The day after, a remembrance...
June 12, 2020
I loved Nina, with the deeply passionate love that artists can share when they feel their way together toward a vision of something which is sacred, personal and meaningful to them.
Our connection was through Music, our physical relationship was a fleeting hug here and there, barely there like a touch of a branch.
But our musical connection was deep and powerful. She was my go to vocalist. Whenever I had a new song, I couldn’t wait to share it with her. She would always make time to come in and sing it. Her methodology was always the same: she would ask to listen to a demo, while looking at the score. She would listen to it once through, then go into the studio and lay down a perfect track, and then proceed to lay down all the backing tracks. My music is melodically and harmonically complex, full of slippery chromatic turns. She had perfect pitch, but more important than that, she understood better than anybody, the emotional nuance behind my lyrics and behind my notes. She said to me once, “my goal is always to listen to what the words are saying and get that right”. She was a complex person, from a deeply conservative religious background, finding her way in an ultra liberal world of artists. It was something she struggled to reconcile.
She was radiant on the stage, and sang with my band swarmius over the years from time to time as a guest over a period of 10 years. In 2018 autumn we had a gig at The Cutting Room in New York City, a major night club, and I wanted to show off new tunes that I was writing for my opera, and since Nina had demoed all of them in my studio, I asked her to come out to New York with us. Turns out she had never been to New York City! With delight, we popped her onto a plane and plopped her into an Airbnb in upper Manhattan. Entranced by the rhythms of that great city of artists, she wandered around to the early hours, finding her way into jazz clubs and sitting in with bands, and was one and a half hours late for our rehearsal the following day, the day before the gig. I called her at the Airbnb at 1:30 PM, to find that she was still asleep! That caused a commotion among the other bandmembers of course!
Anyway, the next night, she strode onstage, radiant, with a flowing mane of blonde hair, and stole the show. She was gorgeous to watch performing. She was comfortable with the music, and it flowed through her with a power and grace that is rare and exquisite.
I will miss her deeply. And this afternoon, while it’s still fresh, I keep going in and out of fits of crying and calling out to her, stupidly swearing at her for being so stupid as to get herself killed!
I don’t know the details yet. Yesterday morning she texted me at 7:04 AM, (in response to a Spotify link that I had sent to a freshly dropped tune featuring her). She said: “I feel like every time I think like Life can’t get any crazier… Sure enough it does. How are you and amy holding up? Of course I remember that song by the way”
She was always compassionate, always forgiving, always had room in her thoughts and her heart for the people around her.
Then a couple hours later at 10:04 I got another text: “Joe, I have something very serious to talk about with you soon. Maybe today? Maybe some other time…”
I responded:” Today is fine, do you want to talk right now? I’m available. You’ve got me worried. May I call you?”
She replied: “ I am on the road from Sacramento to San Diego… Don’t be worried but I will call you when I get back to San Diego.”
That’s all I know. Her mom told me the accident happened around noon.
Closing comments from Nina’s memorial,
June 27, 2020
It is an deep honor to be asked to speak today at the memorial service for Nina.
And to pick a song for the closing.
When I was going through the numerous songs of mine that Nina has sung over the years, I had a very hard time choosing.
In so many ways she sang the story of my life.
She just knew what to do with the lyrics and they seemed to be part of her as well.
I think the two of us shared some kind of a deep understanding about the human condition that transcended words but that she brought to bear so beautifully in all of my songs.
I think we all feel that way.
So I chose the first piece of hers that I recorded, call “things“ and it seems like she was singing about this day. The lyrics are:
I have walked
On the precipice
I have seen
The infinite
It’s not such a big leap
From here to there
So spread your wings
on the air
Ephemeral things
When I die
My music flies away
Like a butterfly
on a summer day ...
Thank you Nina,
Love, Jozefius