Landscape into music

It says something about the power of music that some individuals fading into dementia can still recognize the music they knew earlier in their lives. Not to denigrate new music, or music one hasn’t heard before, but our mental jukeboxes award top chart numbers to music that we have lived with over time. Those DJs making their playlists in our brain are the toughest of critics. They don’t care what anyone else might think, “Close to You” is staying in the rotation. Music and memory are linked.

- SASHA MATSON

Music and place are linked as well. Stuck at home for the long, claustrophobic months of 2020, I thought about destinations I would travel to. Sheltering in place, music was able to take me on those journeys in my imagination, providing a kind of freedom. I could put on Anthem of the Sun (Warner/Rhino RR1 1749), and I’m right back with my Grateful Dead homies in the hills of Berkeley. Or I might spin the excellent recent vinyl remastering of Hoodoo Man Blues (Analogue Productions AAPB-034-45). Junior Wells is no longer with us, and I’ve never spent time in Chicago, but I know what being there feels like from this record, and I want to go.

During the Year of Living COVID Dangerously, I have tried to remain productive by composing some new music. This meant returning in my mind’s eye and ears to places I love, like California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. I have called a movement of a new composition “Sonora Pass.” That area, which I first visited in high school, means as much to me as any place on earth. I remember the rhythm of walking there and can visualize favorite spots. There’s a music that goes with that. That’s what I want to hear.

Music can tell stories—hence the term “program music.” Music creates emotions—that is why we have the blues. Music can also generate