"While music cannot stop the horrors occurring in our world, it can lead us to the practice of communicating better and with humanness to the degree that constructive dialogue continues to occur.  Art is for all, and I’ve always known that music can affect change. I want the music on this album to give us a place to focus our attention on what it means to be human together. The intention is to replace any pictures of dystopia with visions of hope."

Todd Cochran: Notes For The Future

Acclaimed pianist, composer, electronic musician and producer Todd Cochran has experienced music as a way of life and being in a myriad of settings. His new releases “From The Vault: Notes For The Future” is a narrative exploration and foray into Cochran’s Jazz, Classical, and Electronic music palettes, available June 23 via Blue Buddha Productions. Notes for the future are the “imagined sometime in the past” tropes of a storyteller. Freed from every day “isms” of convention and released from the symbolic containment of the vault, the music is an allegorical exploration in futurism. The stream running throughout the musical narrative is a speculative commentary about our human search for meaning, and we’re reminded that as a version of our ancestors’ vision, this quest never ends.                       (Photo: Todd Cochran)

Todd Cochran is an American pianist, composer, keyboardist, electronic musician, and conceptual artist. Early in his career he was also professionally known as Bayeté. Cochran started his career as a teenager with saxophonist John Handy. Two years later he joined vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson’s Quartet, and made his jazz recording debut composing and performing on a benchmark album for Hutcherson, “Head On” (Blue Note Records). Cochran’s first solo project “Worlds Around the Sun” became a #1 jazz album. From the mid-1970s forward Todd has experimented with and incorporated synthesizers, electronic and mixed-media concepts in his creative projects while collaborating with a wide range of artists in the genres of jazz, art rock, pop, R&B, and twenty-first-century classical. The shortlist of his collaborations include Peter Gabriel, Joan Armatrading, Maya Angelou and Stewart Copeland.

Interview by Michael Limnios          Special Thanks: Billy James (Glass Onyon PR)

What characterizes your music philosophy? Where does your creative drive come from?

I’m a free thinker. So, my music philosophy is multi-layered in that it comes from a range of experiences combined with my creative interests. There’s identity in the things we surround ourselves with, and in “artist speak,” we naturally draw upon them. I’m dedicated to addressing the glaring concerns of humanity, improving connections, and contributing my part to help build an attuned and positive society that can work together to resolve issues. Transmitting this message through relatable music is at the root of everything I do and reaches across a broad spectrum.

My creative energy comes from my love of people, my passion for cultures, and how music can portray life in an emotional language. I see the personas and conflicts and am always in the mode of threading the facts to get a broader sense of the real. It means paying attention, absorbing what’s in the atmosphere, and accepting that we’re not all wired the same – knowing there’ll always be mixed interpretations of the same data stream.

What do you love most from the album “From The Vault: Notes For The Future”?

What I love most about From The Vault: Notes For The Future is how this album expresses my worldview. Like plants in a garden, my influences and perspectives are interconnected. The thread running through this music is my transparency about my mission to speak abstract and literal truths that will free the compassionate parts of our humanness and contribute to improving the world. Doing nothing to prevent an impending narrative of indifference is unacceptable. Silence is an instrument of sameness. Imagining the best scenario, the ideas expressed in this music will reach open minds in a receptive moment.

"My creative energy comes from my love of people, my passion for cultures, and how music can portray life in an emotional language. I see the personas and conflicts and am always in the mode of threading the facts to get a broader sense of the real. It means paying attention, absorbing what’s in the atmosphere, and accepting that we’re not all wired the same – knowing there’ll always be mixed interpretations of the same data stream." (Photo: Todd Cochran)

What moment changed your music life the most? What´s been the highlights in your life and career so far?

The “moment” that changed my musical life most, I would have to say, was recording my first solo album, “Worlds Around The Sun.” I remember being in the midst of an accelerated growth cycle, and it meant a lot to be able to put out my own music at 20. Unconstrained and uncensored, I followed my instincts and wrote, produced, and recorded the album. It was well received beyond expectations, with the recording reaching number one on the jazz charts. The album has since been reissued on CD and vinyl. Music from the album has appeared in films and has been sampled by an array of artists, including Del La Sol, Jay Z, and Kendrick Lamar. The bona fides I established with this recording set the trajectory of my musical life, and I often think about the state of mind I was in way back when.

A highlight in my life was recording with Maya Angelou. I recorded three pieces with her.

I’ve always been drawn to reading. There’s love and magic in reading, hearing written words spoken in your mind, forming pictures of scenes, and imagining the sound of the character’s voices. I’m always getting ideas from reading.

What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?

I believe in collaborative art and fusing a mix of reference points to where something unto itself emerges. In service of the music, the challenge is getting all of those differences working to the benefit of the whole. What was a given in the past and is now lacking to a large extent today is the communal practice of musicians communicating, interacting, and making music together in the same room. Musicians being in the presence of each other is an important part of music making. New technology has given us powerful and efficient ways of co-creating that I utilize and find exciting. There will always be a quagmire between the old and new, but we can’t sacrifice our face-to-face, intimate communication abilities.

"I’m a free thinker. So, my music philosophy is multi-layered in that it comes from a range of experiences combined with my creative interests. There’s identity in the things we surround ourselves with, and in “artist speak,” we naturally draw upon them." (Photo: Todd Cochran)

John Coltrane said "My music is the spiritual expression of what I am...". How do you understand the spirit, music, and the meaning of life?

Coltrane’s music was the voice of his deepest inner dialogues, and those conversations expressed in his playing revealed what was unsayable until then. His art placed the riches of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs in our laps.

The essence of life is to discover meaning, and as sentient beings, we grow to understand that we will always be in a state of becoming. Through expressing myself with music, I’ve come to see life as a spirit dance where we glean meaning from the things we think about, see, learn, and dream about. Creativity is sitting in an open field and making something out of your imagination that reflects your relationship with the earth and sky and the divine elements that hold our universe together. 

What is the impact of music on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?

While music cannot stop the horrors occurring in our world, it can lead us to the practice of communicating better and with humanness to the degree that constructive dialogue continues to occur.  Art is for all, and I’ve always known that music can affect change. I want the music on this album to give us a place to focus our attention on what it means to be human together. The intention is to replace any pictures of dystopia with visions of hope.

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?

Notions of time: There is no yesterday, merely a continuous continuum of contiguous occurrences. Linearity is a concept of time that we've accepted and adopted. I’ve given a lot of thought to the question, “At what point do you become a conceptualizer?” I’ve never answered this question but having asked it has put me on the path of discovery, exploration, asking more questions, learning, and awakening curiosities beyond me. There’s so much vulnerability in putting your emotions into music, and there’s also much warmth and love in that process, and then when it becomes public, it becomes something else.

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(Photo: Todd Cochran)