A moment in time - Richie Havens

We all have crystalline moments in our lives, moments that are sublimely perfect.  Ideally, our lives are full of them.  Mine is and lots have to do with music.....  my first time playing in the midst of the school band, the first time hearing a symphony orchestra, every time I hear Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and hundreds with my students and fellow musicians.... in thinking about them, lord, there are so many of them, all wonderful.

Easily, one of the best moments of my life was in August just before beginning my sophomore year in college.  It was in a field not far from my hometown at the time, Clinton, NY and I was with my high school sweetheart.  It was 1969 and the world was full of rock bands all playing as loudly as possible through terrible equipment.  More than half the time you could not hear the vocals at all, the PA's were so bad.  I had a Fender Rhodes piano that very few amps could handle, but who cared, we were having a blast.

So there we were in this field, not unlike the cornfields and pastures that were the backdrops to our lives at that point.  And then..... there was this guitar.... so loud, clean and clear.... I had never heard anything like it.  For me, it was a miracle.  It was Richie Havens, the first act at Woodstock.  And the beauty of it is, that that moment forever has been inside me, indescribable, like a diamond, nurturing, inspirational, indelible.  He lives.