Notes From the Edge
Conversation with
Patrick Moraz
nfte #299
 

TIM MORSE: The big news is the remastering and release of your solo catalog on CD. Can you tell us how this came to fruition?

PATRICK MORAZ: A couple of years ago, a very good friend of mine in Switzerland told me, "You know Bill Bruford is releasing MUSIC FOR PIANO AND DRUMS and FLAGS." Well, that was quite a surprise, but a good one, he's done a great job! The only thing I might have done differently would have been in the choice of material that was used for the bonus tracks but overall I'm very happy that Bill took the initiative to make the deal with Voice Print and that MUSIC FOR PIANO AND DRUMS and FLAGS are re-mastered and out on CD

After that, Rob Ayling, who is the head of Voiceprint in England, contacted me, and since then, over the last eighteen months we've been re-mastering fifteen albums I've been associated with. It has been a huge undertaking and a real effort to go and research all the material, i.e. the original master tapes and some other recordings for all the bonus tracks and certainly more material to be released in the future. I have spent months getting all this together, we're talking literally about hundreds of tapes. So, with the help of several people, but in particular with that of my very good friend and brilliant sound engineer Jean Ristori, we've re-mastered those CDs and we've been able to concentrate on the essentiality of the original sound and the punch of all that material. It takes real passion to have done what we've been able to achieve here!

TM: What will be released first?

PM: The very first album I recorded with my group Mainhorse in 1970 and also a very important album, Refugee with Lee Jackson and the fantastic Brian Davidson which was recorded in the very beginning of 1974. It was in 1974 that I got together with the two ex-Nice musicians, bassist/vocalist Lee Jackson and the fantastic Brian Davison on drums, considered one of the very best rhythm section of the times in English Rock, and we formed Refugee.

TM: There are some great performances on the Refugee album.

PM: It sounds so tight, because we didn't take that long to record it in the studio. We had rehearsed the arrangements; I was composing all the music for Refugee. We recorded at Island Studios with the help of a very good producer John Burns, who had already produced two albums of Genesis at the time. So he was really seasoned and attuned to us and what we were doing. He was very sympathetic to the way we were working, through-out the night, eighteen hours a day! It was unbelievable and fantastic. I remember racing through London in the middle of the night to do a piano solo, an overdub or staying in the studio all night searching for sounds and waking up--just to have a quick cup of coffee and back to the studio. It's funny, because I was talking to Brian the other day, reminiscing. He said, "Man, I wish we'd played longer together." I told him as well, "I wish we had been able to carry on playing with Refugee at that time", because it had done well. Anyway, the rest is history.

TM: Can you describe the way Yes wrote and recorded the songs for RELAYER?

PM: It was in early August '74 that I had one of my very first professional recording encounters with Yes. Their rehearsals and writing sessions were being recorded by the brilliant and visionary sound engineer, Eddie Offord and his assistant Genaro Rippo, on his own mobile studio--a state-of-the-art multi-channel mixing desk and a 24 track recording machine--and, after the guys played me the first song part of "Sound Chaser" itself, Jon asked me to come up with some kind of introduction to the whole thing. So I kind of instant-composed the intro on the spot and that was recorded, in no more than a couple of takes, after I had explained it to Alan and Chris, we rehearsed it a few times before recording it. That was very fresh and urgent, to keep the music alive at all times. However, it must be understood that we could play all the pieces in their entirety, live, as we were polishing them for the recordings, and even if we were recording them by sections which would later on be pieced together, like a movie, we could really play all the tunes, the arrangements and the solos at once, first and foremost!

Golf-carting with Chris in California, July 19, 1976

Later on, the bulk of the songs and their different parts were recorded, and re-recorded at Chris' house, where he was building a studio. We were still recording on Eddie's equipment and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We were recording mainly during the daytime, starting just after noon and finishing quite early in the evening. I remember spending all my nights and mornings working on the material I had to learn for the upcoming tour and also composing and polishing my parts I was going to record for RELAYER. Most of the parts I played for RELAYER, I didn't write down on paper--I have an excellent memory, thank God--with the exception of certain extremely precise passages, where there was so little space to include a solo, i.e. the contrapuntal keyboard solo, which sounds a like a fugue towards the end of "To Be Over", before the reprise of the vocals. I wrote that solo down, in the studio, on the spot--there were no computers then to do the job--and I recorded it in one take once I had it down for sound level. My Moog synthesizer solo on "Sound Chaser" was also recorded in one or two takes once I got my sound down. There was some pressure to deliver, and these were very exciting days! All this time, recording, composing, rehearsing was quite hectic, as I was commuting everyday from Central London to Buckinghamshire, where Chris' house was located.

