Manzarek/McClure

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

THERE'S A WORD!
captures a seventy-minute live concert by Ray Manzarek & Michael McClure on CD. Larry Kassin's flute adds another dimension to this vibrant performance.

1. Beat Moves On
2. For Willie Dixon
3. Maybe Mama Lion
4. For Jim Morrison
5. Paragon of Danger
6. Cowboy
7. So the Owl Hoots
8. High Heelz
9. Spank Me with a Rose ((Deep Mud Medley))
10. Music Haikus
11. Stanzas in Turmoil



Manzarek and McClure take the notion of poetry and jazz higher and they are brilliantly abetted by Larry Kassin on flute throughout the album. McClure provides introductions to tracks and you hear an appreciative audience. If the audience seem to be having fun then McClure & Manzarek are too, you can almost see the twinkle in McClure's eye, even when they're making serious points. SO THE OWL HOOTS reminds me a little of Jack Kerouac's THE MOON HER MAJESTY in mood, that everso light piano touch, barely tinkling. SPANK ME WITH A ROSE (DEEP MUD MEDLEY) is throbbing, insistent and pounding.

A very welcome recording and testament to Michael McClure's energy that after nearly fifty years he is as vibrant and perceptive as ever. The same might be said of Ray Manzarek.
Kevin Ring
Beat Scene 2003



The Third Mind
The Third Mind, directed by William Tyler Smith, is a documentary focusing on the collaboration of Michael McClure and Ray Manzarek.
The video, narrated by Peter Coyote and screened to critical acclaim at the 1996 Venice International Film Festival, was also shown at other film festivals and on the Sundance channel.


... "William Tyler Smith's The Third Mind, an incisive and engaging exploration of McClure and Manzarek's collaboration. Smith has struck a deft balance between the concert film and the documentary in which we can both enjoy McClure and Manzarek in performance and get to know how they feel about their collaboration. There are plenty of insights from other Beat era figures, including the late Allen Ginsberg, who sees their working together as "ripening of good karma."

Diane Di Prima, quoting William Burroughs, remarks that a good collaboration results in a "third mind." Lawrence Ferlinghetti describes McClure's poetry as "a beautiful cry of the beast," and McClure's soaring poems celebrate the human spirit and express a fervent concern for the preservation of the environment. Of his widely varied accompaniment, Manzarek says that he combines "a little collision" -- i.e., occasional counterpoint -- with "making love to the words." The Third Mind has lots of energy and style, with its many participants sharp in their commentaries, and it is an altogether stimulating work. Ferlinghetti salutes McClure's sense of commitment, observing that "We can no longer afford art for art's sake."
Kevin Thomas
The Los Angeles Times

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Poet, Pianist Combine Talents on 'Love Lion'



Poetry is a muscular principle and it comes from the body it is the voice's athletic action on the page and in the world. - Michael McClure
Music is the purist artform. It deals only with vibrations, existing only for the moment that it's played. And then it's gone. - Ray Manzarek


MICHAEL MCCLURE arrived on the scene of American poetry in October 1955 when, at age 23, he was among the handful of poets to read at The Six Gallery, a converted auto-repair shop in San Francisco's Marina District.
That night, along with Gary Snyder, Phillip Lamantia, Phillip Whalen, Kenneth Rexroth and Allen Ginsberg, McClure helped usher in the "beat movement" - the last time a group of writers joined together to share a common vision and express the sorrows of a restless generation.

Thirty-six years later, McClure is still making roads for American poets - 'this time with "Love Lion," a 70-minute performance video of his poems backed by the piano of Ray Manzarek who, with Jim Morrison, founded the rock band The Doors.

"Love Lion," issued by Mystic Fire Video in conjunction with Island Visual Arts, was recorded in May of this year at the Bottom Line rock club in Greenwich Village. Mystic Fire opened its doors in 1985 to provide an outlet for alternative videos. The company currently boasts a catalog of more than 120 cassettes, many of which confront social and cultural issues.

