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Biwa and Osamu Kitajima Debut On Heck of a Guy


Biwa Player



Osamu Kitajima With Backup and Introduction By Anjani

Excerpted from Mutant Sound:

Osamu Kitajima was born and raised in the beach town of Chigasaki, not far from Tokyo. As a young man he studied classical guitar and piano. His first band was the Launchers, led by his cousin, pop idol and actor Yuzo Kayama. The group disbanded in the late 1960s, after which Kitajima began to work on his own. He graduated from the prestigious Keio University in business, and also studied traditional Japanese instruments such as the biwa, koto and taiko drum. His first solo album in 1974, Benzaiten, was a mix of modern pop and traditional Japanese music, and was well received in Japan and later released abroad. It was released in the United States on Antilles, where it received some “underground” radio airplay and sold moderately well. … His most highly acclaimed album was 1986’s The Source, which won rave reviews around the world, including being called a “major masterpiece” by Rolling Stone magazine. Osamu Kitajima also expanded his work to include commercial and soundtrack work. He provided part of the music to the blockbuster mini-series Shogun and contributed to the soundtrack of Sharkey’s Machine. He also seems to be the “go to guy” for Asian themed movies, including the 1986 Pat Morita vehicle Captive Hearts and 1993’s Samurai Cowboy, which starred Hiromi Go. Kitajima has also done work for PBS documentaries on Japan, created the soundtrack to the Chinese/Japanese film Mandala and produced a number of like-minded artists. … Osamu Kitajima is featured on a number of compilations available in the States and Europe, and is generally considered a contemporary of Enigma, Deep Forest, Vangelis and Ottmar Liebert. In addition to his being a recording artist, producer, studio owner and label owner, Kitajima somehow found time to earn a doctorate in music therapy in 2004, and is thus now sometimes referred to as Dr. Osamu Kitajima. Kitajima is married to retired actress Yoko Naito. Their daughter Mai Kitajima married former Hikaru Genji member Mikio Osawa in 1996.



From Anjani,

This video was from our 1989 tour to Japan. Along with Osamu are Hiromitsu Nishikawa on percussion, the late Yoshizawa “Masa” Masakazu-sensei on shakuhachi, Freddie Ravel on keyboards, and me off in the shadows-playing those retro string parts. Osamu is a master biwa player. It’s such an unappreciated instrument and notoriously difficult to play: held upright in the lap and struck with a lacquered pick the size of a shark fin. We had a fantastic time on tour and ate incredibly well.



Osamu Kitajima - From Biwa To Electric Guitar


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Field Guide To The Current Life Of Leonard Cohen

The Big Little Golden Book Of Leonard Cohen: Recognizing People & Places
Fundamental To Contemporary Cohen Cultural Competency



This chapter of the Big Little Golden Book Of Leonard Cohen introduces some of the individuals and locations that figure prominently in the contemporary life of Leonard Cohen. The names of these important people and places are identified in their first use in this post by being displayed in this version of dark red.

This should be easy going. There are lots of pictures, not much text, and only one tricky part (not to worry - I’ll warn you when it’s coming up.)

Anjani

The exotically beautiful,1 dulcet-voiced woman who often accompanies Leonard Cohen musically and socially is Anjani.2 (In the spirit of full disclosure,3 I have a thing for Anjani. Details are available at Anjani & DrHGuy.)



Since the mid-1980s, Anjani has worked a back-up singer for Cohen in the studio and on tours, where she also played keyboards.

A decade or so later, the two became lovers.4


Anjani is also the vocalist, writer, and arranger on Blue Alert, a CD produced by Cohen and composed of tracks based on remnants and fragments of his poems and songs.




Blue Alert, issued in 2006, is considered by many to be the most recent “Leonard Cohen album” in the sense that its style and lyrics resonate with his previous work although he does not perform on the recording.5


Home


When not performing or attending ceremonies in New York inducting Cohen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Anjani and Leonard Cohen spend most of their time in either Los Angeles, where they maintain separate apartments, or Montreal, which was Leonard Cohen’s home until his early 20s.

