The Feldman
All The Lee That's Fit To Print
Summer 2011
Piano
The constant in my life is the piano. I start every day with Bach, the #1 Composer according to The New York Times. I learn one new line of music a day and am on schedule to have the 2 books of the Well Tempered Clavier in my fingers and mind by 2015. I’ll be giving a concert on Friday, January 6, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. at Third Street Music School Settlement, where I teach piano. Half the program will be Bach and the other half will be jazz standards.
At 3rd Street I give one-on-one lessons to students, mostly kids. I teach some adults too and I enjoy it but I find it a bit easier to relate to the kids. Honestly I get a little bored talking to adults, don’t quite trust them. Kids will surprise you. Last year one of my students thought the dynamic marking mf was pronounced metro forte. Another one called the sustain pedal the “clutch.”
My jazz piano heroes are Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk. I like a lot of different players but those guys really break out of the atmosphere. The air gets clearer. Last year I started taking weekly lessons with Neal Kirkwood, a jazz pianist colleague at Third Street. Practicing those beautiful standards and addressing the deficiencies in my playing is a liberating experience.
Creating a rich piano sound involves the entire body, not just the arms, hands and fingers. Breathing is important! Posture is important! And if you work at it every day, progress is made! Pretty much all I’m interested in these days is the health and welfare of my family and making progress.
I don’t enjoy reading the newspaper much because it doesn’t seem like the world is making progress.
Son Of Starboy
We were in Tucson, AZ for two weeks this summer. We stayed in a roomy house in the desert and heard the coyotes at night. I was there for a theater workshop at Pima Community College. I wrote a sequel to my animated musical “STARBOY” called “SON OF STARBOY.” It was brought to life by 15 high school students. The show incorporates both live action and animation, singing and dancing; it is happy and sad, funny and strange. I’m going back next summer to continue developing it.
I loved working with the kids and they taught me the game “Ninja.” It’s played in a circle, using just your body and hand movements. Everybody bows to start, then strikes a martial arts pose. Then you try to hit each other’s hands. I wasn’t very good, but I felt young again, and accepted by the group of kids. I don’t think that I’ve ever been part of a group before. It was a great feeling.
I Gave A Lecture
As part of the summer workshop, I delivered a lecture that addresses the question “What Makes a Good Song?” I’ve been working on this lecture for a while. The short answer is: freshness and inevitability. I’d like to take this on the road to libraries across the US, in conjunction with a tour to support my new album.
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Album No. 4
I’m making a new album! My last album came out over 5 years ago. The new one will be called “Trying to Put the Things Together That Never Been Together Before.” Starting in January I rehearsed for seven Sundays in a row with my band: Bill Dobrow (drums) and Byron Isaacs (bass). I’ve been playing with them for over 10 years now. I wasn’t sure that I had enough material for a new album when we started, but it turned out that I had 15 songs that I wanted to record.
Both of my bandmates know me pretty well by now. Bill and I are pretty wacky people. Byron is more subtly wacky. I wanted everyone to feel creatively empowered and the band feels like a ship that steers a wild and beautiful course between chaos and order; between words and meaning. I love playing with these guys.
Recording
We went into the Magic Shop, a top recording studio in NYC, on April 23rd and by the evening of April 27th we had recorded the basic tracks for 15 songs, including “Halo,” “That’s the Way the World Used to Work” and “Subtle Flagellating Pulse Baby in a Christian Fabric Memory Dress.” We also recorded a string section comprised of top NY session players; percussionist Mauro Refosco (he works with David Byrne and Thom Yorke), and my brother David Feldman, who sang a version of “I Remember the Night,” a song about the divorce of our parents. I wrote it almost 25 years ago.
Kickstarter
I need help in paying for the album. I need to finish recording it, mix it, master it, and distribute it. It’s expensive. I’ve started a Kickstarter campaign, which is a website
artists use to fund independent projects. The campaign is one month long and we are one week into it. The funny thing about Kickstarter is you have to meet your fundraising goal to get any of the money pledged. The deadline is August 11th. Please go to my website (www.leefeldman.com) and click on the Kickstarter link. For as little as $1, you can purchase a song from the new album. There are interesting rewards for backers. I would greatly appreciate your support, and please forward the link to anyone you think might be interested. Thanks.
Noah And Me
Playing chamber music is another thing I’m starting to do. The most exciting thing is looking closely at a section of the music and trying it different ways with another musician, and listen to it become more dimensional. Cellist Noah Hoffeld and I have been rehearsing Ernst Bloch’s “3 Sketches from Jewish Life” for a while now. We will record it along with arrangements of Chasidic melodies, Jewish folk songs and a few other Semitic selections. Hava Nagila? No thank you, I’m full.
And...
What else can I tell you? We love Governors Island. My boys are so alive and beautiful that they offset the pessimism that I feel every time I read the newspaper. I swim in the excellent City of New York pool right across the street from us. I am thankful for our city’s transportation commissioner who miraculously gave us places to ride our bicycles.
Recently, a Russian friend of mine asked me how I was doing. When I told him I was pretty happy, he said, “Well, enjoy it because it probably won’t get any better.” That’s OK with me.