And for the recording of "Gates of Delirium", apart from all the different and intricate musical themes, bass and guitar lines, keyboard lines and parts, rhythms, breaks, unisons, lyrics, vocal parts and so forth, there was also a lot of research going on in terms of the sounds and all the special sound effects we put in the battle sequence. Although the whole piece of "Gates" could be played in its entirety by all of us prior to the final recording sessions, with the exception of the special effects, it took however at least a good couple of weeks to record it in different sections. The best takes of each part would then be edited and assembled later, and then all kinds of overdubs, from guitars--lots of them--to vocals, keyboards, basses, and percussion were added to form a conceptual whole.


TM: Your first solo album THE STORY OF I was released while you were still a member of Yes, in fact all the band members recorded and released solo albums in that period. Do you remember how this got started?

PM: After the first tour of RELAYER in November/December of '74 we all took a break. Then I came back to London and in January/February Steve was already starting to get his solo album together--although we hadn't had an official word on that. He asked me to take part in it and gave me a tape with a melody "Da-duh-do-da... " [from the song "Beginnings"]. He asked me if I would like to do something, like an orchestration and he mentioned the name Vivaldi. So I took that tape and transcribed it and so on and for the next few weeks I orchestrated the whole thing. A few weeks later I played with him the whole thing, with a chamber orchestra that I conducted. Steve was really knocked out by it, he said, "Wow, I didn't expect that!" Of course it didn't sound anything like Vivaldi, it sounded like Moraz.

Chris was also interested in me playing on FISH OUT OF WATER and he asked me if I wanted to do some sessions, of course I was very interested to do that. It was a very good experience for me, because I got to know everybody individually in their own type of work. And the word came out that we were all going to do solo albums during the year of '75. You know the video of RAMSHACKLED with Alan White? A very good, solid rock album, by the way!

TM: Yeah, sure.

PM: I'm doing a little cameo there. I didn't play on his album, but I did a cameo. It was a great vibe, a great time. Everybody was really happy and it worked out. I think we all did pretty well, in terms of expressing ourselves on our solo albums.

TM: Going back to FISH OUT OF WATER for a second, was that the first time you played with Bill Bruford?

PM: I'd met Bill, but we didn't play together, because Bill had already played his parts and I was doing overdubs.

TM: Oh, they'd already laid down the rhythm tracks.

PM: I don't remember playing with him at this stage, but I had met Bill before... I met the whole band when they played in '69 in the Golden Rose Festival in Montreux and we had invited them to a big jam. Then, we re-met in Basel several months later, in November 1969, when all the guys, who were appearing at the Komedie Theater, came to see us play at the Atlantis Club, accompanied by a friend of ours, a Radio DJ, "Swiss Chris", [Chris Schwegler] who brought them to the club, after their concert. It was quite late in the night and the place was packed solid! We were playing under the name of my current group of that time, Patrick Moraz's Integral Aim. We were already playing and developing the material which was going to be recorded some time later under the name of my new group Mainhorse, which included one of the longest pieces of our show, entitled "GOD". But anyway, years later Bill and I realized that we were living in the same village.

TM: Where were you living at that time?

PM: In Surrey, but that was 14 years later! My house was next to Eric Clapton's house and Bill's was five minutes away. It was a tiny little village in a very beautiful part of Surrey and very untouched at the time.

On tour with Bill in Tokyo, 1985

TM: Was it initially his idea to contact you about MUSIC FOR PIANO AND DRUMS?

