MON., AUGUST 01, 2005
The New Age Gospel According to Paul
by Robert Phoenix
Grammy winner Paul Horn was a young lion prowling the L.A. jazz scene during the late '50s and early '60s. He played with the likes of Chico Hamilton, Buddy Collette, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Miles, and had everything the lifestyle could afford — and more.
But then, much like Somerset Maugham's restless seeker, Larry Durrell, Horn took off on the razor's edge and began an earnest study of transcendental meditation with its founder the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He went from student to teacher and became an instructor, which gave him more access to the world of the Maharishi, and consequently led to Horn's involvement in a film project on his life and work. While in India working on the film, Horn toured the Taj Mahal and immediately became aware of its deeply resonant qualities. He returned after the tour and paid the security guard to let him into the royal palace with his flute and tape recorder. There, he unknowingly changed the course of new age music.
Amongst the jeweled garden walls of the main room, housing the phantoms of disincarnate Moghuls swaying ethereally through time, Horn played his flute, echoing notes into infinity, while the security guard transformed into Radha, singing melodiously along. The result was Inside the Taj Mahal, a record that would sell more than a million copies and come to define new age music as we know it. He quickly followed it up with Inside the Great Pyramid, which sold more than half a million copies. The die had been cast and Horn would seek out and play sacred spaces across the globe — from the roof of the world in Lhasa to the heart of the mother in Canyon De Chelly, Horn has sounded the planet.
Still active and vital in his seventy-fifth year, he considers his unique and, in many respects, unintended legacy, and looks ahead to teaching, sharing and playing the music that still plays him.
At seventy-five what is the key to your vitality?
Living the life of a musician, especially when you're young, takes its toll on the body. I think the meditation, TM, when I came to it 1966 has been the basis of everything for me. It grounds me, centers me, it goes on and on and on. I think meditation, not just TM, is a necessary tool to balance one's life. It just prolongs it — I have very little grey in my hair, don't look my age.
What was your initial experience like with TM?
I had read a lot about meditation, but I never could do it. And then someone told me about TM. The person who told me looked wonderful, more vital and a real sparkle in her eye, a real change had come over her. I asked her how she did it and she told me that she had been meditating with TM. So I went to a series of lectures, started meditating and it felt good at first, but it wasn't a psychedelic experience, no lights went off, there was no instant Samadhi. And then I went on the road with Tony Bennett for six weeks — Tahoe, Vegas — and I got back into my old habits again. But when I got back to L.A., I found myself leaving my bags at my doorstep, walking in and thinking, "If you do this everyday for the rest of your life, you're going to die."
Wow.
I got permission to go to India to do a teachers training course. I didn't really want to be a teacher, I just wanted to get closer to the Maharishi. This was a year before the Beatles so he wasn't a household name yet. I became a teacher and started to teach TM at UCLA and Berkeley.
Things went easier with the music career. I wasn't pushing so hard — I didn't care as much.
So when did the Taj Mahal recording take place?
That was the following year. I came back the next year as a producer for a major Hollywood movie. I had approached Four Star Television and told them about my experience the year before and thought it would be an interesting documentary. I was there with an international crew of twelve. The movie never came out, but I toured the Taj again and this time I brought a sound man — the sound man on the crew. I remembered that it had a marvelous echo. I talked the guard into letting me play there and he let me come back later that evening. The rest is history. It was never intended to be an album. Just a memento, for myself and some friends in L.A.
The guard wound up singing on the recording.
Yes he did, which he usually did anyway, to demonstrate the echo for the tourists. He would give this long voice call that would go on forever. I thought, "Man what would a flute sound like in here?"
The echo is amazing.
It is, it's so pure. You don't know where the note ends and the echo begins.
When did you decide that you were going to make it into an album? And what was the buzz like?
