“Music is an essential part
of our nature.” — Paul Horn
October 2005
Music as a Spiritual Pilgrimage
An Interview with Paul Horn
by Mark R. Williams
Legendary musician Paul Horn will appear October 7 at Grace Cathedral with Stephen Kent, a master of the didgeridoo. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Grammy-winner Horn has recorded dozens of jazz albums ( The Sound of Paul Horn, Profile of a Jazz Musician ) and has performed with many of the era’s musical legends: Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Quincy Jones, Tony Bennett. “He plays horn the way it should be played,” said Miles Davis about the smooth master of clarinet, saxophone and flute. Moreover, Paul Horn pioneered the music that came to be called “New Age” with albums such as Inside the Taj Mahal and Inside the Great Pyramid. Mark R. Williams spoke with Horn from Tucson about the upcoming event and his thoughts on music and life.
Mark R. Williams : Paul, you’ve played at many exotic venues, from the Taj Mahal and Great Pyramid to Tibet and Monument Valley. What attracts you to these kinds of places?
Paul Horn: It’s the acoustics; it’s the history of it and the mystery of it and then your own personal connection with that space. If you’re more sensitive inside, then you pick up things from historical places like the Great Pyramid. First came the Taj Mahal recording. I happened to be in India at the time for my own spiritual pilgrimage. I visited the Taj Mahal and noticed this incredible echo, so I went in one night and convinced the guard to let me play. He ended up doing some vocals to accompany my flute, and I recorded it. I had no intention of it being a record, but later, it was released and took off.
And that led to all the different recordings around the world. Do you regard Grace Cathedral as a natural step in your exploration of sacred spaces?
I’m sure it has a history, but it’s not several hundred or thousands of years old like the other places. They are part of the Seven Wonders of the World. However, I’m sure there will be a spiritual feeling there, and I’m looking forward to it very much.
Inside the Taj Mahal was the first example of a new genre. In fact, you are widely regarded as the father of New Age music. How do you feel about that?
Circumstances put me where I was and I guess, at that time, I was receptive to doing whatever I was supposed to do. I think we all receive these messages — inner guidance if you will — but we’re just too busy to hear that little quiet voice inside. However, at that point in my life [age 35], I was tired of chasing my own tail and being in the rat race. I was getting more quiet and meditating and more open to receiving directions and just following and feeling comfortable doing that. And that’s been my life for the last 40 years.
How would you define New Age music?
In the beginning, I think the genre stood for quieter, meditative music because that’s what came out of it. An alternative to kinetic and very energetic music, in other words, for people who just wanted to be quiet and reflective.
You made your name as one of the world’s premier jazz players, both with your own groups and as a studio musician with some of the biggest names in music.
Well, hopefully, I’m still a jazz musician. In fact, at the end of September, I’m going to L.A. for a weekend dedicated to jazz music from that period [late 1950s]. I started out as a traditional, straight-ahead jazz guy and I still love that music.
Have you had much connection with the Bay Area through the years as a performer?
In the beginning, when I was touring with Chico Hamilton, we played at the Blackhawk, a small jazz venue where all the touring bands played. Miles recorded an album there. I also played a club in North Beach called the Jazz Workshop.
Did your jazz background affect your approach when doing the new music?
To me, the basis of jazz is improvisation, so even though New Age music gets away from the rhythm section, it is still improvisation. You build up a vocabulary of ideas when you’re a musician and you arrange combinations of things that are already in your head after years of playing.
For the concert at Grace Cathedral, will you come in with a set program or just go with the flow, depending on your feelings or the mood?
Well, I’m playing with Stephen Kent, and we haven’t met yet. But I’m sure the basis of his music is improvisation like mine. So I’m just expressing how I feel at the moment, and I think that’s the best way to be in these sacred places. Improvisation is being in the moment, expressing yourself in the moment, which is the philosophy of most spirituality.
What’s the key to your creativity?
Well, in a word: meditation — although I was creating things before I knew how to meditate. As human beings, we all have a creative aspect. Meditation is a technique to become quieter and to experience the silence within yourself — that’s the source of your creative energy. The potential is there in that quiet place within you. The mind and attention are directed within, and you get more and more quiet and open to the power point within yourself, which is the source of creativity. Then it’s going to come out in its own individual way through you.
When you open up to the creative flow, what is really taking place — your own talent coming through or are you tapping into something larger?
That, yes, but you must develop the technique for it to happen. If you’re musically inclined, then you have to spend some time developing yourself. So the main instrument is you, and the second is your musical instrument. It also takes work, yes, developing yourself as a writer, a painter, a musician, or whatever your art form. You have to spend time to learn the technique for creativity to happen. But it doesn’t have to be an art form. Living a happy life is about the most creative thing you can do.
When creating music that’s so personal, coming from an inner place, should one worry about approval?
I think it depends on your age. When you’re young, sure you need approval. Ultimately, self-approval comes with being accepted by others, but you can’t become obsessed with it. Finally, you get to the point of self-acceptance; and, ultimately, you have to approve of yourself. If you want to expand this to the nth degree, it’s realizing who you really are — which is a part of God. So when you know who lives inside you, how can you not think highly of yourself?
Is music and being a musician a kind of spiritual experience?
Being a musician is a spiritual experience when you have spiritual values in your life. I’m allowing music to come through me, but because I know where the source is coming from, I’m open to it. I’m more or less watching it happen while I’m doing it, which is an interesting experience. I’m a witness and the instrument through which it’s happening, and that’s a spiritual experience.
Music has been widely acknowledged for its healing properties. What do you think explains this phenomenon?
The father of it all was Pythagoras, a couple thousand years ago. He knew that certain sounds cure certain diseases. He knew a certain chord to pluck on the lyre and someone’s epileptic fit would stop immediately. That knowledge got lost, but it’s being revived today because there’s a lot of interest in the healing power of music. So I think primarily it’s the mood that’s created through the music. You can listen to rock or heavy metal or whatever, but it’s not healing music. Healing means quiet. When an animal gets sick, it gets very still and lets healing take place. And that’s what we need to do. When I play quiet music, I know a healing is taking place because people are getting quieter and the stress is going and their daily concerns are dissolving and being absorbed into the music.
You’ve had thousands of people over the years that were influenced positively by your music.
That’s wonderful, but I didn’t start out with that intention. I don’t let it go to my ego. I was an instrument at the right place and the right time.
Why do you think that music in general is so important to humanity?
Music is an essential part of our nature as human beings because music is vibration and we are vibration and sound. You could translate the famous part from Genesis as “in the beginning was Sound” instead of “the Word.” The whole of creation is sound. The word Aum is the basic sound of creation, its vibration. And we should choose music we really want to listen to because it’s definitely shaping and affecting us. If all you listen to is rap, that’s going to affect who you are. Other music will stimulate other chakras, and then you can develop as a human being. Otherwise you get stuck in the lower chakras, and that’s where the planet is right now.
Mark R. Williams is the author of In Search of Lemuria: the Lost Pacific Continent in Legend, Myth and Imagination.
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