"Love Lion" was produced and directed by Mystic Fire president Sheldon Rochlin (with Maxine Harris). Rochlin had seen a performance by McClure and Manzarek in Canada and was struck by the passion and energy of their show. A short time later the duo agreed to let Rochlin film a performance, and "Love Lion" was born.

"With our two names up there, some people might come to a reading thinking they'll see Jim Morrison reincarnated," McClure says, "but a lot more are just as anxious to see what we sound like - to see exactly what we're doing."

The association between McClure and Manzarek dates back to the late 1960s, when The Doors were beginning to gain popularity. Although McClure initially was attracted to the dark, brooding poetics of Doors lead singer/songwriter Morrison (he eventually would help Morrison publish his first book of poems, "The Lords and the New Creatures" in 1967). the poet quickly established a bond with Manzarek, based on a mutual kinship to jazz, art and history. Their friendship has grown deeper over the years, culminating in their first performance in 1987.

The spoken-word "concerts" that "Love Lion" immortalizes are probably best defined as a union between language and sound. Although each number is rehearsed, much of the outcome is left to improvisation. "It resembles jazz," McClure says, "like what Jack Kerouac was doing with Steve Allen in the '50s; there's a lot of finesse to it. And Ray's a one-man band: Sometimes his playing sounds to me like Russian pianist Alexander Scriabin. Other times he's rock, boogiewoogie, blues, Bach."

After McClure has finished a poem, he sends a draft and a taped reading to Manzarek (still living in Los Angeles), who puts it to music, weaving a melody around the words. Manzarek says, "When I first get something in the mail from Michael I look for key words and phrases that can put me in the place where the poem lives. And then I attempt to create music from that place. What I do is a combination of jazz, classical and technical piano playing - 50 percent is planned out and the other half is pure spur-of-the-moment, wherever the mood takes me. Actually, from that standpoint, it's a very easy collaboration."

Onstage, McClure sometimes paces like a wounded cat - he looks pensive, almost shy - while Manzarek is buoyant, swaying, guided by the hooves of his piano. But when the camera retreats and catches them in a single frame, we see both men with the same mission - to meld their mediums into one so the words are no longer separate from the music, but instead, built into the rhythms and supple layers of sound.

Manzarek's playing is truly eclectic, covering everything from bop to blues. Many times on "Love Lion" you almost expect to see blood splash across the piano keys as his fingers bounce and fly, improvising in the grand tradition of Charlie "Bird" Parker, driving the audience until they're out of breath.

"There's a correlation to the ancient Greeks in what we're doing," Manzarek says. "What we're doing is ancient: a poet reading and somebody playing a lute or beating on a drum. It's someone pounding on a log while someone else recites invocations."

"Love Lion" is a simple video - no gimmicks, no hype; the visual images are secondary to the words and music. As the two melt together - the soft fibers of McClure's voice into the subtle strains of Manzarek's piano - the poems come to life. (Texts to several of the pieces are printed in "Rebel Lions," McClure's 14th book of poetry, issued by New Directions last spring).

A myriad of themes Intersect the selections that comprise the video: "Maybe Mama Lion" focuses on man's separation from his primal nature; "Czechoslovakia" is about spiritual wars that lead to conflicts between people and countries; "Rose Rain" details the splendor of love in only 16 lines; "Indian" examines man's loss of identity amid the evolution of a world turned plastic.

Throughout every number, McClure and Manzarek command a social consciousness - demanding that we become aware of our decaying world, reclaim our savage instincts and save our souls. Unlike most popular songs, the audience is forced to participate - not through physical action (dance), but with their minds.

"Poetry is the way we extend our inner lives," McClure says. "We stand on poetry - like a steppingstone in a torrent - and are more free."
by John Aiello
The San Francisco Chronicle

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Third Mind
A Marriage of Rock and Poetry
Michael McClure, Ray Manzarek collaborate on film

Oakland poet and playwright Michael McClure first met pianist Ray Manzarek in 1968, during a recording session for the Doors' classic album ``Waiting for the Sun.'' Doors lead singer Jim Morrison introduced the two, starting a friendship and creative association that has lasted three decades.