Well I got buzz from people I played it for. I took it around to a few companies and they thought it was unique and they liked it but they couldn't figure out how to get airplay with it. But I didn't care. I stopped shopping it around, and a year later an old friend who had become the head of A&R for Epic asked me if I had anything new. I said I did and I played it for him. He said it was great, and that he would run it by his people in New York. Which he did and they wanted it. Epic took it and put it out, and they were surprised by the sales. It had sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in no time. It was my 14th record, I had 13 straight-ahead jazz records before that. They were really surprised. It's still selling.
This is an interesting story about the recording and your evolution as an artist. It all seemed like it happened of its own accord without a lot of pushing on your part. It just unfolds and then there's the birth of a new genre as a result.
Well I think that's very observant of you and astute. I agree. I wasn't trying to do anything. That's a lesson I learned from meditation as well. You just relax more with life and instead of pursuing your agenda 24 hours a day, you're sort of more content to see what happens and go along with it. Life becomes easier. We worry and try so hard to achieve what we think we want and many times when we get it, it's not what you thought it would be anyway. These are the things you learn along the way. It sort of evolved that over 15 years I did more solo flute concerts.
One of my favorite quotes is, "the expression of essence is the art of non-doing."
There has to be an experience in your life to know that that philosophy exists and works and you let it work.
So then you became a global troubadour.
It sort of evolved like that. The door opened and I walked through it. Then the pyramid came up next and I recorded there.
What was that like? It must have been pretty far out.
[Chuckles] It was. Again, I just went without any advance permission. These countries tend to be too bureaucratic — very little chance that you'll get any official permission through correspondence — so I just joined a tourist group and brought a very good sound man, David Green who had a Nagra, with some really good mikes. I managed to get in there at night, three hours, and that's a whole other vibe — silence, deep silence. I didn't have any frightening experiences like I had read about some other people.
Some people have had some fairly dark experiences there.
Do you know about Napoleon's?
No.
Well apparently he spent the night in the King's chamber and when he emerged the next day, he was ashen. He didn't talk about it, not even on his deathbed when he was asked about it.
Once I was in there alone, I meditated with David and I could hear voices in the distance, like a choir singing. When my meditation was over I told David what I had heard and he had heard the same thing. You see, sound never dies — it never ceases entirely. It's always there. I think the singing I heard was the chanting of the initiation ceremony that took place in the king's chamber many, many years before.
Is there any place you would like to play but haven't?
Yes; the Sistine Chapel. I've tried for many years and know some people fairly high up in the Catholic church. I was over in Rome a coupe of years ago and Vatican Radio was interested and they wanted to broadcast it, but then I found out that Vatican Radio has nothing to do with the church! [Laughs]
That's one place where you can't just show up as a tourist and play!
No way. However, I just recorded at the Patala Palace in Lhasa a year ago. That represents a trilogy of sorts for me, but it hasn't been released as of yet.
You rode a heady wave of human potential and exploration of consciousness that started in the '60s and seems to have subsided to a large extent. Do you think we'll ever see anything like that again?
I think so... Because we could do so much damage to the world no one can escape it. There's so much negativity happening in the news, but there's a lot happening on the other front, all over the world — even in places like the [former] Soviet Union.
What role do you think music has to play in such a transformation?
I think it has a big role, especially the music that we're both talking about. It's not a particular style of music, but the consciousness of the musicians that play it. It's a power that can transform people. It doesn't have to be new age music — it can be any style. I could listen to a ballad by Miles Davis and it's going to give me the same feeling.
When you were around Miles, would you consider him a covertly spiritual person?
He never talked in spiritual terms and his outer countenance would almost defy anything overtly spiritual. It was just an armor that he wore, though you can't hide who you are when it comes to music, especially the sensitivity it takes when it comes to playing a ballad. You can't fake it. And Miles was just that. I don't think his environment allowed him to think in those terms, but I think he knew. He was very sensitive and aware but he didn't talk about it. He just picked up his horn and played and if you picked up on it, that was fine.
What do you think of the term new age?
Well I guess it's okay. It started out as a nice way to describe what was happening in the '60s, but then it got distorted as some sort of anti-Christian thing and then the majors got a hold of it as a marketing phrase. I guess it's okay.
