Any meeting with Geordie, contained equal parts consciousness and gossip. So glad I saw him last fall, after not seeing him for many years and gabbed about Paul Bley, Escalator Over The Hill, marriage and how Claude Ranger was not willing to play ball with musicians who played too inside. He said back in the day he was called The Lone Ranger (French pronunciation). Geordie laughed a kid’s laugh, wonderful laugh. He was nice and direct about various assholes and saints he knew first hand. Gotta love someone who plays back their experiences unconcerned about editing. I didn’t know much about his compositional life but I bet since his personality was intense the music was too. Once upon a time, being Neil Young’s drummer, a pretty decent calling card.
I had a job with Greenpeace in 1984 and while I was there I created a fund raiser at Trinity St. Paul on the gorgeous 9 ft piano in the sanctuary. Myself and 3 other musicians playing new music “Green Pieces” I named it. I asked great visual artist John Abrams if we could hang some of his endangered species paintings but I didn’t know people need insurance for such things. The other solo performances were Malcolm Burn who worked security at the church, Anne Bourne and Geordie McDonald who died yesterday.