Leonard Cohen’s Family Home, Montreal6


Contemporary Montreal Skyline


The Poet’s Progeny

Leonard Cohen has two grown children. His son, Adam (born 1972), is also a singer.



His daughter, Lorca (born 1974), was named after the poet, Federico García Lorca. (Of course, mention of Federico García Lorca at this point is an instance of Chekov’s gun7 so there will be more about him later. For now, however, just keep Lorca’s namesake8 in mind for future reference.)

Many of the photos of Leonard Cohen, Anjani, and family friends that appear in published materials, CD cover art, etc. are the work of Lorca Cohen.


Lorca Cohen and Martha Wainwright



OK, here’s the part where you have to pay attention.

Suzanne

The mother of Adam and Lorca is Suzanne Elrod.

Now, even a new Leonard Cohen fan is likely to know his only commercial hit song was “Suzanne.” 9 You know the one, Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river / You can hear the boats go by / You can spend the night beside her … she feeds you tea and oranges / That come all the way from China … For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind … and so on.

Ah, see how things are already starting to link together?

Well, no, they aren’t - yet.

It turns out - and this may be hard to believe - Leonard Cohen knew at least two Suzanne’s.10 And, the tea and oranges Suzanne was not the mother of Adam and Lorca Suzanne.

The Suzanne in the song is Suzanne Verdal, who was married to a friend of Cohen’s and did indeed live on the waterfront. In fact, the lyrics of the song, Suzanne, including the local geography, match up well with the real life Suzanne and her situation.11

Note that the official Big Little Golden Book Of Leonard Cohen Qualification Criterion for Leonard Cohen Fan, Novice Level is “Awareness that the song-Suzanne is not the mother of Adam and Lorca-Suzanne.”

Recall of the Suzannes’ specific last names is not required at this level.



There is one other point of contention. A biographer of Cohen’s claims that Cohen and Suzanne Elrod were married while Cohen himself holds that there was no marriage. No one disputes the relationship existed or that Adam and Lorca are the product of the union, rendering the point trivial. It is acknowledged here only in hopes of preventing future confusion on the reader’s part from these conflicting claims.

Jarkko Arjatsalo, Webmaster - and De Facto Chief Curator, Head Archivist, Documentary Photographer, Fan Club President, Social Chairman, High Priest, Ringmaster, and Prime Minister Of Cohenatia



Leonard Cohen with webmaster Jarkko Arjatsalo
(Los Angeles, June 1999)12

In 1995, Jarkko Arjatsalo, an accountant from Finland, began leonardcohenfiles.com, a web site devoted to (duh) Leonard Cohen.13 In 1997, Leonard Cohen, then residing at a Zen monastery (more about that in a later chapter), contacted Jarkko about his unauthorized site - to offer to contribute unpublished poems, notebooks used to compose his songs, a passport from his student days, personal anecdotes, that kind of stuff. That affiliation has persisted and appears stronger than ever. Leonard Cohen, for example, chose to officially announce his 2008 tour first at leonardcohenfiles.

While leonardcohenfiles is most often described as an “encyclopedia” of Cohen information, a more apt analogy would be to the Smithsonian Institute with a plethora of displays of widely varying but consistently fascinating content. Leonardcohenfiles now offers more than 800 indexed pages of material about Cohen and its 2.000.000th visitor landed on the site over a year ago.





Less heralded but of growing importance are Jarkko’s other role, such as propagating other Cohen-dedicated web sites, whether as primary originator (e.g., leonardcohenforum.com) or as a facilitator for other members of the Leonard Cohen Web Ring. He has also been a prime mover in organizing meetings, conferences, and events celebrating Cohen’s work and serves as a communications network for Cohen fans.


