Solitude, Yearning and zero regrets
Matti Caspi opens his heart in a revealing interview
Disappointed from the attitude towards the culture and art in Israel, missing Ehud Manor and Meir Banai, considers himself a dictator, doesn’t know Stattic and Ben-El, and confesses he wouldn’t pass an audition for “The Voice”. Moments before a serious concert with the philharmonic to celebrate fifty years of career, Matti Caspi opens his heart in a revealing interview.
Source: Sagie Ben Nun, “Walla!“
“How come Matti Caspi doesn’t live on his own mountain in a big castle with a grand piano in the middle of the living room?” wrote Aviv Gefen in his book “The Children of Sunday” published in 2005. “Not long ago I’ve bought a collection (record) that he released, and I can’t understand how this genius composer doesn’t live like a king (…) and when will Matti Caspi get a mountain? I’ll tell you when. Exactly the day after he dies will everyone suddenly get how important he was and ask how come he didn’t live on a mountain long before. They will honor him with ugly shows with pimpled singers who will sing out of tune all his accurate music. In Israel the saying: “to die with honor” really means that first you die and then you get the respect.
Twelve years have passed since the book’s publishing. Caspi has recently reached the age of retirement, 67, and his old and new songs are wonderful, original and relevant, yet he still doesn’t live in a big castle. Why is it that you don’t live on a mountain, I ask him during our meeting in Kfar Saba, his hometown. “Because there’s no mountain in Kfar Saba and my piano is at home”.
You’re not the only culture giant who didn’t get the mountain he deserves.
“Because here in Israel they don’t really know how to preserve culture. They just don’t preserve it. Things that used to be milestones in our culture are fading away and dying. And without culture there is no people. I’m referring to culture in every style, from all different places and aspects. Sculpture, painting, theatre, music. And it’s a shame it’s like that. It’s like it doesn’t exist on the daily agenda.
How is it manifested?
“A friend of mine, a diplomat, has told me that art isn’t on the agenda at the foreign ministry or at the Knesset (Israeli parliament). And that’s why, if there was once a consul of culture for each country, they have stopped it many years ago. And it’s a shame. When I perform around the world I find myself in a way serving as a consul for culture. I represent myself and sing my own music, but I the culture that is part of Israel to many different places in the world, and I feel proud to do so. The same should be done with matters of art, like bands you should send on tours abroad, painters, sculptors, actors. Just as we have foreign consulates, we should also have a consul for culture. Because culture relations are the basics to show who our people are. Without culture there is no people”.
The last sentence “without culture there is no people” has been repeated three times in the interview with Matti Caspi. Based on this sentence we can surely assert that without Matti Caspi there is no Israeli music as we know it. Caspi holds a career rare in its length and quality, he has composed and arranged more than one thousand songs - most of them unforgettable - and won the AKU”M lifetime achievement award. These days Caspi is marking fifty years of career, and in honor of that will perform again with the Israeli philharmonic. The concert, conducted by Ilan Mochiach, will take place on the 27th this month at the culture hall in Tel Aviv, and there he will perform some of his best songs.
“at the age of twelve I composed my first music which was inspired by a French chanson, and I keep it in a special place of honor by never having written any lyrics to it”, adds Caspi. “That’s the beginning actually. I’ve always thought music, dreamed music, I would often wander alone at the Kibbutz. Nature was a safe place back then. I would get up on a Saturday, pack everything I needed in a backpack, go climb a mountain on the borders of Lebanon so I could watch Lebanon, Haifa and the sky, it was such an intoxicating and calming scenery. And I would imagine I was Joselito or Tarzan, or a cheetah, singing alone in nature and I was happy”.
From your descriptions of your childhood, and not only from them, you paint a picture of a sort of solitude that accompanies you since youth. Do you see yourself as a lone wolf?