Their latest collaboration, ``The Third Mind,'' is a performance video-documentary featuring live concert footage of McClure reading his poems to the mostly improvised rhythms of Manzarek's piano. The film, with narration by Peter Coyote, was just released by Mystic Fire Video and is available at Tower Records and at www.mysticfire.com.

The documentary segments trace the beginning of the poetry renaissance through 1950s San Francisco, setting McClure and Manzarek's memories against the grandeur of the city. Viewers are taken on a tour of the place that for nearly two centuries has drawn writers like a magnet.

McClure is one of the original Beat writers belonging to the movement that included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso. These modern descendants of Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake became united in a common cause, dedicating themselves to freedom of thought and expression.

``What I remember most about San Francisco in the '50s is the tremendous sense of brotherhood and community that existed between the poets,'' McClure says. ``There was a definite competition between us, but there was also a tremendous belief in what we were saying, in what we were trying to do. We looked out for each other and protected each other. And that feeling's at the core of what Ray and I do in concert: feeding back and forth off of each other, interacting onstage spontaneously, instinctively.''

``The Third Mind'' also includes clips of Morrison reading his poetry. The singer had always considered himself a poet in the tradition of the Beat generation. However, he took it one step further, using rock 'n' roll as a tool to bring poetry to the people. Morrison reads with passion and depth -- in a matter of seconds he sheds his public face and invites viewers into a world of perpetual motion, mysticism and mystery.

``I first discovered Morrison's poetry in London in 1968,'' McClure says. ``It was so perfect and pristine, startling in its uniqueness, in the condensation of imagery. And he kept it so completely hidden. Other than himself and his wife, Pamela, I think I was the only one who really knew that side of Jim.''

Manzarek agrees: ``I think `The Third Mind' places Jim in his proper poetic context. We started the Doors because of Jim's writing and my music. It was a marriage of rock 'n' roll to poetry, just as the beatniks had married jazz to poetry in San Francisco in the 1950s. What I do with Michael now is equal to what I did with Jim, except that Michael and I work on an intimate acoustic level. That electric sound isn't there, but the passion and intensity remind me of what the Doors were doing.''

Manzarek met Morrison in the early 1960s, while they were film students at the University of California at Los Angeles. At the time, America was divided, reeling through the war in Vietnam. Caught up in that fury, feeling alienated, the two decided to set some of Morrison's words to music. The connection was immediate, the songs raw and powerful, brimming with primal rage.

``In the late '60s I turned away from rock 'n' roll because it was being swallowed up by the corporations,'' McClure says. ``Then I heard the Doors, and I was astounded by their sound. You only had to hear Morrison's vocal and Manzarek's organ one time to know that America wasn't going to buy out the Doors.''

The performances in ``The Third Mind'' are intriguing, with McClure's lyrics framed by the haunting lilt of Manzarek's music. Poet and musician become one, words driving music, music driving a hot- white rhythm.

``One of the pieces I enjoy performing most now is a series of haiku from my last book, `Rain Mirror,' '' McClure says. ``Instead of the words being painted with sumi ink on silk, they're being painted with the voice on a continuous sheaf of music flowing in the air above Ray's piano. Like what Kerouac was doing with David Amram in jazz clubs in the '50s, marrying poetry to music.''

``Our work is primarily done with the college audience in mind,'' Manzarek says. ``Poetry is a very dynamic and very exciting art form. It actually touches the soul. Hopefully Michael and I can help young people come to this realization.''
John Aiello, Sunday, March 19, 2000
San Francisco Chronicle

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

MICHAEL McCLURE AND RAY MANZAREK IN PERFORMANCE @ The Noe Valley Ministry
San Francisco 2000







Online Daily - University Of Washington
Monday, February 3, 1997 News

Break On Through
Poet Michael McClure and former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek give spoken-word performance to full crowd in the HUB.
by: Courtney Humphries
Daily Staff

Poet Michael McClure and former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek teamed up Friday night for a performance at the HUB auditorium.

McClure performed his poetry while Manzarek accompanied him on piano. McClure began with a reading of a piece by Thoreau and continued the performance with his own poems. Manzarek followed the mood of the poems with music ranging from classical to blues.

