Description
Spinning on a Cosmic Dime is an instrumental album by the American keyboard player Jeff Johnson and guitarist Phil Keaggy, independently released on Johnson’s label Ark Records in August 2024. The album was produced and recorded by Jeff Johnson and Phil Keaggy at The Ark in Camano Island, Washington; and at Kegworth Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Mixed at The Ark and mastered by John Golden Mastering in Ventura, California.
Featuring Jeff Johnson on keyboards, percussion, and vocals and Phil Keaggy on guitars, bass, percussion, and vocal. Additional percussion on “A Co-inherence” by Kyle Jones.
Introduction by Jeff Johnson
The idea behind the title of Phil’s and my new album comes from a moment a year ago when our family found itself together at Seattle Children’s Hospital where my two year old granddaughter had been admitted for what turned out to be a delicate brain surgery. The procedure was successfully completed and after a week recovering with the good and gifted people at Children’s, our granddaughter came home.
I was speaking to a friend updating them on this situation when I said, “sometimes our lives just seem like we’re spinning around on a cosmic dime.” In other words, life is fragile and most of the time we have no sense of it until something like this turns our lives upside down.
Phil and I don’t physically work together in a studio when we record our music. He lives in Nashville and I live on Camano Island. We send tracks back and forth to one another. It’s an unusual way to work but the process has served us well over the years. This will be our fifth studio album and on past projects we have often begun with a general concept that serves to be an inspirational “backdrop” to what we’re working on. Past concepts/inspirations have included the Texas Frio River, church caves in Cappadocia, Turkey and the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna, Italy.
Yet this new music began happening so quickly that the only “concept” that I could think of to work with was the idea of “wonder.” Wonder, of course, isn’t a bad concept to have for any creative effort. You might even say that ALL creative inspiration begins with some sense of wonder! It was in the midst of recording the new music that this idea of “spinning on a cosmic dime” kept coming to my mind.
If we were to be honest with ourselves, life really is pretty precarious. And when you consider this “dime” of an earth spinning around a sun – one star of 100 billion stars in our own galaxy and 200 billion trillion in the entire universe – your life can feel pretty darn insignificant. Yet, wonder changes all of that because wonder is a way of looking at this vast creation and seeing things that make your life and everyone else’s life significant. Then, add the idea that God, the creator of the universe, became a man who dwelt among us and suddenly this spinning dime is like a cosmic carousel spinning around this big, beautiful universe!
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/spinning-on-a-cosmic-dime/1746422449)
CD tracklist:
01. Spinning On A Cosmic Dime – 7:09
02. A World In A Keyhole – 8:09
03. Floating in this Confluence – 7:03
04. A Poor Soul’s Kingdom – 7:22
05. Through A Silver Veil – 7:12
06. The Table of the Grail – 7:56
07. A Co-inherence – 6:48
08. Asking For Wonder – 6:33
Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://jeffjohnsonarkmusic.bandcamp.com/album/spinning-on-a-cosmic-dime
A Confluence by Jeff Johnson
In the late 1970’s I had begun my little recording studio and record company, Ark Records while also designing and making stained glass windows and lamp shades. I listened to music while I worked on glass projects and one of the records (it was a record at that time!) I listened to fairly regularly was Phil Keaggy’s MASTER & THE MUSICIAN (1978). A little over twenty years later, now doing my music full time, I was performing at a Youth Specialties Convention in San Diego when I was introduced to Phil after a brilliant solo concert he had just done. My friend who introduced us brought me back stage where Phil was bending over his guitar while putting it away in its case. “Hey Phil, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Jeff Johnson.” my friend said. Phil almost immediately looked up at me and said, “Are you the Jeff Johnson that recorded the album, INNER VOICES with jazz bassist, David Friesen? Caught off guard, I stammered, “Yeah, that’s me.” He then stood up and looked me in the eye and said, “Brother, that music has been a balm to me. I often would come off the road after touring and just lay on the floor with my headphones on and listen to it. Thank you.” Now a bit more composed, I told him how in the late 70s I listened to his MASTER & THE MUSICIAN quite often. As a matter of fact, it was one of the only albums released by a “Christian Music label” that I knew well.
Fast forward to early 2009 when Phil and I were both featured artists at a retreat at Laity Lodge on the Frio River in Texas. By this time, we had collaborated back and forth on a short instrumental piece that was to be included as transition music for an audio book of GODRIC by Frederick Buechner (I believe this project has never been released). The weekend allowed us to get to know one another better enhanced by the fact that both our wives were there with us. We also played a couple of things live together during the retreat including one instrumental improvisation in the key of D minor where Phil had previously scotch taped two of the lower D bass keys on the piano so that when I went to play them they stuck to the other notes around them! Let it be known that Phil Keaggy has a diabolical sense of humor!
Before we parted ways that weekend, we both said how it might be neat to collaborate on some more instrumental pieces in the future. Within two weeks of getting back home, I had sent Phil an mp3 reference of a new idea. At that time, things were still developing on the internet with sharing larger music files. Yet, Phil jumped in and did some guitar and bass tracks and sent those back so that I could sync them into the master track on my computer. We used a metronome click ‘count off’ to mark the beginning of the song which also allowed us to sync the music up.
We went back and forth like this a few more times before I mixed the final tracks. We did another song like this, then another at which point I asked him, “Are we making a record here?” He said, “Why not?” Thus began the creation of our first studio album, FRIO SUITE released on my Ark label later that year in 2009.
We recorded three additional albums over the past fourteen years (WATERSKY, CAPPADOCIA and RAVENNA) utilizing the same process of sending music back and forth. A fifth studio album, SPINNING ON A COSMIC DIME, will be released later this year. The first digital single from this album is «Floating in this Confluence». There really couldn’t be a better song title for a Phil Keaggy – Jeff Johnson collaboration. Over the years, both of us have maintained our separate solo careers like two separate water streams. Yet, when we collaborate, those two streams become a ‘confluence’ and the time we spend floating in it together has continued to be a truly stimulating and satisfying experience.
When I listen to the music we’re making together now, I often don’t notice Phil’s or my specific parts. Rather, I hear a tapestry of sound, melodies, textures, rhythms and dynamics that has wonderfully become a single piece of music featuring a confluence of themes which leads listeners on a musical adventure. We hope this music takes you to a place that inspires you and gives you joy.
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