“I’m a wolf. Lone yet not lone. I’m a curious wolf. My general dream is to satisfy my curiosity completely. It’s a sublime dream. Which is why I’ve got involved with so many music genres. Listening to music since a very young age has actually molded my musical personality in the way that I compose in so many genres. Be it reggae, pop, rock, funky, romantic and classic. So on the one hand I’m sort of a lone wolf, I do whatever I want and I don’t get tempted to do things I don’t want (for money) and I act according to the principal that I must remain loyal to myself and then my audience will remain loyal to me. That’s why in my shows you see at the parking lot cars, baby trolleys and ambulances. Because I see three generations in my audience”.
On the one hand you were a “lone wolf”, on the other hand your career is full of distinguished musical collaborations - among them with Ehud Manor, Riki Gal, Shlomo Gronich, Boaz Sharabi and Netanela. Have you, over the years, become more flexible and open to your collaborators’ suggestions or is it important for you to control everything?
“I’ve never done / agreed to anything that I settled for. I didn’t settle. I’m a ‘dictator’. I control what’s happening. However I stay true to the original work, like in ‘A Beautiful Tropical Land’ which started as a radio program. I was reached out because they knew I had a Brazilian influence. I built the program and selected the participants according to the songs I had chosen. But I was true to the original, meaning that I didn’t want to make any changes to this music genre. I just took it and worked with it just as it should be. And it spread like fire in a thorn field, became a big hit and a huge show. The same happened with the program of the Balkan songs and with my trio with the “Parvarim” duo as well. I perform only what I know, not what I can.
Wait, please explain. What do you mean by “I perform only what I know, not what I can”?
“in this case, ‘what I know’ means sticking only to the South American music genre, out of knowledge, not technically. Technically I can maybe add things that aren’t fitting, they may be beautiful, but still not fitting to this particular genre. That’s why I always stay true to the original. I produced for Yardena Arazi the album: “Gypsy Soul”. I had thought how to do it. I came to the conclusion that it should sound like a band of gypsies singing together in a tavern. Back then there weren’t sound samplers like today, so I acquired a wooden podium and I brought a choir of singers with thick strong voices with enough intensity to create mass, and they all shouted, whistled and clapped their hands. All of that went into a sampler I created which was very primitive, playing only with the press of a button. I added the “heys” and “hos” at the right moments so you could hear they were there at those precise moments, and we have all stomped our feet on the wooden podium in order to give it a sense of livelihood. I had brought it to such a state, that when Yardena Arazi finally sang over the playback, it was a celebration. And I reached that result because I’m true to the original. I’ve never done a new interpretation where I suddenly change everything in 180 degrees”.
You’ve touched almost every tone and genre of the musical industry - you’ve played numerous instruments, produced, arranged, and sung. Only writing lyrics is something you’ve almost never done. Why?
“That’s right, I rarely did it. I can count on one hand the few songs which lyrics were written by me. The first lyrics I came up with were ‘how many lyrics can be invented at all’ and that came out as a single, one of the first I recorded. Many years later, I wrote two or three texts that appear in my album: ‘You Are My Woman’. It’s difficult for me to write lyrics because I think music, not words. I think, but in ideas. When I would bring a piece of music to Ehud (Manor r.i.p) I didn’t always tell him what was on my mind when I wrote it and it wasn’t always necessary. He called me his soulmate because with the music I brought him I made him open up about himself and his family in a personal way. That’s how it was with ‘Everlasting Alliance’, ‘Someone’ and ‘Days of Benyamina’. Very rarely I would tell Ehud I wanted a certain line in a song. For example, with the song ‘Here Here’, when I brought him the melody, I told him what I felt: ‘Here, here, here / a song that starts low’. From that point I didn’t know the rest of the words, but I told him the next harmonies are ‘A flat and F minor’. I also added: ‘and there it (the song) rises and rises’. And that’s it. Those words became part of the lyrics and the rest was written by Ehud. The same he did with ‘Always Change’, one of my first songs. ‘My dog doesn’t understand what’s happening because he’s only in year three at the faculty of environmental science’ - this is a line I made up. The dog was three years old”.