McClure, one of the original Beat poets, grew up in Seattle and moved to San Francisco to become involved with writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. McClure published his first book of poems in 1956 and has produced numerous works since then.

McClure and Manzarek have produced one CD on the Shanachie Records label called Love Lion, and they are working on another called Haikus and Peyote Poems.

Manzarek first met McClure at a Doors recording session through their mutual friend, Jim Morrison.

Some of the songs performed on Friday were blues and Doors-style grooves. One tongue-in-cheek piece was accompanied by plodding cowboy music as McClure pointed to the audience and said, “You are the bare-chested cowboy in the movie.”
McClure also read a series of haikus, and said that he and Manzarek have been trying to reinterpret the haiku in terms of both words and music.

Another piece which impressed the audience was about Jim Morrison, titled “In Memorium.” McClure read the poem while Manzarek accompanied him with the familiar tune of the Doors' song, “Riders on the Storm.”
Manzarek often spoke between pieces, reminiscing about music, drugs and the ‘60s. At one point he told the audience that he had the devil in his back pocket and reached back and pulled out a dollar bill, which he talked about using to roll a marijuana joint.

Manzarek also tried to please Doors fans and musicians in the audience by playing the chords for “Light My Fire.”
McClure's poetry ranges in subject from political viewpoints to observations on relationships and nature. At one point he even recited several lines of Chaucer from memory.

The final piece, “Last Waltz,” was the first poem on which the two collaborated. Manzarek said he heard McClure reciting the poem back when the Doors were still recording, and Manzarek was so impressed that he decided to compose music for the poem.

Before beginning the rather long piece, McClure said, “If your mind goes away while we're doing this piece, it's okay. We'll still be here when your mind comes back.”<br>
Students seemed to enjoy the performance, even though the spoken-word format was very different from a concert. “I was just impressed by the performance rather than the poetry,” said Pete Conroy, an English and comparative history of ideas major.

Anne Baker, an art major, especially liked the reworking of “Riders on the Storm” in memory of Jim Morrison. A Doors fan, Baker thought that seeing an original member of the band was impressive. “This is the real thing. I've always wanted to see the Doors perform,” she said

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"McClure and his long-time friend Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for the Doors, work together performing poetry and music. Together they have done a CD and a video in addition to their stage performances. "We have been working together for about 10 years. We both have a lot of things to do besides that, but in my case it is one of my favorite things to do . . . and I know it is one of Ray's favorites. We perform anywhere from 10-20 times a year at colleges, music clubs, coffee shops, and wherever they'll have us."

How did McClure and Manzarek get started in their co-operative music and poetry ventures? "Well I was very close with Jim Morrison, who was the singer for the Doors. I met Ray at the third recording session for the Doors when I went with Jim to their session. I didn't get to know Ray too well [then], although I did know he was a big fan of Beat poetry. Everybody was so busy."

"Then 10-12 years ago, at McCabe's, which is a music club in Santa Monica, I was on the bill with a jazz poet named Michael Ford. Michael was reciting his poetry and I was listening to it and this good looking guy walked out on the stage, sat down at the piano, and started playing with Michael. And it was wonderful. Then I realized, that's Ray! I did my poetry and he said, ‘I haven't heard your poetry in years . . . that's great!' And I said, ‘I hadn't heard you play with a poet.' And we said let's do it! Let's try this together."

Within about a month, we had our first gig. Somebody wanted us to do a workshop. Ray was supposed to talk about writing rock music and I was supposed to talk about writing rock lyrics because I have written a lot of lyrics. We got there and Ray asked what I was going to say and I said that I had stuff I could say. I asked what he was going to do and he said he didn't know. I said, ‘let's do some poetry and music.' We went down to the bar of the hotel where there was a piano, and we just practiced. We got up the next day and did poetry with music for them and got a standing ovation. <McClure was laughing> Which was either our beginning, or our downfall, and we have just been doing it as much as we could since."

