does…  I have this quote from an article that said, “Steve Coleman explained the substantial elements of the concept as: improvisation and structure; contemporary relevance; music as expression of life experience; growth through creativity and philosophical broadening; use of non-western concepts.” These words from a jazz.com article, “The Dozens, Steve Coleman on Charlie Parker.” 

GH: Mmm, interesting. Okay.  

AG: That's illuminating for me ‘cause, going back to the terminology thing, for me, when I first started hearing those records, it was kind of like a style, and it was that thing like we were talking about where it grooves, so you didn’t know that it had these complex layers until you started trying to analyze it. Again, it was my buddy who’s a saxophone player who said, “what meter is this in?” and I was like, “Oh, No!”  For a minute there he ruined it for me because then I had to think, when I was just groovin. I wanna go back and groove! 

GH:  Right, right. That’s the…  where you were is where we want people to be. (Laughs)  That’s where we want the listener to be. That’s the space we want the listener to be in, you know. But then, at the same time, for folks who want to analyze it, there’s enough meat in there, there’s enough meat on the bones for them to be occupied doing that at the same time others are just grooving on it, you know?  

AG: Well, I think that meat, too, is something that makes it different, so it’s not more of the same…   whatever, not more of the same groove. Now we’re grooving on a new groove, ‘cause of this…  ‘cause of this other meat on the bone, you know? Whether you analyze it or not. 

GH: And for me, particularly, like, my whole experience in Paris, which we didn’t talk about too much, like, my whole experience in Paris…  I found that I had to go, I had to look towards Africa, and I had to look towards the East, and Arabia too, to find another perspective on how to deal with what I wanted to deal with, you know?  I mean, [pixelated sound]  a lot of things… [“still” or “through” ? (I think it’s through, I just can’t hear it clearly)]  but I found, felt a certain point, I needed to go to Africa, and I did go to Africa, but, I went first to Africa through Paris. 

AG: That's why you went to Paris? 

GH: Yeah. That’s where all of the African musicians were and then also a lot of the South Asian and Arabian…  I decided to move to Paris mostly…  There was a point in the late 80s when I was an usher at Symphony Space Theater in New York, and they used to have something called the World Music Institute that would do a series there. It’s actually where I met Adam Rudolph. When I met Adam Rudolph he was working with Yusef Lateef doing a show for kids, for children – if you can imagine that!  (Laughs)  That was the first time I saw Adam and then I met  [breaks-up/pixelated sound]  Don Cherry, and musicians that came from all over that would play these World Music Institute concerts. That’s what also kind of helped me to decide to move to Paris, because I realized that a lot of these guys had lived there, were currently living there, or passing through there. Paris was kind of like a hub for world music in the 1980s, particularly for West African music too, which was a direct link to what we were trying to do with M-Base with all these polyrhythms and layering of rhythms and things. So, that’s why in 1990 I moved and I stayed there for three years. I did move around quite a bit in Europe, and then I also came to New York several times in that three-year period …[]…  I was working with Ralph Peterson, I  [breaks-up/pixelated sound]   Geri Allen, …[]…  so I was coming to New York, but I was based in Paris. 

AG: The computer froze-up a couple times, [4:21]  so, if you could repeat the people you met at symphony space – Adam Rudolph, I heard the name Don Cherry, but not too many of the others. 

GH: Oh, yeah…  Don Cherry, …[]…, Hassan Hakmoun. There’s a great musician from Niger whose name escapes me. He was there often. Wow. I can’t remember his name. I can probably find it later. But they had music, one day they would have music from [Rajasthan] and the next day there’d be music from Morocco with Don Cherry, and then, you know, there’d be…  Master musicians of South Asian music with, who’s the great table player?...  

AG: Zakir Hussein? 

GH: Zakir. Yeah. I saw Zakir play with his father several times at that series at Symphony Space. So, you know, I just really heard a lot of world music by my associations with Symphony Space. It just opened my ears up. 

AG: Drove you right out of the country. 

GH: Drove me  (Laughs)  drove me right out of the country! Yup. But, you know, growing up in Queens, you hear, I was exposed to world music as a kid anyway. You know, growing up in Queens, Queens is one of the most multicultural places in the country. There are over a hundred languages spoken in Queens. So, you know, I was exposed to a lot of stuff before then, but that experience helped even more. 