__________________________________



Coming Attractions
The next chapters will focus on earlier parts of Cohen’s career. These names, for example, are likely to make an appearance in the next posts:

  • Chelsea Hotel
  • Hydra
  • Mount Baldy
  • Bob Dylan
  • Lou Reed
  • Rebecca De Mornay
  • Judy Collins
  • Jennifer Warnes
  • Joni Mitchell
  • Sharon Robinson
  • Jikhan
  • Kelley Lynch



Next Big Little Golden Book Of Leonard Cohen Post:



Footnotes


  1. Although frequently described as “oriental,” Hawaiian-born Anjani is actually a blend of German, French, Okinawan, Irish, Welsh, and Dutch bloodlines ~back~
  2. It is no secret that Anjani’s surname is Thomas; Anjani simply prefers to be known by only her Christian name ~back~
  3. On a pragmatic level, anyone who has read more than a couple of my posts cannot avoid the fact that I rarely fail to disclose my feelings about Anjani ~back~
  4. If “lovers” sounds awkward, feel free to substitute your preferred, equally awkward term, equally inadequate term: significant others, partners, girl friend and boy friend, … ~back~
  5. Leonard Cohen’s most recent CD on which he performs is Dear Heather, produced in 2004. ~back~
  6. This photo is from A Short Walk In Leonard Cohen’s Westmount, a web page which contains more photos of this home and a charming essay about the area, especially as it relates to Leonard Cohen growing up there and to references in his books, poetry, and songs. ~back~
  7. ”Chekov’s gun” references the playwright’s notion that “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.” From Gurlyand’s Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, in Teatr i iskusstvo 1904, No. 28, 11 July, p. 521. Preceding primary reference is from Wikipedia ~back~
  8. One suspects that Lorca Cohen, however admirable she may find the poet for whom she was named, may well have grown less enthusiastic about inevitably being introduced in published material as “Lorca Cohen, who named after the … .” If so, I apologize for perpetuating the trend; it’s the kind of thing newbies need to know. ~back~
  9. Suzanne (the song) soared as high as #83 on the US charts ~back~
  10. OK, I am aware that he knew at least three Suzanne’s since he worked with singer Suzanne Vega. I’m just trying to keep things simple. ~back~
  11. See the previous reference, A Short Walk In Leonard Cohen’s Westmount, for specifics. ~back~
  12. Photo and caption from - of course - leonardcohenfiles.com ~back~
  13. OK, I suppose one could make the case that leonardcohenfiles could have been a site about a guy named “Leonard Cohenfiles,” but that would be wrong. ~back~

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Leonard Cohen Search Now Online At LeonardCohenSearch.com

Leonard Cohen-Focused Custom Search Engine & Reference Index

LeonardCohenSearch Site Screenshot

From the front page of LeonardCohenSearch.com [Click on image to expand]


What is the Leonard Cohen Custom Search Engine?

First of all, the Leonard Cohen Custom Search is in no way analogous to “Where’s Waldo?”

The Leonard Cohen Custom Search Engine at LeonardCohenSearch.com is a Google-powered search process that has been altered (customized) to search only specified web sites or, in some cases, specified portions of web sites1 I have selected because they contain useful information about Leonard Cohen, the poet and singer-songwriter.2


Why is the Leonard Cohen Custom Search Engine?

Research for pieces I’ve written about Leonard Cohen and Anjani brought me repeatedly to sites at which dedicated fans have accumulated an impressive amount of data about Cohen’s life and work.3

I thought I could accomplish this research more efficaciously with a search engine customized to search only those web sites I’ve found most useful and accurate.4 Happily, Google has made tools to accomplish this task accessible to wannabe geeks like me.

So, I rigged up and used a search engine that is at least effective enough to convince me that it’s faster and more accurate than a general search.

Eventually, it occurred to me that one or another person might find it helpful as well. To make the search mechanism usable, I spiffied up the search page, popped for a domain at which the search engine could reside (LeonardCohenSearch.com), ginned up a graphic or two, and threw in some links to reference sources I’ve found helpful.

