About Liz

Jazz, Folk, Blues and Buddhas

EVEN IF YOU have some interest in contemporary jazz, it would be unlikely to find this name in your list of references: Mick Goodrick. Perhaps it helps to say the name of two of his students: Mike Stern and Pat Metheny. The first, recognizably one of the best guitarists in Jazz-Rock of the present day and the second, a master of an unmistakable style that, it is said, was a gift from his teacher, which he then developed. But Mick, with no interest in cultivating his path in show business, gave the legacy to Pat so that he would make good use of it—and as we know—he did. Goodrick, as the Buddhist practitioner that he is, denies that, and says that Pat never needed a teacher, only a little push. But let us return to Mick and to Buddhism in a little while.

NOW LET US speak now of a woman evidently sensitive and musical named Liz Hamill, who grew up immersed in the ideas of the 60s revolution. Along with her parents, part of the Flower Power generation, she heard Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. Her father went to Woodstock and her mother was active in the Civil Rights movement during the Vietnam period. With so many living and active icons around her, Liz rapidly identified music as her way of expression, mastering many instruments, from drums to piano, but elected the guitar as her constant companion. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Jazz and Improvisation from the highly regarded New England Conservatory, deepening her knowledge of the diversity and sophistication that Jazz offers.

AFTER TASTING the fruits, Liz wanted to know the roots, and fell in love with a certain man named Robert Johnson, who introduced her to a world of simple and direct words and to the music that held those words. Folk and Blues entered definitively into her life as did her guide in the universe of sounds, the Zen Buddhist Mick Goodrick, with whom she studied, trained and matured her knowledge and technique, even participating as co-author in the highly respected book, The Advancing Guitarist. In this same period, she started to develop techniques of recording and publishing in the alternative and folk music scene and recorded her CD, Liz Hamill, Cambridge Post Mississippi Fred McDowell and Sandy Denny, produced by Darleen Wison (Patty Larkin, Cry Cry Cry and Bill Morrisey). Much praised by the critics, her name was firmly established in her base of the Boston and New England circuit and began to open doors to the national circuit of Folk Music in the United States.

BUT IT DIDN’T take much time or many situations for Liz to realize that her nature and her intentions were not in tune with the heavy waves of the “Business.” She left the main road and began to search for a path with which she could identify. At that time, she attended a teaching by an American teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, Lama Tsering Everest, who touched her heart profoundly. This lama advised her to meet and train with her own teacher, the Tibetan Lama Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, who had just moved to a little town in the countryside of Brazil.

LIZ’S VISIT to Brazil proved to be a turning point in her life and she soon moved to the Buddhist Center built by Chagdud Rinpoche in Tres Coroas, in Southern Brazil, in order to learn and deepen the practice of meditation. In contact with the 1000 year old Buddhist tradition, she discovered the musical treasure of its liturgies and founded a label called Dakini Music (www.dakinimusic.com), whose purpose is to archive and preserve the sonorities, songs and traditional teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.

SINCE ‘98, Liz has dedicated herself to the study and the practice of Buddhism as well as the documentation and publication of recordings by Dakini Music. Having established the framework for Dakini Music, she is focusing her attention on online publishing, sharing her voice and her unique vibration with the world. She presents her own compositions and arrangements of Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan among many others in a forthcoming release entitled Woodstock at the Crossroads on her own label called Keeping Still Music. — Nenung, writer/composer for Brazilian artist, Paula Toller, and Os the Darma Lovers

“…She’s very different, very distinctive and is really adding a new dimension to songwriting in New England…[Liz] has a little bit of Ricki Lee Jones, Joni Mitchell, Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega and Michelle Shocked all mixed up in her sound. She is not necessarily using a traditional ballad style; she is taking it one step further. Tremendous writing, fabulous CD!” — Dick Pleasants, WGBH 97.9 FM, “Folk Heritage Show” Boston, Massachusetts

“Synergizing folk, blues and jazz, Liz Hamill has added a fresh powerful voice to the folk and women’s music scenes…Her delivery is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, particularly in her use of discord as counterpoint to exceptionally literary lyrics and simple catchy melodies.” — Soujourner Magazine, Boston, Massachusetts

“She makes you want to hear it.” — Chris Smither, a modern John Lee Hooker-Lightnin’ Hopkins and Bonnie Raitt’s ‘Eric Clapton’

“Her ‘Shtil di Nakht’ should win a Pulitzer Peace Prize.” — Hankus Netsky, Klezmer Conservatory Band

“This book is dedicated to Pat [Metheny], partially because he made it possible, but mostly because he never needed it…Special thanks to some of my most important ‘teachers’: John La Porta, Jack Petersen, Herb Pomeroy, Bill Leavitt, Carl Shroder, Abe Laboriel, Gary Burton, Steve Swallow, Jeff Berlin, Jerry Bergonzi, and Gary Chaffee. And finally, special thanks to Liz Hamill, who typed, edited, did the manuscript, suggested, questioned, encouraged, learned, taught, and laughed a lot. Without her immense help (in seemingly all directions at once), I could never have written this book.” — Mick Goodrick, The Advancing Guitarist (Hal Leonard Books)

www.lizhamill.com

contact:
hi@lizhamill.com