“Look, there is the old saying: ‘age before beauty’. Maybe that’s the rule they’re following. Each radio station should play all genres, unless the station is called: ‘the Jazz Station’ for instance, and then it would naturally play only Jazz. If there’s a state radio station which is for all kinds of listeners, it’s morally obligated to play all music genres so that more people would like listening to it, instead of focusing on only one genre more than the others. If during an hour they play eighteen songs, they should play eighteen different genres. When I say all genres I refer also to all ages. There are great singers that were once young and they are still great”.
“I never liked those draconian contracts. It’s wrong, it harms the artist, his work, and his progress. An artist has to be free in order to be an artist. It’s every record company‘s moral duty to preserve art. I feel sorry for the artists who had to experience draconian times, and I’m glad that at least now there is a law that limits producers with those draconian contracts”.
Your path crosses again with your old music partner, Shlomo Gronich, who just before your concert with the philharmonic released an album in which there is a recording of his show with a philharmonic with you as a guest. This is a good excuse to ask about your connection.
“Shlomo Gronich and I are like a bicycle. We don’t perform together for years, and then when we’re asked to perform together we don’t rehearse anything. Shlomo worries a little more, he always has to go over things. I however calm him and tell him: ‘don’t worry, it’s ok. We’ll go on stage and you’ll see it will all work out’. And it really happens. Every note is accurate, and we remember it all in front of the audience as if it’s the first show”.
Do you regret not staying in the band you started in the spirit of “Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young”, which was the foundation of the “Tamuz” band?
“No. I had an interesting idea, and I told myself - and ‘myself’ listened - let’s start a band like The Beatles, where everyone creates something. And then I thought of names that were completely the opposite of that idea: Me, Danny Litany, Ariel Zilber, and Shalom Hanoch. The four of us are totally different, and therefore could represent a powerful force. It started to take shape, we began to meet. In the first meetings I understood that this would probably not work, because it’s not just the technical part, that we’re each very good in our own field, there needs to be some kind of chemistry, a musical connection which would bridge between this polarity. And that’s something that didn’t happen. As I reached this conclusion I saw that it wasn’t working. I actually left, along with Danny Litany, and Ariel Zilber and Shalom Hanoch stayed and from there it developed to a different direction and ‘Tamuz’ was born”.
Are there any other decisions you regret?
“No. All the decisions I’ve made were artistically right in my opinion. Even when I was in the ‘They Don’t Care’ band”.
Almost a year ago Caspi was hospitalized at the ICU heart department at the ‘Meir’ hospital in Kfar Saba because of a pulmonary embolism, and consequently had to cancel a show. You’ve made many people worry, I tell him. “It especially worried one man - me” Caspi smiles. “I’m perfectly fine. It was a one day event. I insisted on performing the show I had that day. My wife told me ‘you may want to go to the show, but you’re going to the hospital to get checked first’ she insisted, and it’s good she did. Because I might have gone to perform without ever getting through the whole show. I listened to the doctors’ orders, had the required treatment and was free to go the next day.
Lucky for you and for us all. Because 2016 was a deadly year in which many great musicians died.
“It’s the way of the world. I’ve never seen anyone who survived the entire life and continued living. Everyone goes through this chapter. Each one in their time, and some in unnatural ways, unfortunately. That’s the way of this materialistic world. But their music lives on and will continue forever, and that’s what matters. Just like I love listening to Beethoven and he’s not alive, but his music is. Thanks to music, the memory of those who are no longer with us continues to live and that’s a crucial difference. Music is very accessible with today’s modern means. However, there are fantastic sculptures like Michelangelo’s ‘David’ in Florence, which millions come to see and admire each year. With music it’s a lot easier. I don’t need to go to the place where Beethoven wrote his music in order to listen to it, even though I did visit one of his addresses in Vienna, Austria, where he composed, and I touched his piano. The security guard told everyone not to touch the exhibits, but I still did it when he wasn’t looking. I had to. When he turned back I took my hand off. Austria’s main touristic income comes from classical music”.