And as of this evening, it’s open for business. Even if you are not enamored of the music of Leonard Cohen (and, as always, you have my sympathy), you may want to check out the site for a sense of how the Google custom search, a powerful tool that coud be beneficial for an extended range of subjects in a large number of situations, works.



LeonardCohenSearch can be accessed at ~ Leonard Cohen Custom Search ~



Footnotes


  1. Heck of a Guy blog, for example, contains several posts about Leonard Cohen and Anjani but also, as the recurrent reader knows, has posts about sugarplums (as in “visions of”), broomcorn, and prototypes for a new McHenry Illinois County Seal, all of which may be of less compelling interest to your average Cohenista. Consequently, Leonard Cohen Custom Search searches only the “Leonard Cohen” and “Anjani” categories of Heck of a Guy blog, so the reader who attempts to track down my three part exposition on George Washington Carver on this custom search engine is likely to find only frustration. ~back~
  2. Rather than, say, Leonard Cohen, the New York accountant ~back~
  3. While there are a batch of Cohen-dedicated sites, clearly the most impressive and influential is leonardcohenfiles.com, for which Jarkko Arjatsalo serves as webmaster. It is no small factor that leonardcohenfiles.com has earned the trust and appreciation of Cohen himself, who has released significant raw materials (e.g., notebook pages Cohen used in the creation of a finished song), answered innumerable queries, and revealed future plans in order to enhance the site. ~back~
  4. Limiting searches to only those sites invested in gathering and offering reliable and valid information about Leonard Cohen excludes many potential search hits that are irrelevant, inaccurate, or misleading, rendering it easier and faster to find the correct data with less risk of errors contaminating the findings. ~back~

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The Lou Reed-Anjani Duet You Have (Probably) Never Heard


Came So Far For Beauty Dublin Poster


Lou Reed and Anjani At “Came So Far For Beauty” Tribute

While fact checking my post about Lou Reed officially inducting Leonard Cohen into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10 in New York,1 I serendipitously discovered a reference to Mr Reed and Anjani teaming up for a duet at the Dublin “Came So Far For Beauty” tribute to Leonard Cohen.2

Further, the song they performed together was of “Memories,” which has itself been the subject of two recent Heck of a Guy posts:


Ambiguous Documentation

Yeah, I might skip a section labeled “Ambiguous Documentation” too, but it is short. The pertinent Dublin “Came So Far For Beauty” tribute is written up in a number of online and print publications. Some of those pieces indeed mention Anjani and Reed singing “Memories.” Others, however, describe “Memories” the evening’s final song, being performed by the entire cast. And some - yep - listed it both ways.

A couple of emails to folks who were present at the concert has solved, I think, this apparent conundrum.


Lou Reed and Anjani Sing Memories

Lour Reed and Anjani Sing Memories


“Memories” was indeed the final song and was used, the second night in Dublin, as not only the finale but also an opportunity for the performers to showcase their skills one last time. And, as it turned out, Lou Reed and Anjani were paired in the exchange of the song’s lines,

Lou Reed:

Frankie Lane, he was singing Jezebel
I pinned an Iron Cross to my lapel
I walked up to the tallest and the blondest girl
I said, Look, you don’t know me now but very soon you will
So won’t you let me see
I said “won’t you let me see”
I said “won’t you let me see
Your naked body?”


Anjani:

Just dance me to the dark side of the gym
Chances are I’ll let you do most anything
I know you’re hungry, I can hear it in your voice
And there are many parts of me to touch, you have your choice
Ah but no you cannot see
She said “no you cannot see”
She said “no you cannot see
My naked body”


An eye witness, who writes on the LeonardCohenForum under the arbitrarily truncated designation, Born With The Gift Of A G, describes the scene in his posting, Thoughts On Came So Far For Beauty in Dublin: Part 2:

on the second night, The Handsome Family’s third contribution was omitted; Teddy Thompson’s splendid rousing The Future was the penultimate song and the collective rendition of Memories was the closing song. Everybody seemed to have great fun with the latter, particularly Lou Reed who relished flirting with and saying the words “your naked body” to a somewhat flustered Anjani! Lucky old bugger!