PM: I think we bumped into each other. In 1983 I'd just found out--the Moodies were supposed to go on tour--in April or May we were supposed to do a big tour which was postponed and I had all this extra time. We probably bumped into each other, maybe at one of those English countryside grocery stores or the post office--I don't know! "Hey man, what are you doing here?" "Oh, I live here... " [laughs] So we decided it would be nice to perform on acoustic piano and drums. I said, "I've got some keyboards at my house, but I could rent a grand piano." and he came over and we played and we found we had something to say, we had some kind of empathy together, something to express and why don't we record an album? We rehearsed for about three weeks, I wrote most of the music. Some of the tunes were completely improvised. Then we went into a studio not too far from our village, at Roxy Music's guitarist's studio, which had a grand piano, and we recorded the whole album in about four days, with three days of editing and mixing and when the time came to name the album he said, "What are we going to name this?" and I said, "MUSIC FOR PIANO AND DRUMS!" As simple as that. [laughs]

TM: Let's return to THE STORY OF I. This project must have been a huge undertaking for someone's debut solo album.

PM: It came out exactly right. We had already decided before the tour that after the tour of '75 in the summer that we were going to do or finish our solo projects. I already had the idea for the story for THE STORY OF I, which really crystallized when I was in Nashville and actually Jon was the first person I told the story to in the elevator of the hotel between the sound check and the concert that night. After the tour I took my engineer Jean and said, "How about going to Brazil?" We had a very close relationship with Brazilian musicians and bands since I had been the musical director of the Brazilian ballet three years before that in '72. We were very attuned to music of percussion instruments and so on. I told him that I wouldn't mind doing some recording in Brazil, so with the help of some people we met down there we organized some sessions. I recorded for like two or three days virtually non-stop with around sixteen percussionists.

TM: Were you recording prepared material at that time?

PM: I had some of the tunes, yes and more. I had been playing that kind of stuff a lot and I was very much versed in that kind of music. I was also developing my own style. I had a lot of material that would have been used for Refugee II, if ever that had happened. I was very prolific and very inspired. I was down in Brazil recording in the studio--I had a great situation. Every percussionist had their own little booth, the separation was very well done, but then there was a real unity. And the guys were playing unbelievably well together, which is not always the case. I wanted to use the percussionists, not in a Samba like fashion only, but I wanted to use them in a symphonic approach. I was conducting the percussionists and bringing different instruments at different times. At one point I heard this Agogo bell going "Da-duh, dut-dut da-do... " that gave me the idea to record that tune "Cachaca." Somehow, it became more known than some of the other pieces, because it seems so simple, on 2 notes like that [but] don't worry, it's not THAT simple! And it was a real joy to record it. We had several twenty-four track tapes that we took back to Switzerland.

As I was also producing the album there were a lot of calls to make. I also had quite a few new inventions I had designed, being built by some electronic wizards at that time: The triple manual Orchestron, the first ever multi-track digital sequencer, the first electric drums Octapad, which was reprised by Roland 10 years later, and the first guitar synthesizer, which I had envisioned being made for Steve [Howe]. These were all my ideas and realizations of those times! I also invited Bob Moog for several weeks, and was developing the Polymoog synthesizer, for which I was also a consultant. I even invited Jon Anderson and his wife. They came to Geneva and stayed for a few days. I had asked my very good friend at the time, Ray Gomez, absolutely brilliant guitarist, to play guitar on the album and Ray introduced me to the extraordinary bass player Jeff Berlin. I think it was Jeff's first big invite.

TM: It was his big break.

PM: Alphonse Mouzon was the drummer with Larry Coryell. He was the equivalent of Billy Cobham at the time, I couldn't get Billy Cobham so I got Mouzon and I was very happy with him. For side two of the album I got Andy Newmark to play drums. John McBurnie's name came up, because he was in a band with Ray Gomez at the time which was under the wings of Yes. John had also been the lyricist and singer in a band with Lee Jackson called Jackson Heights, which was disbanded when we formed Refugee. So I decided to take him and he did a fantastic job, I think with the lyrics and the vocals. We had a fantastic empathy to the point that I asked him later to sing on Out in the Sun and also much later on Time Code. Anyway, I think one of the journalists from Melody Maker said THE STORY OF I makes the crossing of the Alps by Hannibal look like a quiet afternoon in Hyde Park! Or something like that... [laughs]

TM: It was like a cast of thousands--in Technicolor!