AG: And then, when you were talking about coming back to New York, when you were based in Paris, you mentioned working with Ralph Peterson and Geri Allen, and I think there were a couple names I didn’t catch…  

GH: Oh, yeah. Well, Ed Blackwell. I recorded with Ed Blackwell. I recorded with Uri Caine.  I did those records with David Murray’s Big Band with Butch, which he conducted. That was in that period. 90, 91 or 92 for DIW records. It was through going to Paris that I got the contract with French Polygram. So, when I got ready to leave Paris to come back here, I got a record deal with Polygram, France. So, I had recorded…  When I left New York to go to Paris, I was under contract to Muse Records. I had done one record, [¿What Time It Be!] (1991), which was my first record. Then I recorded my second record for Muse in Paris, that’s Nocturnes Parisian (1992). As I was leaving Paris to come back here, I got the contract with Polygram France. So I did The Griots Footsteps (1994), and then I came back and I did Transition (1995), and then I did Tones for the 21st Century (1997). And then I was working on bpm (2000), [and] there was this struggle with the record company, and then I had the Knitting Factory buy me out off the contract, and the Knitting Factory released bpm, then the Knitting Factory had problems, so that record never really saw the light of day. None of those records really go exposure in the U.S. the way they should have, because they were under French release, they were supposed to be released through Verve, which never really cared about those records, then with the Knitting Factory, you know, Knitting Factory kind of disappeared right after I recorded my record. I mean, they didn’t disappear, but the record company disappeared and Michael Dorf had serious problems and then they actually, eventually moved him out. Flash forward to 2006, I did a record called Full Circle (2007) for Ravi Coltrane. Ravi and his wife had a record label, and a guy, [(Mike McGuiness ?)], called RKM Records. So I did that record for them, but then Ravi was really busy, and then his Mom died.  So that record never really got its due. So, it’s kind of like, there’s a combination of reasons why my records don’t really get the recognition that they’re supposed to get. And one of the main things is I’m just not doing mainstream music, that’s one of the main things. If I were recording mainstream music, if I was recording, you know, in the 1990s, they had what they called The Young Lions. You know, if I was doing stuff like that, if I was recording straight ahead, if I was playing in a quartet, or a jazz quintet with the drummer and the bass player, and I was doing quote unquote swing music, then they could say, “yeah, this is the son of Roy Haynes and he’s doing a jazz record,” and “blah blah blah, blah blah blah, and la di da.” I never did that. I was never interested in doing that. But a lot of people have tried to figure out why I didn’t capitalize on that or why they can’t put me in that box or why – I mean, by this time I’m 60 years old, if they haven’t figured out now… 

AG: (Laughs) It didn’t happen like that. It’s not who you are. Did you just do the one record on RKM? “Cause I heard one of those online; I really enjoyed that record. 2006? 

GH: Yeah, I just did that one record. 2006. And that was my last recording. I haven’t done any records. Except, okay, so I’ve done these things with Hardedge. Those are pretty much gigs that we recorded that he released. I like some of those things, there’s some interesting material there but, you know, they’re gigs that were recorded. All improvised. I never composed anything for us. We get on the stage, we play, we run the tape machine, and then edit it and put it out. 

AG: That's probably a little bit like what I’m gonna do with this conversation and, you know, maybe I’ll take what we talked about and put it a little bit more in chronological order. Like I said, I’ll send it to you first, actually, I’ll probably have to to get clarification on a couple of names. Besides that, I might discover I have a follow-up question, but…  

GH: The name I was thinking of, that I couldn’t think of was, Hamza El Din. Hamza El Din. He played oud and sang, and I think he was from Niger. Hamza El Din. The other guy at World Music Institute that I would see often. 

AG: I want to just sort of conclude by talking about this year a little bit. 2020 has been pretty different for a lot of people, a lot of upheaval. So, I guess, I have a few questions about this year. One of them would be, what can the arts do, or what do the arts do, to address the moment?  

GH: Mmm. Well, I think the arts can do many things but I think one of the most profound things that the arts do is they expose people to ideas. And these ideas go across racial lines, they go across sex lines, they go across any kind of boundaries or any kind of categories or anything.  Ideas are one of the most powerful things that people make or have. And music or the arts can cut across political lines. So that’s a broad way of saying that the arts are important in these times. 

AG: I think you touched on it just now in that answer, but the next question I have written down,  and there’s some historical examples one could look at, but what role does music play in social change? 