Or, as Anjani commented by email about her duet with Lou Reed,

That was a hoot, alright


The Dublin Performance of Memories

The bad news is that I couldn’t turn up a recording of the Lou Reed-Anjani duet. The good news is that I did find an MP3 file of “Memories” as performed the first night of the Dublin Tribute. Despite the low-fi quality, the recording does conjure up a sense of the joyful tone of the concert.

“Memories” Performed By Cast of Dublin “Came So Far For Beauty” Tribute (4 Oct 2006)


NickCave JarvisCocker JulieChristensen

Other Performers: Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, and Julie Christensen


Credit Due Department
Photos and poster are from Dick Straub’s Review Of The Dublin Concert. A full description of the event as well as many, many more photos are available at that site.
Footnotes


  1. The induction ceremony for this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame entrants begins at 7 PM Central (i.e., God’s Time) on March 10 and, as noted by an earlier commenter, will be broadcast on VH1-Classic. ~back~
  2. There were two performances of the “Came So Far For Beauty” tribute in Dublin, one on 4 Oct 2006 and one on 5 Oct 2006. The Anjani & Lou Reed duet took place at the 5 Oct 2006 concert. Other performers at the tribute included Nick Cave, Lou Reed, The Handsome Family, Antony, Laurie Anderson, Beth Orton, Teddy Thompson, Jarvis Cocker, Gavin Friday, and Mary Margaret O’Hara. ~back~

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The Anjani Chronicles: Anjani Goes To New York, Meets Leonard Cohen, and Finds Romance - But Not In That Order




Introduction To The Anjani Chronicles1

Anjani2 is the exquisite, exotically featured singer and keyboardist best known for her Blue Alert CD, a collection of elegantly performed songs suffused with evocative lyrics, and her professional and romantic relationships with Leonard Cohen, an accomplished singer-songwriter in his own right. My own connection to Anjani began in July 2006 when I posted Music Recommendation That Will Make You Want To Kiss Me, a review of Blue Alert that reflected my captivation with the music. An online flirtation and email relationship between us ensued.3

The Anjani Chronicles are a sequence of posts based on the content of my recent interviews with Anjani.


Anjani Goes To New York, Meets Leonard Cohen, and Finds Romance
But Not In That Order

Today’s post, the third of this series, begins at the point The Anjani Chronicles - Anjani Does Waikiki, Boston, and The Slough Of Despond ended, with Anjani’s departure from Boston’s Berklee School of Music and extends through her move to New York and her first meetings with John Lissauer and Leonard Cohen.


Home Again, Home Again



After deciding that she had reached the point of diminishing returns at Berklee School of Music, Anjani returns to Hawaii and to gigs on the hotel lounge circuit. In retrospect, the next major turn in her life seems inevitable: a young, beautiful, talented Anjani performing for audiences in luxury hotels on the romantic beaches of Hawaii falls for a tourist from the mainland.


As she explains the experience in an interview with the Honolulu Star Bulletin,

I was in my 20s, and he was the kind of man that swept you off your feet.

What are the odds?

Anjani is, indeed, sufficiently smitten that, pausing barely long enough to pack up all her cares and woes, her cold weather gear, and her Fender Rhodes Stage 88, she follows the guy back to his home in New York where - well, this isn’t the “they lived happily ever after” part of the story.