And who among those who passed away do you miss the most?
“Meir Banai (Caspi arranged and produced his album ‘Rain’). His death hurt me deeply. Meir was an animal. A wild one in a good sense. He sang with a powerful might. Not in volume, but in a vocal ability that expressed the actor that was in him. He knew how to present the songs in a ‘one take’ kind of way. I remember when we had finished recording the entire playback and we set a day for him to come and record the singing, and he came early. I was probably more than half an hour late. When I arrived he was already there and told me he had recorded all the songs. I said: ‘ok’. I was used to the option of recording an entire album in one take. And then I listened to it. I told him ‘it’s not good. You can sing it much better’. And then I talked with him for a while, prepared him. When I produce a singer it’s important for me to guide him / her correctly. I teach them to be better, and I never use their voice to fulfill a dream I have of hearing someone else sing my songs, I never use them as ‘guinea pigs’. Anyway, I spoke with Meir and prepared him and told him: ‘ok, get inside the studio and try again’. In less than two hours he sang all the songs of the album ‘Rain’ the way he knew, and he did it when he was at his best. It’s just an amazing record”.
“Meir Banai (Caspi arranged and produced his album ‘Rain’). His death hurt me deeply. Meir was an animal. A wild one in a good sense. He sang with a powerful might. Not in volume, but in a vocal ability that expressed the actor that was in him. He knew how to present the songs in a ‘one take’ kind of way. I remember when we had finished recording the entire playback and we set a day for him to come and record the singing, and he came early. I was probably more than half an hour late. When I arrived he was already there and told me he had recorded all the songs. I said: ‘ok’. I was used to the option of recording an entire album in one take. And then I listened to it. I told him ‘it’s not good. You can sing it much better’. And then I talked with him for a while, prepared him. When I produce a singer it’s important for me to guide him / her correctly. I teach them to be better, and I never use their voice to fulfill a dream I have of hearing someone else sing my songs, I never use them as ‘guinea pigs’. Anyway, I spoke with Meir and prepared him and told him: ‘ok, get inside the studio and try again’. In less than two hours he sang all the songs of the album ‘Rain’ the way he knew, and he did it when he was at his best. It’s just an amazing record”.
Caspi confirms the story again. “The judges didn’t decide who’s in and who’s out. It was the producers, and that’s why I left ‘A Star is Born’ and wanted no part of it. However, I did agree to be part of ‘Music School’ with the kids, on the condition that there will be no text voting for the contestants. Kids are fragile, and the crowd that watches from home cannot mold our culture since it’s mostly based on what’s most popular, and unfortunately that’s not always high quality material. They just watch these shows with their friends and friends of friends, and they don’t always think about the contestant’s talent, but their looks or charisma. Imagine a person comes to a job interview (or audition) for the philharmonic, and it will be based upon the votes of people watching at home. Where is the real talent judgement in that”?
“I see in my mind an audition for ‘The Voice’ or ‘The Next Star’, where a young girl comes and astonishes the judges with her talent. When she’s done singing, they tell her: ‘you’re extraordinarily musical, you have a beautiful voice, a great sense of rhythm, you present the song like an actress, you’re completely in tune, it’s just perfect, but we’re sorry we can’t let you pass’. She asks: ‘Why not’? and they answer: ‘Because everything is fine in your family, there aren’t any tragedies”.
If in a parallel universe young Matti Caspi were beginning his career these days, and auditioning for “The Voice”, would the judges pass him to the next level?
“No. They wouldn’t pass me, because I didn’t have a tragedy in my family, or lose a limb or something. And just like the ‘Gashash’ (Famous Israeli radio program) said: ‘They never found stones in my mother’s rice bowl’. They were ahead of their time and the ‘Sad Songs Festival’ is just what this is. They saw it coming”.