PM: Right! Cinemascope, Technicolor! 3D! Animatronics!

TM: By the way, I have to interject--in the song "Dancing Now" the unison riff the band plays, that's a little motif that I find myself humming quite often.

PM: It's a great piece to play. When you consider we played in unison with Jeff Berlin and Ray Gomez and Andy Newmark was on drums and I was on keyboards. We played those lines in unison--the power generated in the studio was absolutely awesome. I love the way that it's extended at the very end of the song [sings the last line] there's that big 'E' which corresponds to the low note on the bass. And of course there's that "baaahhhh", you know? Which one can hear, it's kind of a signature for me because you can find it in the beginning of THE STORY OF I, you can find it in FUTURE MEMORIES, you can find it Coexistence, you can find it in all kinds of places. So it's like a signature.

That was a very rocking kind of tune, "Dancing Now". I think that harmonic content, the way it develops, makes it a really interesting song. I love playing it, I still play it now. All this material, I don't know how many hundreds of pieces I've composed, I can play all of them note for note and I still do. Of course I don't play them all the time, at the same time! [laughs]


TM: Exactly...

PM: It'd take me weeks! I do play them and I do rehearse them with some of the musicians I'm playing with and so I'm always ready to do concerts and go on the road.

TM: I know that in the two CHAT shows that I saw, in both of them you incorporated music from through-out your career. On the last show of that tour in the bay area someone requested "Rise and Fall" from THE STORY OF I and you pulled it out of your hat and it sounded great.

PM: [enthusiastically sings the main theme] I enjoyed doing that you know? I don't regret any notes at all composed for these albums and I'm still playing them.

With Rick Wakeman in Orlando, Florida, 1993

TM: Did you actually lay down any tracks on GOING FOR THE ONE, even at the demo stage?

PM: After my respective participation in Steve's and Chris' albums, and since the end of our respective solo albums recordings, we were constantly composing, searching, playing and recording demos upon demos of what was going to become GOING FOR THE ONE. There must be miles of tapes with me [playing on them], which have most probably been erased or lost since then. As I had mentioned before, I had participated to the creation of GftO well before it started officially to be recorded in Montreux in the fall of 76....Whatever was cut-off from the finished album, I must have had some input and my influences were there during the compositional stages, nevertheless, having spent more than two years, three big tours and the making of some of the solo albums with the guys. Imagine the possibilities!

TM: One last Yes question--on the remaster of TORMATO there is demo of a song called "Everybody's Song". On the song there's a short synthesizer solo that definitely sounds like your style--do you recall anything about this song?

PM: I think it is [me], but it's so short, it's only 4 bars long! And so unbelievably in-the-back in the mix that it's almost inaudible! I'm quite sure there must have been more than that and more things from past recordings and outtakes of all kinds of material.

TM: When did you start becoming aware of world music and begin to incorporate it into what you were doing musically?

PM: Oh very early on--in the sixties already. I've been to Africa many times before I'd even started Mainhorse. And I had a lot of contacts with musicians, I was playing everywhere... the Ivory Coast, Congo, Chad, everywhere--you name it! The place I didn't go to was South Africa at the time. I've been to a lot of countries and I've played with a lot of percussionists and musicians. In 1968 with the help of a good friend we brought some African percussionists to Switzerland and we did a whole improvised concert, we were very much into that. I've got to admit this as well, before I was a rock musician I was versed in all kinds of ethnic music. My I album, or THE STORY OF I, if you prefer, was considered and named the first real World Music album of its kind, implying the notion of a certain trans-culturalism. On the other hand, one could arguably say that the first big time band in world music--if you can call it that--was Santana.

TM: That's true. Actually I was recently listening to MAINHORSE and felt that there was some Santana influence or vibe--is that far off?

PM: No, it's not far off at all. The genial guitarist Peter Lockett could play like anybody at the time. He could play like Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and he was only eighteen years old and he was fantastic. I remember we used to play clubs in Germany doing the last set and it's three or four o' clock in the morning and so on we used to play the blues and Latin improvs like that. So probably some of that touch in MAINHORSE, yeah.

TM: Okay moving forward, PATRICK MORAZ III is one of my favorite Moraz albums, I love the unique combinations of keyboards and percussion on that album.