For one thing, Anjani is clear that New York was not her choice of ideal locales,

I ended up in New York. (It wasn’t music that drew me there). It was a man. I never would have gone there otherwise, I don’t think.4



Anjani is reluctant to provide details, especially about the New Yorker. With some repeated promptings (OK, after some nagging), she does summarize the experience:

It was crush at first sight but I also had rock fever and he was a good excuse to leave [Hawaii]. It was destined to fail as we were both young and dysfunctional; and I recall in particular dreading the joint Gestalt therapy sessions. I’m more of a feeler than a talker. I’ve since learned to express myself and (gasp) consider someone else’s feelings in a relationship.

A year later, concluding that the relationship “isn’t going to work,” Anjani calls the only other person she knows in New York (another musician of course), who agrees that she can crash at his fifth floor walk-up until she can find a place to live.

When she does find that place to live, five years later, she will be leaving for Los Angeles - to live with her new husband.

But I’m getting ahead of the story.

Just now, in fact, the script calls for a cameo appearance of a beloved character from the first episode of the Anjani Chronicles, …


The Fender Rhodes Stage 88 Has Hard Knock Life In New York



Anyone who read that first chapter of the Anjani Chronicles, Growing Up Anjani, is unlikely to have forgotten the image of the Fender Rhodes Stage 88; for the benefit of those joining us in medias res, however, a brief recapitulation may be helpful. The following, including Anjani’s own, unexpurgated description of transporting the instrument, is excerpted from the earlier post:

More pertinent to our purposes, one specific Fender Rhodes Stage 88, the virtual twin of the Rhodes Stage 73 shown in the graphic on the right(click on graphic to view larger image) but possessing a longer keyboard5 and proportionately larger size.

… The Fender Rhodes Stage 88 of early- to mid-1970s vintage weighed 65 kilos (143 pounds) or more.6 The total heft varied by model and year of manufacture with earlier versions being markedly heavier. In addition, accouterments such as the tour rig7 could significantly increase the total poundage.

… Anjani Thomas persuaded her ambivalent-leaning-toward-reluctant parents to front her the cash for that mass of wood, plastic, metal, and electronics known as the Fender Rhodes Stage 88 when she was 16 years old and weighed 107 pounds.

… Transporting the Fender Rhodes Stage 88 to those jobs was no small matter. Nor is it without a certain entertainment value. Consider Anjani’s own description of loading the instrument (I suggest picturing it as an updated version of the famous Laurel and Hardy piano moving scene):

Often but not always, my brothers would help me load it. I would lift one end onto the back seat of my dad’s Pontiac LeMans and shove it in maybe 3 - 4 inches, then run around to the other side and pull it in, going back and forth pushing and pulling, inch by inch, till the monster was in there. It was a helluva lot easier to pull it out than load it in.


One should keep in mind that by the time Anjani breaks off the affair that was her reason for coming to New York and moves in with her friend, it has been nine years since she and the Fender Rhodes Stage 88 first hooked up.

Moreover, Anjani’s relationship to the Fender Rhodes Stage 88 has been one of impressive if not absolute fidelity. Oh sure, Anjani may have tickled the ivories of a strange keyboard now and then. A woman has needs. And, she may have, on occasion, fingered the strings of a guitar and even manipulated a fret or two. Perhaps she uttered some harsh words when lugging the electric piano back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, all over the islands, and through the snowy streets of Boston and Calgary, hither and yon, to every job. And the occasional mechanical malfunction may have triggered, in the frustration of the moment, ill-advised threats of replacement with a younger, more lithesome model, but overall, Anjani and the Fender - they have been and still are tight.

At this point, after all, their association has outlasted not only the crush on the New Yorker but also her teenage infatuation with a Canadian boy, her two gigs per weekend schedule as a high schooler, her affiliation with the prestigious Berklee School of Music, a career plan or two, and even her recurrent jobs performing in Hawaiian clubs and lounges.

But there are circumstances that overwhelm even the deepest and strongest connection and, for this girl and her electric piano, the move to a five story walk-up turns out to be the final straw, the problem that would finally cause them to go their separate ways.

