"minds think alike, period"

[ FRED SIMON ]

What I may have enjoyed most about Lyle was witnessing his exuberant mind, always on fire with curiosity, brimming with enthusiasm, and expansive as the universe.

Whether it was music, politics, film, books, software, art, Legos, or Life, conversations with Lyle were epic affairs, never really ending, merely “adjourned” due to external time constraints. Though months could go by between talks, we always picked up right where we had left off — it was really one continuous conversation.

In the early 1990s Lyle and I played together in Paul McCandless’ band, first recording Paul’s album, Premonition, and then touring in support of its release. After the tour, I visited Lyle’s home in Wisconsin to take a composition lesson with him — a 36-hour lesson, with minimal breaks for food and sleep. His interest was personal and intense; he readily identified and examined seemingly infinite implications of even the shortest passages of music, spinning possibilities almost faster than I could absorb.

“Here, you could try this. Or you could try this. Have you considered trying this?” A cornerstone of Lyle’s musical ethos was that while there may be many options, there is usually one best choice, and he encouraged me to keep exploring until I heard it.

One of my favorite Lyle stories involves his recording session with Maurice White. They were adapting one of Lyle’s best loved compositions, “Close To Home,” for the Earth Wind & Fire album, Heritage. Lyle had been “spinning possibilities” for Maurice, and when he landed upon the one that really resonated, Maurice said simply “That is correct.”

Another important principle of Lyle’s musical approach, among many, was his notion that harmony is not a vertical event (a chord) but rather the momentary horizontal confluence of independent melodic lines weaving in, around, and through each other. Lyle’s music features a strong narrative logic, bearing a close relationship to written language, with an impeccable musical grammar and syntax.

Abiding by these tenets contributes to an inevitable or eternal quality in Lyle’s music — every note is exactly as it has to be: the correct choice. And even on the first listen, it seems that his melodies and forms must have always existed; they were just waiting for Lyle to draw them out.

Above all, the immediacy and honesty of his music and its evocative emotional content, together with the elegance of its intellectual delights, simultaneously thrills the mind and fills the heart.

An all time favorite Lyle Mays composition of mine, “August,” appears on his album Street Dreams. “August” brings everything that all of his best music brings — indeed, that all of anyone’s best music brings — the narrative logic, the inevitability, and the profound gratification of both heart and mind.

“August” is both a composition as well as a song without words, by which I mean that it has a solid, logical correctness, and yet it’s eminently tuneful, singable even. Its harmonic dialect and the twists and turns of its long melody are reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, an artist Lyle admired greatly.

Listening to “August,” I can’t escape the feeling that if I just listen a little harder, a little more closely, I’ll hear the unwritten words hidden in the melody. The song’s deeply yearning quality stirs all the sadness and joy of the human condition.

For Lyle, as for all musicians, the “hang” could be as satisfying as the music — both offer opportunities to bond on personal levels. I recall once sharing a mutual conclusion, when Lyle said "Great minds think alike" to which I replied, "Well, minds think alike, period." He said "Exactly!" and we had a big laugh about that, often reprising the phrase in conversation over the years.

But truthfully, Lyle’s mind was unlike any other I’ve encountered. Lyle started out as a hero of mine, then became a colleague, and finally a friend. I will forever be grateful to have known him.

Photo: Lee Klawans