I mourn the loss, a few weeks ago, of my dear friend Randy. He was a unique character with a very strong life force — kind, enthusiastic, curious, industrious, creative, bold. Our lives crossed paths many times, including (to name just a few) him hiring me multiple times to collaborate on varied endeavors of his, such as furniture making, book publishing, and developing software used in hospital NICUs, and me making use of his print production experience to oversee getting good quality on the 32-page color booklet for the Dream Art Science CD. He was a builder, a designer, an architect, and spent his last decades in a house he designed. It is hard to imagine never again being able to bounce ideas off him, or laugh at the lunacies of this world together.

I had met him soon after starting college in NYC in 1969. In 1974, while I was in San Francisco playing with bands, I cooked up this musical greeting to him and his housemates — Peggy and a guy named Rob Singer — and recorded it by bouncing tracks between 2 home reel-to-reel tape recorders. My friend and neighbor James Sanchez added the drum part.

The lyrics are kind of silly, in the spirit of Alice In Wonderland, ironically pushing the premise that he should grow up and become like everybody else, something he clearly never could, should, or would do. I re-listen to this recording, and share it, as a way of celebrating the special energy that I was moved to capture by creating the track.

Randy Stands Trial

Randy Stands Trial (1974)

Frisking- 11 musiciens - original set of percussions + wind players

Tonight and for the first time in my musician career, I was supposed to present a personal project at the Confluent Jazz Festival in Namur, but Corona had other plans for this evening... So here is a demo of one of the numbers me and the band would have performed!
... This is really just a demo performed by myself, so be indulgent...

Enjoy ;-)

Gilles&Shangu

Patrick Gleeson Keys and Ableton Live
Sam Morrison- Saxophone and Flute
Michael Shrieve Drums

Patrick Gleeson and The Leap

Tangletown