Album Released

November 5, 2013

In 1979 I attended Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche’s three-month Buddhist seminary at Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. One day, he was in the kitchen of his suite making Bandit Soup, one of his special recipes. It’s raw meat dropped into boiling water and seasoned to taste. Other ingredients could be added, but that is its essence. I asked him if it were an old family recipe, and he responded the meat and the water represent earth and humanity and the seasonal flavoring is the heaven principle. Together, they express the brilliance of the Great Eastern Sun. That’s how he was with everything. Philosophy aside, it’s also a meal the highland bandits of Tibet turn to as they quickly move along. But for me it represents the vitality in every twist and turn of fate in our lives.

Songwriting for me arises out of that vitality, and I turn regularly to it to express and sometimes to find the melodies of my experience. The songs on Bandit Soup were selected from many written over the past 10 years to form an album of music in the traditional sense, with a beginning, middle and end. I hope you enjoy.