"Now Ray is doing a lot of other things too . . . and the Doors, in a sense, are bigger now than they were when they were all playing together. So that keeps a lot of people busy. Ray's second love after music is film making. He graduated from UCLA film school. So did Jim. He's starting a film next month."

McClure and Manzarek produced a video together called Love Lion. "Yeah we did a video called Love Lion, which is available from Mystic Fire Video. A really truly beautiful documentary was done on us which Mystic Fire will be distributing in the fall. And that's called Third Mind. That has cameos of Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Jim Carroll, Waldman, Di Prima and more. It is very handsomely done. It is just one of those beautiful pieces of work. I am very proud of it!"
Poetic Voices.com July 2000


Ray Manzarek - Music is Your Special Friend
"In one of the first shows of the New Year, Ray Manzarek, the keyboard player for the legendary band, The Doors, made a post holiday sweep through San Francisco. This included a show at The Great American Music Hall. Special guest, SF poet laureate, Michael McClure, joined him on stage for a bit. These two California Love Children have toured several times recently. "We appear together quarterly," says Ray. Two jazzy piano song/poems came towards the end of show that was half stand-up, half music. The near sell out was all over the map age-wise. Baseball caps, berets, Mohawks and dreadlocks all there to get their fires lit.

The finale was a ten-minute story of the writing and recording of "Light My Fire." This very fun, fly-on-the-wall insight revealed this classic started with a homework assignment and grew into a blending of John Coltrane, J.S. Bach and The Mamas and The Papas. And, of course, furiously ended with the mandatory line, "I got it, I got it, I'll give you the chord changes later." The big finish was the audience singing Jim's part to Ray's piano. Try now, we can only lose. The next day included a shot on the ninth anniversary broadcast of NPR's "West Coast Live." Ray got a chance to talk extensively about his new book, a novel, "A Poet in Exile: A Journey in the Mystic." It's not poetry, it's the story of a rock star that fakes his death and comes back. Hmmmmm. And his name Jordan and the keyboardist is named Roy. Hmmmmmmm, again.

But then again, there have been as many books about The Doors as the Kennedy Assassination. Manzarek loves our city and sees it as center for artistic and spiritual revolution as much as ever. Still very much a Flower Child, some may dismiss Manzarek as a pure nostalgia, but the idealism and freedom that fueled The Doors is very much alive in him today. "I'm the same person I was in 1967," Ray said between signing books and telling Rambling Jack Elliot (the other radio guest) what a big fan he was and he couldn't wait to get back to LA so he could tell Robbie Kreiger (Doors guitarist) that he met Robbie's hero. The film, The Doors, came up a lot and Ray's disgust is on record. He insists that Jim Morrison wasn't the dark, dismal, drugged-out nut portrayed by Oliver Stone. "We were hippies and we laughed a lot. Jim was much more educated and articulate than he appeared in that film.

But I think the music transcends the film." It must. Francis Coppola's "Apocalypse Now Redux" has made a lot of the Best Ten lists and surely the opening shot with The Doors song, "The End" softly exploding in the jungle still stands as one of the most memorable uses of rock music in a movie. "He was brilliant with the use of our music in that film. Yeah, that was great." Ray's next stop was Booksmith on Haight Street for a reading and signing that had to be moved to the local library because of the crowd. "Free Arthur Lee" was shouted from the crowd when Ray went through the list of bands that they opened for at the Whiskey a Go Go that included Love, Buffalo Spingfield and The Byrds. He actually didn't do any reading from his book, instead talked freely, much like his show the night before, relating stories and observations about where we came from and where we are going.

He also gave some insight into the sleazy workings of the record industry "Five percent of ninety is what they (Electra Records) signed us for." "Now they charge the artists twenty-five percent for the packaging." The music business is as brutal as ever. But the good stuff is forever. Listening to Chopin or Cole Porter is not driven by nostalgia. When looking at the paintings of Van Gogh you aren't necessarily pining for the South of France in the 19th Century. Morrison's poetry still stands and Manzarek's keyboard work maintains a soft allure. Listening to his stories and songs is like hearing from Vincent's brother, Theo."
Victoria Jane Joyce
San Francisco Herald

[darkstar]

Online Daily - University Of Washington
Monday, February 3, 1997 News

Break On Through

Poet Michael McClure and former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek give spoken-word performance to full crowd in the HUB.

by: Courtney Humphries
Daily Staff

Poet Michael McClure and former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek teamed up Friday night for a performance at the HUB auditorium.