How do you feel about being labeled the "Father of New Age Music"?
Like most of the things that have happened to me, it was really unintended, but if that's the case, I'm flattered.
But then, much like Somerset Maugham's restless seeker, Larry Durrell, Horn took off on the razor's edge and began an earnest study of transcendental meditation with its founder the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He went from student to teacher and became an instructor, which gave him more access to the world of the Maharishi, and consequently led to Horn's involvement in a film project on his life and work. While in India working on the film, Horn toured the Taj Mahal and immediately became aware of its deeply resonant qualities. He returned after the tour and paid the security guard to let him into the royal palace with his flute and tape recorder. There, he unknowingly changed the course of new age music.
Amongst the jeweled garden walls of the main room, housing the phantoms of disincarnate Moghuls swaying ethereally through time, Horn played his flute, echoing notes into infinity, while the security guard transformed into Radha, singing melodiously along. The result was Inside the Taj Mahal, a record that would sell more than a million copies and come to define new age music as we know it. He quickly followed it up with Inside the Great Pyramid, which sold more than half a million copies. The die had been cast and Horn would seek out and play sacred spaces across the globe — from the roof of the world in Lhasa to the heart of the mother in Canyon De Chelly, Horn has sounded the planet.
Still active and vital in his seventy-fifth year, he considers his unique and, in many respects, unintended legacy, and looks ahead to teaching, sharing and playing the music that still plays him.
At seventy-five what is the key to your vitality?
Living the life of a musician, especially when you're young, takes its toll on the body. I think the meditation, TM, when I came to it 1966 has been the basis of everything for me. It grounds me, centers me, it goes on and on and on. I think meditation, not just TM, is a necessary tool to balance one's life. It just prolongs it — I have very little grey in my hair, don't look my age.
What was your initial experience like with TM?
I had read a lot about meditation, but I never could do it. And then someone told me about TM. The person who told me looked wonderful, more vital and a real sparkle in her eye, a real change had come over her. I asked her how she did it and she told me that she had been meditating with TM. So I went to a series of lectures, started meditating and it felt good at first, but it wasn't a psychedelic experience, no lights went off, there was no instant Samadhi. And then I went on the road with Tony Bennett for six weeks — Tahoe, Vegas — and I got back into my old habits again. But when I got back to L.A., I found myself leaving my bags at my doorstep, walking in and thinking, "If you do this everyday for the rest of your life, you're going to die."
Wow.
I got permission to go to India to do a teachers training course. I didn't really want to be a teacher, I just wanted to get closer to the Maharishi. This was a year before the Beatles so he wasn't a household name yet. I became a teacher and started to teach TM at UCLA and Berkeley.
Things went easier with the music career. I wasn't pushing so hard — I didn't care as much.
So when did the Taj Mahal recording take place?
That was the following year. I came back the next year as a producer for a major Hollywood movie. I had approached Four Star Television and told them about my experience the year before and thought it would be an interesting documentary. I was there with an international crew of twelve. The movie never came out, but I toured the Taj again and this time I brought a sound man — the sound man on the crew. I remembered that it had a marvelous echo. I talked the guard into letting me play there and he let me come back later that evening. The rest is history. It was never intended to be an album. Just a memento, for myself and some friends in L.A.
The guard wound up singing on the recording.
Yes he did, which he usually did anyway, to demonstrate the echo for the tourists. He would give this long voice call that would go on forever. I thought, "Man what would a flute sound like in here?"
The echo is amazing.
It is, it's so pure. You don't know where the note ends and the echo begins.
When did you decide that you were going to make it into an album? And what was the buzz like?
Well I got buzz from people I played it for. I took it around to a few companies and they thought it was unique and they liked it but they couldn't figure out how to get airplay with it. But I didn't care. I stopped shopping it around, and a year later an old friend who had become the head of A&R for Epic asked me if I had anything new. I said I did and I played it for him. He said it was great, and that he would run it by his people in New York. Which he did and they wanted it. Epic took it and put it out, and they were surprised by the sales. It had sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in no time. It was my 14th record, I had 13 straight-ahead jazz records before that. They were really surprised. It's still selling.
