On Memory Lane with Steve T.

Dear Steve, there may be some „hot takes“ in this hour including the two „song albums“ I compared „Close“ to, but I did that for good reasons. In one passage I even went back to old diaries and letters about your experiences in the far east – hope the letter to Claudia will be a surprise for you.  (…) This radio hour was written during and after my weeks on Pellworm and at home. (…) One evening I went down to the seas listening to LIFE OF, and while being surrounded  by the music and the Northern Sea, I remembered a moment on the island of Wangerooge in 1974/75. Michael Naura, the Jazz matador from the NDR, Hamburg, played a track from Ralph Towner‘s „SOLSTCE“ called „Nimbus“, and I heard it on a cheap, metal radio transistor without headphone, while it was  raining hard, the waves crushing, and it blew me away. i felt the same  sense of wonder and amazement when listening again to „LIFE OF“. Fifty years ago and this moment of time standing still on Pellworm became one – it was my personal „Ganachakra experience“ of awareness😉… (…) Michael

Hi, Michael, the track „Oceanus“ changed my life.  If I had to pick one selection that embodied the peak of ECM’s glory years, that would be the one. I met Ralph Towner twice, once in NYC at Bob Hurwitz’s apartment, and once at an Oregon gig here in Minnesota.  The New York meeting was over a glass of wine at Bob’s apartment in the West Village.  There was still a pervasive aura of „Welcome to the ECM family.“  Hans Wendl wrote those words in his first letter to me, the letter confirming dates for Oslo in ’81.  ECM had its own office on Park Avenue.  They were riding high.  I had been flown to NYC to do interviews for „Northern Song.“  I was starstruck to be around Towner.  I felt like my position in this new „family“ was like meeting a new girlfriend’s parents, maybe at a dinner in the Hamptons.  Small talk, kind smiles, but a subtle tension at being the new guy.  I sipped my wine very slowly and thought, over and over, „Don’t say anything stupid.“ (….) The second time was after an Oregon concert at the Cedar Cultural Center. This was when they were working with a new percussionist after Colin died. The concert itself was good, but what astounded me was Ralph’s piano playing.  I made a vow, that night, to take piano lessons (I did) and to practice guitar 5-6 hours a day (I didn’t).  Again, we chatted after the concert, and again, I was star-struck.  Colin changed my life as well, but that’s a story for another time.  Your use of the word „ganachakra“ in your email is an „suspicious coincidence,“ as they say.  Best to you, s

A week later:

YOUR radio mission accomplished! I think you should still stay on the radio, but if it must be, a wandering griot also works.  Wander in this direction, rent a car in New York City, find your way west, Route 66.

There’s more to do.  

Onward, with gratitude,

-s

(fact is: my next hours of „Klanghorizonte“ are scheduled for May and September 2026. And then… a wandering griot, a stargazer, some meditation, some horizons, who knows…)