Barnes & Noble.com: You are mostly known for pioneering relaxation music during the mid- to late-1970s. What kind of music were you involved in up to that point?

Steven Halpern: I grew up playing old-school R&B guitar and bass, in the vein of Wilson Pickett, James Brown, and Ray Charles. Then later on, I played jazz trumpet in a top jazz-rock band called New Chicago Lunche. This was jazz fusion at its best, when it was still innovative and exciting. Later on, while living in Berkeley, I sat in on trumpet with Eddie Marshall's jazz group, the Fourth Wave, and I played guitar with a black R&B soul group. I often got fired because my guitar solos were so jazzy that the patrons stopped drinking to listen. You can hear me return to some of my guitar and bass roots on Deja-Blues and Chants to Awaken the Buddhist Heart.

B&N.com: What steered you toward the birth of your new age work?

SH: I created an independent study course at the University of Buffalo to research literature about the healing nature of sound. There wasn't much available, so I started on my own quest to find what healing music of the 20th century would sound like. When I came to California, I found that I was hearing this new form of music in my own head.

I began to attend workshops by the leading figures in the human potential movement, including Stanley Krippner, who had just signed as a dean of the new Humanistic Psychology Institute. He heard my music and saw this as innovative research, and so guaranteed my acceptance into their program; by the fall of 1970, I was doing my research.

B&N.com: What gave Spectrum Suite its healing quality?

SH: Several elements -- tone, space, and silence -- are essential. There had never before been an instrument to match the effect of the electric piano tone of Spectrum Suite. And instead of a steady beat, I paced myself with deep yogic breathing. I knew from bioresearch that I was in a deep meditative alpha and theta brainwave state when I would record, and this can be transmitted to the listener.

Back then, we taped analog rather than digital, and the reels lasted only 30 minutes. We set up the equipment and turned off the lights. I closed my eyes and played. When I opened my eyes, we'd have a whole half of an album done. It was one take, totally live, and totally in the flow. It was like the music played itself.

B&N.com: Tell me about your recent collaborations.

SH: I've always enjoyed collaborating with artists like Iasos, harpist Georgia Kelly, Daniel Kobialka, and Paul Horn. On the Deja-Blues album, the old Hear to Eternity tracks by flautist Schawkie Roth stimulated a memory for me that suggested another piece of music. A vintage track recorded by percussionist Victor Spiegel suggested yet another piece, as did an improvisation by Paul Horn from our Connections album. These old tracks are the foundation upon which I then build new, expanded orchestrations; I see them like a pearl, with layers growing around it.

B&N.com: Aside from composing and performing, you're also a producer. What additional work does that entail?

SH: As a producer on Deja-Blues, I had the vision of what the music would sound like, and I put different musicians together in different ways. So on one track, for example, I put an Indian tamboura together with Brazilian drumming and hip-hop beats. In addition, I worked on the kind of sound I wanted in terms of reverb, balance, and tonal qualities.

With Chants to Awaken the Buddhist Heart, on the other hand, I decided which chants lent themselves to a rhythmic, rock-flavored treatment, and which should stay more traditional with a drone backing. I then added all the different instruments, which I played myself.

B&N.com: What was the inspiration for the chant album?

SH: Lama Surya Das and I were two keynoters at a healing and spirituality conference in May of 1999. When we met beforehand, he told me that we had gone to the same high school in Long Island. I didn't remember him, but he knew me because he saw me perform. I then got a more meaningful connection with him when I heard him chant. It was like I knew these chants!

I approached him with the idea of trying to do something more with them. I sent him a few tracks on spec, and he thought it would work, especially if we could have the release of the album coincide with the publication of his new book, Awakening the Buddhist Heart. Now, Surya Das is from Long Island, but he's a lama, not just a regular guy. He's trained in the meditative tradition; he has all his own wisdom and the wisdom of the centuries as a lineage holder. During the recording, you could feel the energy in the recording studio shift. When he started to chant, he was all business. The chants are very powerful, and they continue to resonate within your body for hours after listening to them.

B&N.com: What about the blues in Deja-Blues?

SH: When I heard the Schawkie Roth bamboo flute solo recently, I remembered how much I liked it when he first played it. Zodiac Suite has been out of print for 15 years, and I couldn't rerelease it because the master tape had disintegrated. I had enough tape, however, to pull out Schawkie's solos. I had forgotten about those improvisations of his, but when I heard them again, I thought, "I've been here before" -- that was the déjà vu aspect. When Mark Bell started to add drum tracks on "Moonrise Over Orion," I saw past life images. So that was déjà vu also.

Near the end of the recording, I invited Melissa Philippe to sing on the old track "Morrocan Roll" from Hear to Eternity. I asked her to try singing in a gospel-blues mode, and it worked. So I went back and recorded another bass track that went through some blues changes. That's when the music seemed to take on a life of its own. I also played some blues guitar on a track, which added a little more edge to the album. I even recorded some hotter blues tracks, but these will be on Deja-Blues II, which will feature reunions with musicians who played with me perhaps 20 years ago. So it will be even more deja-something.

November 13, 2000
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