McClure performed his poetry while Manzarek accompanied him on piano. McClure began with a reading of a piece by Thoreau and continued the performance with his own poems. Manzarek followed the mood of the poems with music ranging from classical to blues.

McClure, one of the original Beat poets, grew up in Seattle and moved to San Francisco to become involved with writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. McClure published his first book of poems in 1956 and has produced numerous works since then.

McClure and Manzarek have produced one CD on the Shanachie Records label called Love Lion, and they are working on another called Haikus and Peyote Poems.

Manzarek first met McClure at a Doors recording session through their mutual friend, Jim Morrison.

Some of the songs performed on Friday were blues and Doors-style grooves. One tongue-in-cheek piece was accompanied by plodding cowboy music as McClure pointed to the audience and said, “You are the bare-chested cowboy in the movie.”<br>
McClure also read a series of haikus, and said that he and Manzarek have been trying to reinterpret the haiku in terms of both words and music.

Another piece which impressed the audience was about Jim Morrison, titled “In Memorium.” McClure read the poem while Manzarek accompanied him with the familiar tune of the Doors' song, “Riders on the Storm.”<br>
Manzarek often spoke between pieces, reminiscing about music, drugs and the ‘60s. At one point he told the audience that he had the devil in his back pocket and reached back and pulled out a dollar bill, which he talked about using to roll a marijuana joint.

Manzarek also tried to please Doors fans and musicians in the audience by playing the chords for “Light My Fire.”<br>
McClure's poetry ranges in subject from political viewpoints to observations on relationships and nature. At one point he even recited several lines of Chaucer from memory.

The final piece, “Last Waltz,” was the first poem on which the two collaborated. Manzarek said he heard McClure reciting the poem back when the Doors were still recording, and Manzarek was so impressed that he decided to compose music for the poem.

Before beginning the rather long piece, McClure said, “If your mind goes away while we're doing this piece, it's okay. We'll still be here when your mind comes back.”<br>
Students seemed to enjoy the performance, even though the spoken-word format was very different from a concert. “I was just impressed by the performance rather than the poetry,” said Pete Conroy, an English and comparative history of ideas major.

Anne Baker, an art major, especially liked the reworking of “Riders on the Storm” in memory of Jim Morrison. A Doors fan, Baker thought that seeing an original member of the band was impressive. “This is the real thing. I've always wanted to see the Doors perform,” she said.
archives.thedaily.washington.edu/1997/020397/bot.020397.html

[peter]

mcclure-manzarek.com/

[ptlwp]

I saw these two in Philadelphia at a place called the Tin Angel around 2000, August. Anyway, I had a great time, and really enjoyed Ray and Mike.

Now, hear me out; I've gone to ROTS twice, to give myself the benefit of the doubt; but the other two gents in the band really take away from the great talent that Ray and Robby have and I am sorry that me and only a few others can see this.

But there it is......

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

I think the McClure/Manzarek albums are great....There's A Word especially as the flute gives it that bit extra.....my fave poem from McClure is Paragon of Danger which is superbly supported by Ray.
The Jim tribute is nice too and Ray adds a bit of ROTS to Mikes poem.

Ray also does a Jim poetry tribute with Mike C Ford at Henhouse studios called Xtreme Unction For Jim Morrison which is excellent...check it out here.....
www.henhousestudios.com/artists/mkpgartist.php?artistID=1125

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Download a track from Ray and Mikes superb 'Theres A Word' album here....
'For Jim Morrison'....nice!
mcclure-manzarek.com/forjimmorrison.html

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

LOVE LION, released as a video by Mystic Fire Video, and on CD by Shanachie, presents a live 70-minute performance at The Bottom Line in New York by Michael McClure & Ray Manzarek.
Includes:



1.Action Philosophy
2. Love Lion Blues
3. In Memoriam: For Jim Morrison
4. Maybe Mama Lion
5. Indian
6. Antechamber of the Night
7. Czechoslovakia
8. High Heelz
9. Paragon of Danger
10. Spanish Roses
11. A Breath
12. Rose Rain
13. Stanzas in Turmoil

Michael McClure's introduction to the CD
When Ray plays I hear rock, blues, and boogie woogie as well as what sounds like the Russian mystic composer Alexander Scriabin.
I give Ray the words, sometimes I mail them to him with a tape of my reading. Other times I read Ray a new poem before a sound check, at maybe the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco or The Bottom Line in New York -- and he plays what he hears.
It's fuid and like velvet and ivory and granite and flesh. This isn't like anything we do solo. When we work together it's not like me reading a poem, or like Manzarek playing a keyboard piece; a new shape comes into being.
Ray and I first met at the third recording session of The Doors. Then a few years ago I heard Ray playing piano and he heard me reading a long poem "Stanzas in Turmoil."
We both said let's start working together, and we'll begin with that piece. Ray said about "Stanzas," "I hear a great C Major, the wheat fields and the corn fields." When Ray plays the notes for "Antechamber of the Night" I hear Balinese visionary musicians. Once when we were performing at The Fillmore Auditorium I thought Ray was playing Beethoven's Ninth then it changed and sounded like a divine jazz riff. There's a lot of improvisation in this art. We're here to wake people up and then listen to their roar.



Michael Dare on the LOVE LION video
"...Magic, an intensely mystical exploration of the joy of language and sound. When Michael McClure speaks and Ray Manzarek plays piano, they complement each other in an entirely new way. It's a purer, more raw form of communication than we've heard before. Though this unique collaboration between poet and rock 'n' roll artist bears a resemblance to modern rap music, this is far from the language of the street. McClure and Manzarek express personal and political pain with illumination rather than anger. They put the rap in rapture."

Here are the duo performing....pretty neat
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QPQ1piSzVI

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

2012's Piano Poems is an excellent look at how good Ray Manzarek was with a poet.


Michael McClure is a Beat Generation poet, playwright and songwriter. Ray Manzarek is a founding member of The Doors, songwriter and music producer. Together with flautist Larry Kassin, they take their loyal fans on a musical mind expanding journey with their creations. Their collaboration was documented in the Oglio Home Video release “The Third Mind” and brought to life in this all new album of thought provoking poetry.

The Doors were influenced by the 1960s beat writers, and that spirit continues with this collaboration. When asked “What’s the difference between Jim Morrison’s rock lyrics and a poem?” Ray responded that “There really is no difference between Jim’s poetry writings and his music lyrics.” Jim Morrison introduced Michael McClure to Ray during the recording sessions for “Waiting For The Sun.” That fateful meeting is still bearing fruit today with “The Piano Poems: Live From San Francisco.”

Michael McClure writes,
On a cold, foggy night in San Francisco after a great Japanese meal, Manzarek and I stepped onto the stage and there were sparks of consciousness — the stage was on fire with poems and piano Improvisations. The symbiosis and the synergy made lights. Then Larry Kassin stepped up to join us with his jazz flute and Lou Judson was recording. This is a live album with its heart still beating — no tricks, gimmicks, or second takes. We are bringing together my poetry and Ray’s improvisations that shape my word-sounds into richer meanings: Piano Poems.

There’s no way to be without a politics or an antipolitics, no way to be without art, without anger and generosity, without laughter and kindness.

That’s the edge we’re whetting on this album.”

Track Listing
1. Pico Boulevard
2. Eagle in the Whirlpool
3. River of Night / Black Wine
4. Me Raw
5. Antechamber of the Night
6. That Government is Best
7. Big Lips
8. Mule Kick Blues
9. Let the Laws Go
10. Deconstruction Man
11. The Cups We Drink From
12. Jean Harlow and the Kid
13. Smash the State
14. Painted Dust

The Piano Poems: Live in San Francisco

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

24-71987
The Boston Globe MA


18-18-1987