Memories of John and Lou

About Cage

Jarrad Powell:

"The first thing I remember is when I met him coming off the plane. He was carrying a wicker basket. I said, 'Can I carry that for you?' He said, 'Oh, no, no — it's too heavy.' I said, 'What's in it?' 'Well — rocks.' And then he said: 'Oh, and my bread — which is like a rock.' "

Cage was collecting stones at the time as inspiration for a composition called "Ryoanji," modeled after the temple rock garden in Kyoto. "Every day when he was at my house, he worked on it," Powell recalls. Cage also took over the cooking. "Ryoanji" will be performed in the 4 p.m. Saturday concert.

Matthew Kocmieroski:

"John had a determination to face anything that he didn't like or didn't understand or had come into superficial contact with. He always was determined that he would give it a try, whatever it was."

That included the gamelan [an Indonesian musical ensemble], to which Cage was initially resistant. Kocmieroski recalls him saying: "It kind of reminds me of sheep following each other off a cliff." He then went on to write a piece for gamelan, "Haikai," scheduled for Sunday's concert.

About Cage and Harrison together

Powell: "They hadn't seen each other for a long time. There had been a rumor that Lou and John didn't get along, maybe because their musical ideas diverged so much. It wasn't really true. I think they had just gone their separate ways and lived on separate coasts. But it was clear that they really were enjoying having the opportunity to get reacquainted and spend time together."

Kocmieroski: "There was a lot of reminiscing, too. Correcting each other. Recounting their old concert series together and who ended up doing what."

One disagreement was over whether they had played Edgar Varèse's percussion piece, "Ionisation," which includes sirens in its lineup. Harrison insisted they had; Cage thought not. Kocmieroski later confirmed it was a piece by Cuban composer José Ardévol, also using sirens, that they'd played. "Cage and Harrison had to get special permission to use the sirens during wartime," Kocmieroski says. The "sirenists" included Irving Morrow, one of the designers of the Golden Gate Bridge. They got to keep their instruments after the concert: "Probably their only payment."

Michael Upchurch: mupchurch@seattletimes.com