Graphic simulation of apartment building stairway as described by Anjani


While Anjani has little choice but to carry, shove, push, hoist, and otherwise propel her instrument up those stairs, its descent is another matter altogether. She soon opts for an elegantly simple and efficient methodology: positioning the keyboard in the middle of the stairs, she nudges it forward and watches it fall to the next landing. She then repositions it, again pushes it forward, and again observes it bumping along to the next landing, repeating as needed.

Anjani describes the scene,

It made a lot of noise when I let it slide down the stairs (nine landings) from the fifth floor. It sounded like a dead body hitting the deck; and not once did anyone pop their heads out their doors to see what the heck it was.

Well, it is an apartment building inhabited exclusively by musicians. And it is, after all, in New York,


The New Men In Anjani’s Life

Having landed in New York by happenstance , Anjani does what Anjani does - she works as a musician. During her time in New York, Anjani performs solo and with others (including Carl Anderson, Frank Gambale, and Stanley Clarke) in the clubs and other venues. In the tradition of struggling musicians everywhere, she also takes whatever jobs are available to support herself, including singing “too many jingles.”

Also working on jingles in those days, although he was producing rather than selling them, is a man who soon becomes become an important part of Anjani’s life, John Lissauer, who describes, in an Interview With Dick Straub, how he and Anjani met:

My first wife and I, my first wife was Erin Dickins, who sings on a lot of these things [pointing to the early Leonard Cohen albums]. She toured with us. Erin was in the original Manhattan Transfer. She was a very good singer, and I produced her and we were married for seven years. She did Leonard’s first tour with me. Not his first, but our first together. In fact she was on both of them, and she sang on his record. We went to Hawaii on vacation and met a couple of really good Hawaiian musicians who just happened to be up and coming guys. They never got to the mainland but they were really good. Anjani was one of their friends. We didn’t meet her while we were there, but these guys had been raving about us to her because Erin and I had written a lot of songs and gave them some for their records. I sat and played with the guys.

After we had come back to New York, about a year later actually, this girl called me and said, “Hi, I’m Anjani, I’m in New York.”

… We got together and she played me stuff and she was really good. A good piano player, and in those days almost Anita Baker like –jazz, pop kind of stuff.


John Lissauer


Anjani is equally impressed with Lissauer, telling PopMatters, “John was a really great and wonderful man.”

While John Lissauer is destined to be involved in many aspects of Anjani’s music, one of his efforts changes her life - eventually. He introduces her to one of the singer-songwriters with whom he has worked for the preceding nine or ten years, Leonard Cohen.8

Anjani’s anticipation about meeting Leonard Cohen falls short of starstruck. In an interview with Hour, she confides, “I wasn’t nervous.” Perhaps she wasn’t nervous because

To be honest, back then I didn’t know much about Leonard - although I’d heard and loved Roberta Flack’s cover of “Suzanne.”9

She does, however, recall their first meeting vividly enough, albeit for an unexpected reason:

I was waiting to meet him at the loft. When he (Leonard Cohen] walked through the door, I saw that his cowboy boots and everything he wore was black. It was an impressive entrance.



That meeting led to Anjani performing background vocals on Cohen’s original recording of “Hallelujah,” joining the Various Positions tour as a keyboardist and vocalist, singing on subsequent Leonard Cohen albums, the Blue Alert album, and an intimate relationship between Anjani and Leonard Cohen.

The path to those end points from that first meeting, however, is not a straight line nor is the journey one completed quickly.

But, those are matters for another post.