PM: I was relistening to the song "Primitivisation"; I was just playing it before we started... [suddenly the music comes on very loudly]

TM: That's great stuff!

PM: It sounds unbelievable! That third album was never released as a CD in the western world. I think a CD was produced in Japan about fifteen years, but it's never been released--nobody's heard it since...

TM: Since the vinyl...

PM: And there's a lot of people who have been born since then! I really enjoyed making that album. I wanted to play all the instruments and I played some of the percussion instruments. I had the help of Djalma Correa--the star percussionist--and I also used the sixteen Brazilian percussionists. I did some live concerts of that music in '78 in Brazil, prior to Claude Nobs, the famous promoter of the Montreux Jazz Festival, inviting me to top the bill at the 78 Sao Paulo Jazz Festival which he had organized with some Brazilian promoters. He flew me out for a weekend--I was just finishing rehearsals with the Moody Blues, before going on our first American Tour--and came back on a Monday--it was unbelievable. We were sharing the evening with Chick Corea's group and Stan Getz. It was a magic evening, sold-out to the rims of the Anhembi Stadium, all the people on their feet dancing, absolutely surreal!

TM: You and I have never spent much time talking about your tenure in the Moody Blues. How do you look back on those years now?

PM: I was with them from them from '78 through technically '91, but in fact my last gig with them was in September 1990. I was only notified that I would no longer be a part of the Moody Blues just as we were preparing to go on tour in 1991. I think of myself as a member from 1980 to 1991, but I did two tours with them in '78 and '79. It was only in March 1980 that we started recording LONG DISTANCE VOYAGER. For that album I'd prepared myself in a way, with all of my keyboards, my sounds and so on by doing Coexistence. It was recorded from the end of '79 to February of 1980 and of course I'd practiced and progressed with all of the new instruments I was using. It's an album I cherish a lot, because it documents my history with the pan flute player Syrinx. People think that Coexistence is called Syrinx, no Syrinx is the name of Simon Stanciu and that's his nickname. It actually comes from the ancient Greek, which means the god of music. Coexistence has a lot of reflection of what you'll find in the Moodies, although maybe my keyboards in the Moodies were... they were well mixed, right?

TM: Oh yeah, I think they were upfront in the mixes.

Last tour with the Moody Blues, September, 1990

PM: Pip Williams was a fantastic producer I've got to say, we really enjoyed working with him, also on THE PRESENT, which we did in 1982. I think that album was a very underrated album, but I think it was a good album. I never understood why it didn't make it. It's a part of rock 'n roll politics that I'll never understand...

There is a film company out of England that is documenting the history of different major rock groups. They have asked me to participate in both the Moody Blues and Yes documentaries. While Yes has always acknowledged that I was a member of the band the problem with the Moody Blues is that they've completely shut me out of their history. They act as though I never existed. And while the argument in favor of me taking part in this documentary ,might be, well at least my past with the Moodies will be acknowledged, the prospect of doing this interview left me with a lot of quandaries, such as: After spending 12 years as part of the Moody Blues, recording, touring, being interviewed for major newspapers, magazines and television as a Moody Blues band member, filming music videos, accepting awards, doing photo shoots for our album covers from 1978 to 1990, etc. etc. sleeping, eating, partying, flying all over the globe together and at times with our families in the same jets, staying in the same hotels and so much more...

The prospect of becoming a 5 minute footnote in this documentary with the probability of being called a hired gun (or in so many terms), after all those years with the Moody Blues would only add to my sadness and disgust at the way I've been treated by the people that I once called "friends." And so I have chosen not to take part in this video even though the producer had told me that his intention is to do an unbiased accounting of this history, I would not feel happy at the end of the day to be part of something that I will not be given the full respect for by the Moody Blues, that I rightfully deserve. As the title of the song goes "No More Lies".

TM: Yes, indeed. It's especially upsetting when the update you brought to their sound was a major factor in them having such success in the '80s.

PM: Of course, there's no doubt about that. I mean they changed [updated] their lyrics, but the music was great, for the Moodies that is. There was nothing wrong with that, you know? I know there's a hardcore group of fans who consider the seven original albums of the Moodies were the true Moody Blues music as opposed to the ones that came after--from OCTAVE onwards. I wasn't associated with OCTAVE, but I was associated with LONG DISTANCE VOYAGER on, and I did much more than just keyboards.

