#8: Bassist Keenan Zach—A Conversation About Jazz, Meditation, and Enlightenment

Exploring Kodawari

Our guest for this episode is the double bass player Keenan Zach. We've known Keenan for years, and we've seen him perform countless times—he's a fantastic musician and an overall inspiring person.

Keenan plays both jazz and classical music, and he's currently pursuing his doctorate at Stony Brook University. So we begin the conversation by asking some deep questions about jazz, especially the features that fascinate our classical musician brains: what is groove and how does it work? How do jazz musicians improvise and how can one practice that skill? We also talked about the differences between jazz and classical music training, and how each side can be helped by the other.

But the meat of the conversation centered around one of my favorite topics, meditation. Keenan has had a disciplined meditation practice for many years, and had lots of wonderful things to say about mindfulness, enlightenment, and the value of letting go. These concepts help all three of us to be better people and musicians.

Timestamps (clickable on webpage)

• [06:32] The differences between jazz and classical training, and how they influence each other.
• [13:27] What is groove and how does it work?
• [21:27] How to practice improvising, and the approach of teacher Ray Anderson.
• [25:42] How Keenan got started with a meditation practice.
• [28:32] Kenny Werner's Effortless Mastery, a must read for any musician, about learning to integrate your inner critic and perform in a flow state.
• [32:32] The "waking up" moment of a meditation practice.
• [41:32] What is progress in meditation?
• [47:08] What is enlightenment?
• [55:14] The value of being able to let go of things and its relationship to fulfillment—what meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg calls "the letting go muscle".
• [01:08:19] Bonus Questions

Links Discussed:

• Enlightenments by Jack Kornfield
• How to Punctuate Your Busy Life With Small Tastes of Enlightenment by Luke (that's me!)
• Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner
• Stefan Jackiw play Bruch Scottish Fantasy (amazing performance!!)
• How Do I Love Myself? A video of meditation teacher Thich Nhat Hanh
• The Vipassana Facelift by Luke (that's me again!)
• Peter Seidler's "Before and After", a photo series taken before and after a meditation retreat.
• Drugs and the Meaning of Life by Sam Harris
• 10 % Happier by Dan Harris
• When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron (Keenan's favorite book)

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