Footnotes


  1. A more comprehensive version of this introduction was published in The Anjani Chronicles - Introduction ~back~
  2. ”Anjani” and “Anjani Thomas” are, for the purposes of the Heck of a Guy blog, synonymous names which refer to the lovely, dulcet-voiced singer best known for her Blue Alert CD and her long-term relationship with Leonard Cohen. I include this clarification on posts about Anjani-Anjani Thomas in part for the purpose of what the folks at Wikipedia call disambiguation (i.e., to positively identify for the reader and remove any doubts the reader might have about which “Anjani” of all the possible “Anjani’s” is referenced) and in part to aid and abet the search engines. While a rose is, famously, a rose is a rose, a “tea rose,” for example, is not exactly the same as a “rose” - especially to a search +engine. Searches that include “Anjani” as part of the search terms may not produce the same results as the same search terms other with “Anjani Thomas” substituted for “Anjani.” Should any other Anjani, say one who has not produced a CD called “Blue Alert” or one who has not been associated with Leonard Cohen for the decade, I promise to do my best to make that identification clear as well. ~back~
  3. These events and the aftermath are described at Anjani And DrHGuy FAQ. I’ve also published a batch of blog entries about Anjani and the Blue Alert album that can be found at Anjani Thomas. ~back~
  4. see PopMatters article ~back~
  5. The “73″ in “Rhodes Stage 73″ and the “88″ in “Rhodes Stage 88″ indicate the number of keys in each instrument’s keyboard. Other than the 15 keys difference, the two models are nearly identical ~back~
  6. I’ve used numbers from several sources such as Selling & Shipping A Fender Rhodes Piano: “I weighed my Mark 1 88 Stage just before taking it on the road with me around 1974 and it was approximately 200 pounds. That was totally packed, with the legs and pedal in the top and the top attached, ready to go.” and “ready to ship my Rhodes Mark II Stage Piano 73 weighed 66 kilograms.” I have, on the other hand, excluded from these calculations the many claims along the lines of “My Fender Rhodes weighed at least 2,000 pounds.” In any case, according to Answers.com, the lightest Rhodes Piano produced in those models was the Mark V, weighing in at 45 kg (100 lbs). The Mark V was not produced until 1984, a decade later. ~back~
  7. A tour rig typically included a road case for the keyboard, an effects pedals (delay, tremolo, phaser), Quiklok stand, Rhodes sustain pedal and rod, and the road case for holding effects, stand, sustain pedal and cords ~back~
  8. The story of how Lissauer himself came to work with Cohen is a dandy tale on its own, and I heartily recommend readers check out his account of it in the previously referenced Interview With Dick Straub. It’s also worth noting that while Lissauer has worked extensively with Leonard Cohen, that is not his only successful musical role or relationship. The following excerpt is from John Lissauer.com:

    John Lissauer’s first big gig came at the age of 19, when he produced and arranged Al Jarreau’s first recordings. Ever in good company, John went on to produce and arrange a pair of hugely successful Leonard Cohen albums and has been composing, producing and arranging ever since. Writing/arranging for a myriad of recording artists has proven both fruitful and rewarding for John. The four gold records he received for Leonard Cohen and Bette Midler’s albums bear witness to that. He has also worked with Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Air Supply and The Manhattan Transfer to name a few. Having scored some 2000 TV commercials since his first at age 21, John has worked on just about everything. If it comes in a box, a bottle, runs off a battery, or provides a service to anyone, John has worked on it. He has to his credit numerous CLIO awards, including the highly coveted “Campaign Of The Decade” award for his work on Polaroid with James Garner. The kids love him too - John was the composer on three animated feature films including Pokemon: The Movie, a couple of animated shorts and several animated TV series from around the world. The love of music never seems to run dry for John, who is an accomplished woodwind player with various local symphonies. In his spare time, he has taught music at Yale University and Kingsborough Community College, and has composed and conducted for orchestras in New York, Hollywood, London, Paris, Prague and Toronto.

    ~back~

  9. See LeonardCohenFiles.com: Anjani ~back~

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The Anjani Chronicles - Anjani Does Waikiki, Boston, and The Slough Of Despond




Introduction To The Anjani Chronicles1

Anjani2 is the exquisite, exotically featured singer and keyboardist best known for her Blue Alert CD, a collection of elegantly performed songs