TM: What's the timetable for the release of the remasters? Will they be over the course of a year?

PM: No, it will be much quicker than that. In two days MAINHORSEand REFUGEE will be coming out--that is in England [the first pressing of REFUGEE is already sold-out, but is being re-pressed]. On the 12th of June, will be the official release worldwide of THE STORY OF I and OUT IN THE SUN. Did you know the 12th of June is a very important day, it's exactly thirty years after the JFK stadium--the biggest Yes concert. For some reason it just coincided with that.

TM: That's a nice way to observe the anniversary.

PM: It's very good, and there are bonus tracks on the albums through FUTURE MEMORIES I and II. There will be two albums released a month.

TM: You've certainly given your fans something to look forward to. Do you find since you've been revisiting your history that there's a personal favorite--is there an album that stands out for the time it was created or its music or both?

PM: It's like if you ask a film director if he prefers a big production compared to a small production. When we did THE STORY OF I it was a big production, there were quite a lot of musicians and singers. And when I did FUTURE MEMORIES "Live on TV" and FUTURE MEMORIES II" although the logistics were very involved, it was a completely different type of production, on top of the fact that I was playing all the music on my own, "live on TV" and in an "instant-composition" kind of situation. But it terms of the content and the historical point of view, I think the FUTURE MEMORIES series is as important as THE STORY OF I. Of course, I like the big productions too, the big orchestrations and arrangements and so on.

But considering that I improvised everything in one take, not necessarily the first take, when I did FUTURE MEMORIES I and FUTURE MEMORIES II I really improvised all of that music on the spot. Except one tune called "How Basic Can You Get", which is a song I wrote, sang, and played all the instruments with the exception of the bass, with and excellent player whose name escapes me right now and of the drums, by Dave Mattacks, an excellent English drummer, and which was co-produced by Gregg Jackman, a fantastic engineer. I called them 'instant compositions' because for me they were crystallized improvisations, which means that, for example, "Eastern Sundays" was the second take. I know that "Metamorphoses", the long piece which is eighteen minutes long, in three movements and on twenty-two keyboards, was the second take. Which means I had improvised it once to show the movements to the camera, and I was playing almost the same, because I'd never play anything exactly the same when I do an improvisation, especially in a situation like this.

TM: But you'd been through the process once.

PM: That's right, so if I can't call it an improvisation, I've got to call it an "instant- composition". I love to improvise and I love to also instant-compose, which means I'm composing in the moment that an improvisation takes place. It's crystallizing that improvisation to make a fully fledged composition, but it's such a flash, such a rapid time that it can be called an instant-composition.

TM: You can sit at an instrument and craft a piece of music and there's nothing wrong with that approach, but if you're improvising and you get that moment and it's there--that to me is the spark behind real composition.

PM: Right, right. Most of the FUTURE MEMORIES series were completely improvised and when I did the rehearsal of the movement it was only because we had the television cameras and we were live on TV.

TM: You had to block out the movements for the director.

PM: I never even played the entirety of the compositions at first; I really kept that magic moment for the take which was recorded. Getting back to personal favorites, I love my third album, PATRICK MORAZ, THE STORY OF I, and there are things in OUT IN THE SUN that I love. I enjoyed recording that album, especially after the turmoil I'd been in at the end of '76 when I left Yes. That was a very big relief to record OUT IN THE SUN and that's why it sounds light hearted and happy, you know? I didn't need to do Story of I Part Two at that time! I still love to play those pieces, "Time for a Change", and that rock thing "Da-duh-do-da-duh, dah!" "Love-Hate-Sun-Rain-You". It's really great to play "Rana Batucada" as well, and even "Out-in-the-Sun." With the solo electronic albums and even the solo piano albums, it's more of a personal and direct approach, but they are also my favorites!

TM: What is the status of the A WAY TO FREEDOM project?