This is an interesting story about the recording and your evolution as an artist. It all seemed like it happened of its own accord without a lot of pushing on your part. It just unfolds and then there's the birth of a new genre as a result.
Well I think that's very observant of you and astute. I agree. I wasn't trying to do anything. That's a lesson I learned from meditation as well. You just relax more with life and instead of pursuing your agenda 24 hours a day, you're sort of more content to see what happens and go along with it. Life becomes easier. We worry and try so hard to achieve what we think we want and many times when we get it, it's not what you thought it would be anyway. These are the things you learn along the way. It sort of evolved that over 15 years I did more solo flute concerts.
One of my favorite quotes is, "the expression of essence is the art of non-doing."
There has to be an experience in your life to know that that philosophy exists and works and you let it work.
So then you became a global troubadour.
It sort of evolved like that. The door opened and I walked through it. Then the pyramid came up next and I recorded there.
What was that like? It must have been pretty far out.
[Chuckles] It was. Again, I just went without any advance permission. These countries tend to be too bureaucratic — very little chance that you'll get any official permission through correspondence — so I just joined a tourist group and brought a very good sound man, David Green who had a Nagra, with some really good mikes. I managed to get in there at night, three hours, and that's a whole other vibe — silence, deep silence. I didn't have any frightening experiences like I had read about some other people.
Some people have had some fairly dark experiences there.
Do you know about Napoleon's?
No.
Well apparently he spent the night in the King's chamber and when he emerged the next day, he was ashen. He didn't talk about it, not even on his deathbed when he was asked about it.
Once I was in there alone, I meditated with David and I could hear voices in the distance, like a choir singing. When my meditation was over I told David what I had heard and he had heard the same thing. You see, sound never dies — it never ceases entirely. It's always there. I think the singing I heard was the chanting of the initiation ceremony that took place in the king's chamber many, many years before.
Is there any place you would like to play but haven't?
Yes; the Sistine Chapel. I've tried for many years and know some people fairly high up in the Catholic church. I was over in Rome a coupe of years ago and Vatican Radio was interested and they wanted to broadcast it, but then I found out that Vatican Radio has nothing to do with the church! [Laughs]
That's one place where you can't just show up as a tourist and play!
No way. However, I just recorded at the Patala Palace in Lhasa a year ago. That represents a trilogy of sorts for me, but it hasn't been released as of yet.
You rode a heady wave of human potential and exploration of consciousness that started in the '60s and seems to have subsided to a large extent. Do you think we'll ever see anything like that again?
I think so... Because we could do so much damage to the world no one can escape it. There's so much negativity happening in the news, but there's a lot happening on the other front, all over the world — even in places like the [former] Soviet Union.
What role do you think music has to play in such a transformation?
I think it has a big role, especially the music that we're both talking about. It's not a particular style of music, but the consciousness of the musicians that play it. It's a power that can transform people. It doesn't have to be new age music — it can be any style. I could listen to a ballad by Miles Davis and it's going to give me the same feeling.
When you were around Miles, would you consider him a covertly spiritual person?
He never talked in spiritual terms and his outer countenance would almost defy anything overtly spiritual. It was just an armor that he wore, though you can't hide who you are when it comes to music, especially the sensitivity it takes when it comes to playing a ballad. You can't fake it. And Miles was just that. I don't think his environment allowed him to think in those terms, but I think he knew. He was very sensitive and aware but he didn't talk about it. He just picked up his horn and played and if you picked up on it, that was fine.
What do you think of the term new age?
Well I guess it's okay. It started out as a nice way to describe what was happening in the '60s, but then it got distorted as some sort of anti-Christian thing and then the majors got a hold of it as a marketing phrase. I guess it's okay.
How do you feel about being labeled the "Father of New Age Music"?
Like most of the things that have happened to me, it was really unintended, but if that's the case, I'm flattered.
© 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC