Secret Sound

Welcome to episode #44, A Séance for Strings, featuring Iowa-born child prodigy, psychic violinist, composer, music educator, and author, Florizel von Reuter (1890-1985). Following an immensely successful career touring American and Europe as a child violinist, Reuter and his mother became devout séance practitioners during the 1920s. Through his mother, the medium, Reuter communicated with diverse composers and musicians using a unique séance device called the Hesperus-Additor. Through these spirit messages Reuter’s violin performance was psychically enhanced. He also wrote several books on medial communications and music, as well as fiction and a memoire of his experiences in Hitler-era Germany, where he helped German Jews evade the Nazis. Eventually walking away from his psychic interests, Reuter would focus on composing, teaching, and performing well into his 90s. This episode looks into the history of the planchette and ouija board, the “odic force,” and a truly inspired violinist. Welcome to the voice of the Od...

Welcome to episode 43, "The Prayerful Organist," featuring radio celebrity, virtuoso organist, Religious Science minister, and early pioneer of "new age" music, Irma Glen (1908-1982). After successful vaudeville music tours in her adolescence, Glen found a passion for the organ and became a renowned presence on radio and in the silent film theatres of Chicago. She would then become a household name through her role in diverse programs on NBC radio. Having studied comparative religion since childhood, Glen took to the new thought philosophy of Earnest Holmes' Religious Science during the 1950s. She soon became a minister and founded her own churches in California. But she would leave formal ministry in her later years to pioneer her unique "Prayer-Music." This episode explores Glen's life, the philosophy of Religious Science, and the incredible organ and spoken word music she recorded in the 1960s and 70s. Welcome to the Golden Melody...

Welcome to episode 42, "The Coloratura of Celestial Choice," featuring Spanish-Italian American opera singer, Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963). Through her opera career she accrued international renown and fortune, but this was cut short by a vocal injury in the 1930s. While her opera recordings have remained a touchstone in the genre up to the present, less remembered is her public embrace of Swedenborgian theology and Kriya Yoga, for both of which she served as a significant representative and devoted instrument. Welcome to the singing heart...

Welcome to Episode 41, "The Ghost Dance," featuring Native American prophet Wovoka (1856-1932). A descendent of the Numu language family and Paiute tribe in Nevada, Wovoka had a vision in 1889 in which he visited heaven and communed with the spirits of his ancestors. The spirits told him that by performing the “Ghost Dance,” the white man’s violent oppression would subside and the native tribes would thrive following an apocalyptic resurrection of Native life. The rapid spread of the Ghost Dance across the nation was so threatening to white oppressors that it compelled them to even greater atrocities, resulting in the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Wovoka’s prophetic religion, music, and dance, however, still remain today. Through the life of Wovoka and his Paiute heritage this episode explores the meaning and music of the Ghost Dance tradition. Welcome to a prophecy of hope...

Welcome to episode 40, "The Prophet of Swing," featuring Portuguese American pianist, bandleader, numerologist, and metaphysical philosopher Vincent Lopez (1895-1975). Raised in an extreme Roman Catholic home, Lopez left the monastic path for ragtime piano as a child. One of the first jazz bandleaders to make use of America's emerging radio technology, Lopez's radio program, "Lopez Speaking," made him a household name across the country. While the success of his orchestra lead to a million dollar deal. Lopez attributed his success to numerology, astrology, and the "power of thought vibration." He would go on to publish books on prophecy and numerology, practices he often incorporated into his concerts. His song selections frequently emphasized dreams and cosmic imagery; while Lopez's 1944 "Musical Horoscope" is one of the earliest examples of "zodiac jazz." Welcome to the hidden number...* Featuring special guest, Sarah Cahill, on piano. 

Welcome to episode 39, "The Everlasting Gospel Revelation," featuring preacher, painter, and musician, Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980). Raised in a poor Baptist family in Alabama, a series of divine revelations lead Sister Morgan to paint, sing, and preach in the Baptist-Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. Her visions also lead her to New Orleans, where she founded an orphanage and her own house of worship. Though she became most known for her street performances, where with guitar or tambourine she sang and preached through hand-painted paper megaphones. Her paintings and music were picked up by the Preservation Hall in New Orleans and diverse galleries and museums, gaining widespread attention and fans as notable as Andy Warhol. This episode looks into the musicalization of the holy spirit in the African American church. We'll look at the Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements as well as the musical evangelism of early 20th century New Orleans, where Sister Morgan sang, painted, poeticised and prophesied the New Jerusalem to come...

Welcome to episode 39, "The Everlasting Gospel Revelation," featuring preacher, painter, and musician, Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980). Raised in a poor Baptist family in Alabama, a series of divine revelations lead Sister Morgan to paint, sing, and preach in the Baptist-Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. Her visions also lead her to New Orleans, where she founded an orphanage and her own house of worship. Though she became most known for her street performances, where with guitar or tambourine she sang and preached through hand-painted paper megaphones. Her paintings and music were picked up by the Preservation Hall in New Orleans and diverse galleries and museums, gaining widespread attention and fans as notable as Andy Warhol. This episode looks into the musicalization of the holy spirit in the African American church. We'll look at the Baptist, Holiness, and Pentecostal movements as well as the musical evangelism of early 20th century New Orleans, where Sister Morgan sang, painted, poeticised and prophesied the New Jerusalem to come...

Welcome to episode #38, "The Black Hawk Chant," featuring Mother Leafy Anderson (1887-1927) and Mother Catherine Seals (1874-1930). Coming from Chicago to New Orleans, Anderson founded her own church, which fused spiritualism, Catholicism, and jazz into her services, while seeking to uplift women into leadership roles. Worshipping the spirit of Native American Sauk leader Black Hawk, Anderson initiated the Spiritual church movement, which still exists today. Following her death, trombonist Catherine Seals took over, founding the Temple of the Innocent Blood in the Lower Ninth Ward. She continued Anderson's teachings but incorporated hoodoo folk magic. While her jazz services would feature significant artists like Ernie Cagnalotti and Harold Duke Dejan. This episode explores the African American Spiritual church movement, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, and their musical expressions in New Orleans, Louisiana. Welcome to the Handa Wanda...

Welcome to episode #38, "The Black Hawk Chant," featuring Mother Leafy Anderson (1887-1927) and Mother Catherine Seals (1874-1930). Coming from Chicago to New Orleans, Anderson founded her own church, which fused spiritualism, Catholicism, and jazz into her services, while seeking to uplift women into leadership roles. Worshipping the spirit of Native American chief Black Hawk, Anderson initiated the Spiritual church movement, which still exists today. When Anderson died, trombonist Catherine Seals took over, founding the Temple of the Innocent Blood in the Lower Ninth Ward. She continued Anderson's teachings but incorporated hoodoo folk magic. While her jazz services would feature significant artists like Ernie Cagnalotti and Harold Duke Dejan. This episode explores the African American Spiritual church movement, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, and their musical expressions in New Orleans. Welcome to the Handa Wanda...

Welcome to episode 37, "Singing for the Orishas," featuring Afro-Cuban Santería/Lucumí singer, Merceditas Valdes (1922-1996). Raised in a musical household alongisde Yoruba and Cuban traditions, Valdez took to Afro-Cuban Lucumí music and religious practice as a teenager in Havana. Working alongside leading figures, Valdes became the voice and face for the AfroCubanismo movement, with her recordings ceremonially celebrating the divine and ancestral spirits, or Orishas, of Lucumí and Yoruba tradition. However, the Cuban Communist Party would silence her voice for 20 years. Freed from suppression in 1980s, Valdes would release several Lucumí albums before her death in 1996. This episode explores the world of Afro-Cuban Lucumí religion and its ceremonial music tradition through one of the tradition's most revered song leaders. Welcome to the way of the spirits...

Welcome to episode 36, “The Mahatma of Manhattan,” featuring painter, author, publisher, and composer, Louis M. Eilshemius (1864-1941). Now marginally known for his idiosyncratic paintings of nudes and landscapes, Eilshemius spent most of his life being mocked and ignored, until years after being discovered by Marcel Duchamp. Founding the Dreamers Press, he published countless reams of poetry, fiction, visual art, and music across the turn of the century. Inspired by mesmeric trance, his paintings and music were rooted in subconscious and medial inspiration. While throughout his life undiagnosed mental health issues and egomaniacal ravings plagued his career and well being. Welcome to the self-advertised, “Mesmerist Prophet and Mystic, World-Class Athlete, Spirit-Painter Supreme, Ex-Fancy Amateur Dancer, and Transcendental Eagle of the Arts”: Mahatma Eilshemius

Welcome to episode 35, “The Quantum Heart,” featuring composer, multi-media artist, and tennis player Harley Gaber (1943-2011). Gaber’s music was deeply informed by his study of Buddhism and Taoism, as well as his lifelong interest in quantum physics. He is now most well known for his 1974 string quintet, The Winds Rise in the North. However, he left music in 1978, moved to San Diego and began a short-lived career as a player and teacher of tennis. Ultimately he would spend the next 20 years as a visual artist. His multi-media collage work reached epic proportions in the 1990s with his magnum opus, Die Plage, featuring thousands of photomontaged canvases, each a quantum window into the holocaust. Gaber returned to music in the late 2000s, releasing several new recordings. But shortly after these releases, he took his own life. This episode explores the influence of Taoism and quantum physics underlying Gaber’s epic and under-regarded art. Visit Gaber's site at Innova Recordings...  Hear Robert Reigle's complete interview with Gaber... Visit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline...  

Welcome to episode 34, "Service Through Sound," featuring composer, author, Theosophist, and music therapist Evelyn Benham-Bull (1897-1983). Almost entirely forgotten, Benham-Bull was an active composer in the 20s and 30s before shifting her focus to practicing and teaching music therapy for the remainder of her life. After helping design the first “music history” syllabus in university study, she published an early scientific study analyzing the intuitive process in music composition. She taught instrumental lessons and music therapy for decades in Pasadena and became the chairwoman of the Music Research Association, therapeutically working through music in hospitals. Founding a music service branch within the Los Angeles chapter of the Theosophical Society, Benham-Bull also wrote prolifically on the relationship between Theosophy and music therapy. And in this regard she would have a strong influence on composers like William Grant Still. This episode looks at the role of Theosophy in the development of music therapy and the awesome efforts of one of its unsung practitioners. Welcome to the art of truth…

Welcome to episode 33, "The Godmother of Music Therapy," featuring opera singer, New Thought philosopher, and pioneering music therapist, Eva Augusta Vescelius (1853-1917). After co-founding the family-run Vescelius Opera Company and touring the world for over a decade, Vescelius’ interest in New Thought philosophy lead to her focus on the role of music in “mental therapy.” She went on to become one of the first teachers of music therapy as well as the founder of the National Society of Musical Therapeutics and the first music therapy periodical. This episode looks at the role of women and New Thought philosophy in the American origins of music therapy. Welcome to the God-Breath…  Musical contributions from Miguel Frasconi (www.frasconimusic.bandcamp.com)

Welcome to episode 32, “The Queen of Number-Vibration” featuring New Jersey author, feminist, and pioneer of American numerology, Sarah Joanna Balliett (1847?-1929)—though she is better known by her husband’s name as Mrs. L. Dow Balliett. Synthesizing occult numerology, Pythagorean and New Thought philosophy, as well as the oratory teachings of François Delsarte, Balliett developed her own “number-vibration” divination system. Applying numerology to one’s name, birthdate, or any other word/number of concern, Balliett’s system offered guidance in marriage, fashion, meditation, and music composition, among innumerable other applications. Corresponding number to diverse phenomena, Balliett single-handedly brought numerology into popular American awareness. Meanwhile, she also invented her own music composition system. Welcome to a music of the spheres…

Welcome to Episode 31, “The Oracle of the East Village,” featuring filmmaker, painter, musical ethnographer, and occult magician, Harry Smith (1923-1991). Smith is best known for his influential 6-LP Anthology of American Folk Music, as well as his experimental films and paintings, all of which he designed according to esoteric correspondence systems. Smith also helped document the musical rites of the indigenous Lummi and Kiowa communities, and the religious chants of New York Rabbi Naftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia, as well as the music of The Fugs and Allen Ginsberg. And connecting these luminous branches was a magically rooted trunk, as Smith was a lifelong practitioner of ceremonial magic. Welcome to the unknown body of Americana…

Welcome to episode 30, The Prince of Darkness, featuring Lithuanian-American composer, film scorer, violin prodigy, and band leader Prince Massard Kurzhene (1900-1989). Having graduated from a Russian conservatory and begun touring Europe at the age of 12, Kurzhene found his voice in New York City’s vaudeville circuit, where he would express the supernatural and demonic through his violin. He went on to score the all-Ojibwe cast film, The Silent Enemy, as well as recording his own arrangements of multi-cultural religious musics for CBS. While little is known of the last 50 years of Kurzhen’s life, this episode offers the most exhaustive information available on this completely forgotten American artist. Welcome to the diabolical string…

Welcome to episode 29, The Magic Rustling, featuring renowned filmmaker, painter, and musician David Lynch (1946-present). From Eraserhead to the latest season of Twin Peaks, Lynch has forged a dream-soaked art so abstractly unique that it spawned the adjective Lynchian to describe anything like it. Known primarily for the visual worlds he creates, Lynch has always approached his sound effects and film soundtracks with equal importance, while releasing numerous albums of his own music. And since 1973 he has been a practitioner and advocate for Transcendental Meditation, or TM, even establishing his own foundation to teach it internationally. This episode looks into the esoteric influences of Lynch’s art—including Transcendental Meditation, Theosophy, and more. And through this esoteric ear we’ll listen in to the metaphysical horror of one of America’s most intuitive masters of sound and image. Welcome to the unified field… 

Welcome to episode 28, A Sound Within, featuring Buddhist musician, poet, translator, and world traveler, Louise Landes Levi. She has translated renowned mystic writers such as Mirabai, René Daumal, and Henri Michaux. She's released over a dozen books of her own poetry, like Guru Punk and The Book L. Having studied with Annapurna Devi, Ali Akbar Khan, La Monte Young and others, Levi is a skilled sarangi player in the North Indian tradition. Today LLL continues releasing more music than ever before. And always her work has been guided by spiritual discipline, most notably in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition, studying directly with Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. Through this episode we'll pass through 1960s psychedelia, North Indian raga, Tibetan Buddhism, and more. Welcome to the Sacred Conversation.More: https://coolgrove.com/press/louise-landes-levi/ Photo by Raymond Dijkstra

Welcome to episode 27, “Dance of the Seven Rays,” featuring Armenian priest, author, teacher, and composer/performer Torkom Saraydarian (1915-1997). Raised in Turkey, he survived the Armenian genocide to become a minister in the Armenian Apostolic Church. Immigrating to California, Saraydarian continued work as a minister, but increasingly devoted himself to the ageless wisdom teachings of Theosophy. Out of his garage in Van Nuys, CA, he formed the Aquarian Educational Group, going on to teach his spiritual philosophy to 1,000s over the years. A prolific author, he wrote over 170 books. Believing music to be a sacred and magical power, he used visualization, symbolism, and ritual to compose his numerous albums of sacred songs and solo piano music. Welcome to the ageless wisdom…