PM: A WAY TO FREEDOM seems to be taking a long time to come out. It's not the lack of material, but more about the inherent inertia which has surrounded the project from the beginning. I have lots and lots of recorded material already, but I never seem to be able to put the finishing touch to the production as a whole. Especially now that I have all these [re] releases soon to be coming out, I've been immersed in a lot of research and restoration and that takes a lot of time and effort. It is still a work in progress and I cannot announce its release yet. But it will come out in the not-too-distant future.

TM: Do you have any live appearances planned?

PM: I'm preparing for that, I also need the right kind of logistics. I've got these fifteen releases with Voiceprint, but also in Japan I've got a very good company, Vega Music which has signed my piano album RESONANCE. It's just been released and it's fantastic and they want to bring me to Japan to do piano concerts and they also want me to do some electronic concerts, we'll see, that would be great! There's also talk of me doing concerts with my drummer Jacob Armen. He's one of the most unbelievable drummers I've ever played with; he's a true musical genius. I've just been recording with him and he's finishing his solo album on which I've been playing some of my compositions. We did a very brief, but very remarked-on performance at the NAMM show last year at the Keyboard Magazine party, and we blew everybody's mind apparently. I remember the reaction from the house--we brought the house down! Of course if we had to play some shows tomorrow, we're ready. The guy's on par with me. We have a way of playing together at the speed of thought. If you start thinking about it, it almost goes beyond telepathy! We are actually playing and interacting at the nanosecond level, Jacob and I. Even he can't believe it! That's what we want to bring to the concerts.

TM: I know people would love to see that live. To wrap this up is there something you'd like to impart to your fans?

PM: Freedom, peace, love, creativity! What would life be without being able to be creative? By creative, I mean being able to use our imagination, intelligence, knowledge, intuition and spirituality to access higher levels of consciousness, and at the same time fulfill, through the joy of others, our dearest dreams, our deepest visions, our most secret desires and reach new plateaux of awareness where we feel we could, eventually, find the keys to unlock the gates to the multiple universes of our unconscious. Of course, I love my fans. When we used to do the CHAT tours, I think the majority of people understood I could only do that once or twice in my life, but I had the best time with the fans and interacting with all the people. Actually, I would consider doing another tour like that, but different, maybe with some electronic keyboards as well, and in some larger venues, like theaters and concert halls. Let's see if there is some interest out there.

In any case, please tell all your readers, and their families and friends, and the friends of their friends, to make sure they buy all of my remastered CDs. They won't be disappointed, and the more interest there is, the more there is going to be a chance that I can come out and do a tour with all this music.


Patrick Moraz Website: http://www.patrickmoraz.com  
Patrick Moraz Newsgroups: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/MorazNews 
Contact for Patrick Moraz: Wingman@shore.net

Thanks to Brian Kelleher for arranging this interview. In regards to the timeline of the remastered CDs, they are as follows, as per www.Voiceprint.co.uk  [please note that these are the official release dates in the UK].

22.05.06 IDVP001CD Patrick Moraz MAINHORSE
22.05.06 IDVP002CD Patrick Moraz REFUGEE

12.06.06 IDVP003CD Patrick Moraz STORY OF I
12.06.06 IDVP004CD Patrick Moraz OUT IN THE SUN

10.07.06 IDVP005CD Patrick Moraz PATRICK MORAZ III
10.07.06 IDVP006CD Patrick Moraz COEXISTENCE/LIBERTATE

21.08.06 IDVP007CD Patrick Moraz TIMECODE
21.08.06 IDVP008CD Patrick Moraz FUTURE MEMORIES LIVE ON TV

04.09.06 IDVP009CD Patrick Moraz FUTURE MEMORIES II
04.09.06 IDVP010CD Patrick Moraz FUTURE MEMORIES 1 & II

09.10.06 IDVP011CD Patrick Moraz Human INTERFACE
09.10.06 IDVP012CD Patrick Moraz WINDOWS OF TIME

13.11.06 IDVP013CD Patrick Moraz LIVE IN PRINCETON
13.11.06 IDVP014CD Patrick Moraz RESONANCE
13.11.06 IDVP015CD Patrick Moraz ESP
 


Tim Morse is the author of "Yesstories" and "Classic Rock Stories". He has also released an album of original progressive rock entitled Transformation. For more details go to www.timmorse.com.
 


Notes From the Edge #299
Conducted May 21, 2006

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