GH:  [noise] … I [don’t tend to] to make political statements with my music. However, to some degree I have. You know, with titles of pieces, you know, right now I’m in the process of writing a requiem.  (About?)  [breaks-up/pixelated sound]   I’m in the process of composing this now. Now I started writing this before George Floyd. I started writing this piece a year ago. 

AG: Sorry, I missed the beginning of that just before what you said, you started this before George Floyd. Whatever you said before that the piece, the piece is what? 

GH: It’s a requiem for Black men that have been killed by police over the course of many many years. You can go back…  

AG: As far as you want. 

GH: Yeah, as far as you want in this country. So this piece is a requiem for them. So, this is a political…  It’s a statement, and it’s directly, the music is directly composed with this problem in mind. It’s a political statement and it’s also, I mean it’s several things. Within that, there’s also this social problem, this social issue. So, then, I would say that it’s directly related to a social-political issue. The music, how I’m going to write the music, what I have to do, the research that I have to do, and the issue at hand, and…  you know, so…   It’s going to be a dedication to slain, but this piece, actually, is directly related to one of the most important issues that we’re dealing with now. So… 

AG: And it’s non-verbal except for the title? 

GH:  Well, it is verbal. There’s text. It’s a requiem, so it’s going to be set to text. It’s going to be set to Latin text but some of it is going to be in English as well. It’s going to be a full requiem with, like, a 40-piece chorus and an orchestra and the chorus will be singing text in Latin and in English, and there’ll be some soloists. So, you know, I’m aware of this problem. I decided to write this piece. In that sense, music has the place in social-political issues in the world that way.  But I have chosen to do this. There are people who don’t work with vocal music and then they just work with instrumental music and their titles are dealing with it, so, we’re always dealing with what’s happening. Musicians, composers, performers, we’re always dealing with what’s happening and then, you know, the thing is, one of the things that’s happening with me over the years is I’ve gotten further and further into multimedia and composing for multimedia. And that gives me the opportunity to write music for a functional purpose, which I actually like. I like doing that. It gives me a challenge that I like. It allows me to do research, it allows me to collaborate with other artists, and I really like doing that. 

AG: So, I’ve been having this conversation since, like, the spring, maybe, with a bunch of different musicians, especially musicians that remember the 60s and 70s because, you know, these killings, these murders are so much more visible now since everybody’s got a video camera on them. 

GH: But they’ve always been going on. 

AG: Right. I think it’s making a new impression on society that a lot more people are aware of it  because of these cell phones. Or if they ignored hearing about it, maybe it’s harder to ignore seeing it. So, I always had this impression like, there was this civil rights movement and change was in the air in the 60s, and kind of faded out in the 70s when I was just a baby, too young to remember it. But in my mind, there was this window of opportunity for change that closed some time when I was a little kid and this year it seemed like, you know, is that window open again? So, I’m asking people if this even makes sense to them as a concept. I mean, this is like my… To me it’s like, “Hey, is this window for opportunity for change open like it seemed like it was, you know, 40, 50 years ago?” 

GH:  I would say, yes, it is.  I mean, is that a question that you’re asking me?  

AG: Yeah, like, do you believe that humanity is making progress now to dismantle systemic racism? I don’t know if that’s the same question; the first question is is the window of change open again? 

GH: I think what’s happening is…  depends on how you look at it. In one sense, nothing has changed. In another sense, things have changed. Technology has definitely changed some things because  we have more access, and problems that have been occurring over hundreds of years are more visible now because of the technology. So of course that effects [breaks-up/pixelated sound]   The cause of it has not changed. The effect is these killings that happen. The cause… I mean, the technology is just exposing something that’s always been happening. So, I mean, in terms of the window of change, I always think that, cosmically, humans and the planet are changing because of what’s happening in the cosmos. I always think that. So there are times when we’re a little bit more ready to deal with certain issues. Everything, cosmically, has its time and place. So, perhaps there’s a window. But then, you know, the vehicle, the mechanism that’s creating that opening is the technology: the cell phones and the cameras and the internet and all this. 

And the second question? 

AG: The second question was, if you believe that we’re making progress now to dismantle systemic racism? 

