John Tesh “Live at Red Rocks”
On the one hand “New Age” means absolutely nothing. It’s an intentionally vague, glitteringly general marketing term. It could be the tiniest corner of a Vermont record store. It could be a subsection of a subsection of the “Self Help” section at a Northern California book store. It could be where you are purchase balms and salts in Taos, New Mexico. Depending on who you ask, it could be any one of those things or none of them at all. During the last three decades, the term “New Age” has receded into a realm between irony and anachronism — it’s a post-Hippie cliche vaguely associated with yogis and crystal power. Even today, as young burning men and women rediscover its allure, “New Age” is more vibes than substance. It is a diffuse — to the point of being useless — signifier.
And yet, for as long as I can remember, I’ve assumed a set of very specific things about what “New Age” actually means. For instance, I assumed that to be “New Age” is to be interested in nature and mindfulness. That “New Age” is about minimalism and not maximalism. That it's quiet and pastoral rather than raucous and busy. My earliest impressions of New Age include George Winston’s seasonal piano contemplations and my parents' friends from Marin County who served granola for breakfast and smelled like lavender and lack of deodorant. In spite of the term’s vagaries, my formative impressions of “New Age” are oddly specific and meaningful.
Through patience and contemplation, I soon discovered more New Age secrets. I learned, for instance, that Brian Eno and George Winston could both be considered “New Age” — that the distance from “natural” to “ambient” was not so far. That New Age was really just a big, totally made up (hemp-based) tent that covered everything from Leo Kotke to Enya, from Spyro Gyra to Kenny G. And that while its contradictions were as implicit (folk vs. ambient) as they were explicit (new vs. age), those inconsistencies were part of charm. After all, the whole point of New Age was not to think but to simply be. And so, for years, I did not think too hard about New Age music — I just just let it be.
But then came Vangelis, the mysterious, bearded, Greek composer whose theme for “Chariots of Fire” topped the Billboard charts in 1981. The video for “Chariots of Fire” cuts back and forth between Vangelis smoking while playing his black, baby grand piano and a cast of fit, young English men racing towards 1924 Olympic glory. The oddity of the song is not merely that it became a Pop hit. Nor is it that its New Age composer was also chain smoker. It’s that the song — a New Age anthem — could be at once pastoral and competitive. Meditative and athletic. That striving quality was something novel and entirely unexpected.
Vangelis’ innovations — the insertion of drama and (yes) competition into an erstwhile plaintive and sleepy form — begot Yanni, Vangelis’ heir apparent And though he was a keen admirer of Vangelis, and though both men were Greek, Yanni functioned as the ego to Vangelis’ id. Strapping, mustached and extroverted, he was not content to score films and yoga classes. Vangelis craved privacy. Yanni wanted to conquer the world. He wasn’t merely ambitious — he was bold and vigorous. And ironically, he would not have existed without the theme to “Chariots of Fire.”
Yanni’s version of New Age music was worldly in ways that Vangelis and Winston were not. And he was maximal in ways that Eno and Riley were not. He performed in front of thousands of people at ancient monuments, and before millions more on VHS, DVD and PBS. Yanni thrilled Oprah. Yanni dated actresses. Yanni was a showman. Yanni was a star. But, most of all, Yanni was an athlete. Which is not merely a reference to his physical fitness or skill (as a teenager, he set the Greek national record in the fifty meter freestyle swim) but also to his sporting spirit. Yanni’s music was about risk and scale and victory. By the late Eighties, Yanni had transformed that big New Age tent into an international sporting arena.
Which is when and where John Tesh entered the picture. John Frank Tesh, Jr. was a tall kid with a big head of blonde hair from Long Island, New York who’d spent years toiling in local media until, one day, he received a call from “Entertainment Tonight.” It was a choice gig for which Tesh — telegenic, articulate and professional, but also slightly goofy — was uniquely qualified. And for more than a decade, sitting next to Mary Hart and Leeza Gibbons, Tesh thrived in his pre-primetime role. However, E.T. could not contain him. Just a year after he took the job, Tesh applied for a second job — as a member of Yanni’s touring band. And though it seemed unfathomable that E.T.’s co-host could moonlight as Yanni’s sideman, The Greek Keyboard God accepted Tesh’s proposal.
Like Yanni, John Tesh was an avid sportsman. He played both soccer and lacrosse in college and twice covered the Olympics for NBC. When he first joined Yanni’s band, Tesh was not known to be a musician, much less a composer. But all that changed in 1990 when NBC licensed a peppy new theme song for “The NBA on NBC” from an unknown composer. That song, of course, was called “Roundball Rock. And that unknown composer, of course, was John Tesh using a pseudonym.
“Roundball Rock” was so much more than a theme song. It was the sonic logo for an entire professional sports league. It was among the most listened to tracks of the Nineties. Even today, it’s a song that many American men of a certain age can hum note for note. It’s fair to say that “Roundball Rock” was far more “important” to the Nineties — if that word suggests an enduring psychic mark — than anything Matchbox Twenty or Third Eye Blind ever released. In fact, by that same standard, I’d place Tesh closer to Nirvana than to the Foo Fighters.
The miracle of “Roundball Rock” was not simply its ubiquity or its earwormness. The miracle was the way in which it signified “here comes The NBA!” Tesh famously programmed the rhythms to approximate the pace of fast break dribbling. Similarly, its melody sounds like a high stakes, back and forth playoff game. But, it’s more than that. “Roundball Rock” sounds like “Showtime basketball.” It sounds like a jump ball at the L.A. Forum, with the Laker Girls and Jack Nicholson on the sidelines. It sounds like Magic passing behind his back to Worthy for a dunk. It sounds like the opening buzzer and the high five and the swoosh. It’s a formal marvel, a work of exceptional, musical engineering.
Between 1987 and 1995, Tesh released twelve studio albums, including two inspired by the Tour De France, one by an Ironman Triathlon, one by The Olympics, two by Christmas and two by the saxiest, horniest of instruments. To those who’d heard about but not actually heard it, the music of John Tesh was a punchline — ridiculous and uncool. But for his growing fanbase, Tesh was producing spine tingling, earth moving art. And never did the earth move for Tesh like it did on Thursday, August 19, 1994.
Recorded in the summer of 1994, “Live at Red Rocks” first aired on PBS in the Spring of 1995 and hit stores just a few months later. In the thirty plus years since, it’s become synonymous with both “Nineties New Age” and “PBS fundraising.” Which is to say that it is simultaneously elaborate (not minimal) and cheap (free with your donation). On that windy Colorado night, accompanied by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and dressed in a three piece, purple suit, Tesh charmed and thrilled a rapt audience of true believers. Who these people were exactly, I’m not so sure. I don’t believe that they had a particular interest in New Age music nor do I think they were Entertainment Tonight devotees. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that they were lovers of the great outdoors, public television and Olympic gymnastics — a narrow, but apparently highly dedicated and philanthropic demographic.
That evening, against its breathtaking backdrop, Red Rocks Amphitheater was host to a six foot, six inch, multimedia Hollywood star, thousands of politely adoring fans and two decorated Olympic champions. It’s true — Bart Conner and Nadia Comăneci, both of whom were years past their sporting prime, performed alongside Tesh. Conner wowed on the pommel horse while Comăneci excelled in her beam and floor routines. “Live at Red Rocks” was the very opposite of George Winston — though the setting is gloriously natural, the music is more frenetic than pastoral. Conversely, it was the apotheosis of Yanni — an exhaustingly maximalist, athletic event. “Live at Red Rocks” is music for Crossfit, not yoga.
It is also extremely cinematic music. Splitting the difference between Vangelis, John Williams and every middle-aged dude with a synthesizer, Tesh is a highly capable, if literal, composer. Much in the same way that “Roundball Rock” sounds like The NBA, “Barcelona” sounds like running with bulls, “In a Child’s Eyes” sounds like a lullaby, “Key of Love” sounds like fireside romance and “Shock” sounds like paddles on a patient’s chest. Tesh has a knack for evoking scenery through his compositions. Rarely is it his actual playing — his over-articulated, arpeggiated chords sound quite banal on their own. But his sense for micro-dynamics — for pacing and volume and tension — is a real gift. Whereas most film composers endeavor to complement the scenes they are scoring, it’s as though Tesh was attempting to score, direct, act and write the entire movie all by himself.
Whereas on PBS (or Youtube) Red Rocks is an odd, can’t take my eyes off it marvel, on compact disc (or Spotify), it is merely a curious, why would I ever want to listen to this bore. As an annual gift from PBS — as a DVD in a tote bag — “Live at Red Rocks” makes so much sense. The backdrop, the orchestra and — most of all — the blonde and purple host are positively magnetic. But as a compact disc that somebody buys at Barnes and Noble to take home to listen to, it’s nearly farcical. This is not simply a “you had to be there” kind of live album — it’s not “Woodstock.” It’s more like a “you had to be there, pledged a hundred dollars to PBS, worn your Birkenstocks and your necktie, taken several long hikes in the past week and resisted Sting’s solo career because it was too loud” kind of live album.
In the seventeen years since “Red Rocks,” between 1996 and 2012, Tesh released an astonishing thirty-one studio albums. And then…nothing. Not a single record in more than twelve years. He still plays a smattering of shows each year, but, quizzically, he no longer puts out new music. And so, “Red Rocks” survives as a curiosity of the Nineties, frozen in amber along with Beanie Babies. Blockbuster video and the “Friends” haircuts. It was a one night only concert event that snuck into the zeitgeist as a free gift with purchase.
To be clear, Tesh is still active — blonder and tanner than ever and plenty busy with The John Tesh Radio Show, where believers get a little Soft Rock and a little Contemporary Christian Music along with dulcet toned affirmations that Tesh calls “Intelligence for Your Life.” But, unlike George Winston, who made music right up to the very end, and unlike Brian Eno who continues to experiment tirelessly, and unlike Enya, who perpetually disappears and then reappears, John Tesh has either stopped writing new music or stopped sharing it.
In Tesh’s absence, New Age music has enjoyed a not so minor renaissance, reclaimed by millennials interested in minimalism, meditation and mind expansion. However, the New New Age, has very little in common with John Tesh, because, in fact, most New Age music has very little in common with the music of John Tesh. Because, while he was twice nominated for a Best New Age Album Grammy, John Tesh was a journalist, a broadcaster and — maybe most of all — an athlete as much as he was a composer. And, like all great great athletes — like Bart Conner and Tony Romo and Tom Brady — there comes a time to leave the arena and get (back) into the booth.