GH: We were, but we always have to remember that these die-hard racists, they’re not really gonna disappear. They just go underground. Racists don’t disappear. Of course, people die off over time, but then how are they raising their kids? So, you have to consider that. I don’t know if there’s more racism in the world or if there’s less. One thing that I do know is that, I do feel, is that because of the Obama administration, eight years of Obama’s presidency, there’s been a backlash, and we’re feeling that backlash. We’re feeling it in the south, we’re feeling it in the center of the country, we’re feeling it in the cities, we’re feeling it. We’re feeling something else, which is something different in other parts of the world. I mean, down here, they got stuff down here in Brazil that, you know, the police here are military.  [breaks-up/pixelated sound]  [they were trained]  So now in Bahia, it’s the largest concentration of Black people in the world outside of Africa, and it’s a huge state. State of Bahia is huge. So, you know, here, some other places, and then there’s racism in Europe. There’s nationalism and right-wing nationalism  [breaks-up/pixelated sound]   western Europe and Russia. Yeah, I mean…  I really can’t say. I really don’t know. If you take away the problem that we have in the states, there’s still the rest of the world that’s having problems.  A lot of that has to do with religion. …[]… with the Muslims … is a slightly different problem than the problem we have in the states, …  so… …[]…  I don’t know. 

AG: Like I said, I’ve been having this conversation for a good part of this year with a bunch of different musicians and I’ve sat in on some panel discussions about it with various artists and there always are these kind of two sides, two views, two possibilities. Today at work I had to give instruction on research to an English class and they had to write a paper based on this book, The Nickel Boys, that Colson Whitehead published last year. I read the author’s description, he said the two main characters are two different parts of his personality, Elwood being the optimistic or hopeful part that believes we can make the world a better place, and Jack being the cynical side that says, “No, this country is founded on genocide, murder and slavery, and it will always be that way.” And these are the two views I’ve always found in the panel discussions and the conversation. Although you kind of captured both [prevalent] views when you took a look at it. Some people are kind of one or the other. 

GH: Yeah, I mean, I have friends that are very much of the mindset that the United States is a racist country, it’s built on racism, and it’s gonna be racist from now until the earth stands still. Then I have friends who have different experiences and come from different backgrounds and they seem to think that racism can be tamed like an animal and put in a cage and all that. I don’t really…  I don’t know. Time will tell. Time will tell. I think it’s good that the discussion and the forums are happening. I mean, that’s good. That’s definitely going to get people to look at things. People have to look at it, talk about things. I don’t if that’s going to change things, but at least the conversation (Laughs) is on the table. 

AG: William Parker was saying that, you know, it’s harder to change the minds of older people, especially when you’re talking about politics, but, in general, he was like:  “the ruling people, or the people who’ve done imperialism, and who set the standard of what is right and wrong, what is human and not human, they don’t know what human is, they have no idea what human is, if they were human it wouldn’t be like this. We as artists, we’ve always realized that the grass is not greener on the other side, it’s green where we’re standing.  We’ve already gone to a higher, we’ve already dealt with dealing with a higher consciousness, of feeling, of thinking, and we do that through our art. We’re about finding where the light is, and leading the people to the light, the light that’s inside them, and the light that’s in the Earth [and] around them, and that’s where I think the salvation is for people to go is they gotta find their inner light and they gotta go wherever that is and develop that …”  It’s harder to change those minds and he was kind of emphasizing how important the arts and music are for children, not that everybody becomes an artist but if you’re exposed to some kind of conscious-altering beauty that that might be a way. 

GH: Right, the problem is, though, that most times, the type of arts he’s talking about is only exposed to certain people in certain places. So, what William does, or what his groups do, or what his colleagues do or what I do, they’re not going to get to   [frozen again]   and funding is always a [...] people from New York, and L.A., and San Francisco coming into the middle of the country, teaching their bible belt, you know (Laughs) 

AG: Well, it could be, I mean, it does not have to be… 

GH:  Now with the internet, like I said, it’s exposed a lot of ideas and it’s cut across all kinds of lines and geographical locations. So technology is good in a way. The problem with  […]  with relying on technology is, people think that if they have that they don’t need to socialize in the flesh anymore (Laughs) 

AG: Yeah, that’s really different, because people relate differently in person, for sure. Well, I think that’s probably enough for today, 

GH: In a way, I think it’s very timely because I’m writing this piece  […]  I will need [..] for this thing. For me to write a requiem with a full orchestra and a full chorus and […] […]  so I hope that will maybe help incite some interest.