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FATHER NORM IN THE NEWS
Published Monday, August 20, 2007 in the Orange County Register newspaper
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_1814633.php
Monday, August 20, 2007
By TOM BERG
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
LAGUNA HILLS – He stands in an empty church, practicing. Always practicing. Ninety minutes every day, two mallets in each hand.
They fall gently on an old vibraphone he once rolled through the streets of Manhattan in another life. Another time. Back then a long-haired Norm Freeman played Broadway, Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden.
Now? He plays for a hundred people here. A hundred there. He leans over the instrument: Soft strains of "Stardust" lift to the vaulted church ceiling.
It's hard to believe he once played with the thrash-metal band Metallica. Or at the MTV Music Awards. Or on Saturday Night Live.
"Trying to prove myself in the music business ultimately left me feeling empty," says Freeman, 55, a husband and father of two. "It was from that place that I started a spiritual quest."
Now, each Sunday, this man who once played with Pavarotti, Paul McCartney and Leonard Bernstein plays the 9:30 a.m. service at St. George's Episcopal Church.
Which is why he was pleasantly surprised to get a call last year from an old friend he hadn't worked with in 12 years: How are your chops?his friend asked. You want to join us on tour – with Barbra Streisand?
Freeman was floored. He'd toured with Streisand in 1994, but so much had changed. He'd have to ask his wife. His friends at St. George's. His bishop.
See, he wasn't just the church vibraphonist on Sunday mornings. He was the priest.
BEYOND THE NOTES
The turning point came in 1988 at Carnegie Hall.
Freeman was one of New York's A-list musicians: He'd performed Broadway hits like "Grease" and "Showboat." Toured with rock keyboardist Rick Wakeman. Performed with the Moody Blues. And played percussion with the New York Philharmonic, New York Pops and Metropolitan Opera.
Legendary timpanist Saul Goodman took him aside at Juilliard School of Music.
"He taught us to reach down inside of ourselves, to come in touch with some power to inspire our playing," Freeman says. "So that what we'd bring to our performance was beyond the notes. It came up from deep inside of ourselves."
On this day Freeman was trying – as Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic for a gala event commemorating his debut as conductor – but failing.
Freeman was to introduce a passage by striking a solo chime precisely as the concertmaster began his violin solo. "At rehearsal, we weren't together and it was my fault," Freeman says. "Bernstein would make it very clear by the look he'd give you."
Three times they stopped. Three times they tried again. With each take, Freeman got more unnerved.
That night in concert, he remembers the anxiety building toward his moment. Just before it, he lifted his hand and said a prayer: "Please God, do for me what I cannot do for myself. If people see any good in what I do, let it be You they see."
With that, Bernstein dropped his hand and Freeman reached for something deep inside.
"I just let it go, and it never had been better… couldn't be any better," Freeman says.
His old Juilliard mentor, Goodman, hugged him backstage and told him so. And Freeman found himself on a path with no turning back.
'NOT SUFFERING ENOUGH'
In 1994, he resigned from the New York Philharmonic and entered the General Theological Seminary, the oldest Episcopal seminary in the nation. His transition wasn't always easy.
At one point, his faculty adviser said, "I don't think you're suffering enough."
Other students had given up their professions and given over their lives. Freeman still was performing.
"I wrestled with that," he admits. "Music was a significant part of my life. I thought I was ready to step away, but maybe not. I was still playing."
It was then the seminary's spiritual director told Freeman something he would never forget. Something that would make him one of the most unique ministers in the land today.
THE WHOLE PERSON
In an empty church, he plays an interpretation of "Amazing Grace" he created for a dying friend. The vibes sound like chiming bells. Soothing and tranquil. "I never could have scripted the life I have," Freeman says.
Each Sunday, after his sermon, he plays a musical "meditation" on vibes. Several times a year, he holds jazz vespers – evening music services, accompanied by top jazz musicians. And several Saturdays each year he still performs with the New York Pops, which he joined as a founding member in 1983.
"What he does is unheard of," says Pops executive director James Johnson. "I don't know of any orchestra in the city that has a musician who comes in from the West Coast."
When Freeman was invited to tour again with Streisand last year, he asked his wife and his bishop. Both said yes, so he took a six-week sabbatical. This summer, he took off five weeks to tour Europe.
"Nobody plays with more soul, and his time is extraordinary," Streisand drummer John "J.R." Robinson says of the percussionist once nicknamed "the Normanator" and "Stormin' Norman."
In this modern sanctuary, he is "Father Norm," practicing in solitude. Thankful his parish allows him to go off as ambassador; hopeful those experiences enhance his work.
His parish is growing, so maybe his spiritual director was right long ago when he said: God calls the whole person and all of their experiences – so that one can have a life of meaning and service at same time.
That's why Freeman stayed in the seminary. And stayed with his music.
"They are essential pieces that make me who I am," he says. "I love them both."
Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 or tberg@ocregister.com
JAZZ VESPERS IN THE NEWS
Published Wednesday, June 6, 2007 in the Orange County Daily Pilot newspaper
http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2007/06/07/blogs_and_columns/the_bell_curve/dpt-bellcurve07.txt
THE BELL CURVE:
By JOSEPH N. BELL
This week, the Bell Curve is a clueless but enthusiastic music critic.
That's because on last Sunday, I was blown away by a very special kind of spiritual music called jazz at the Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Corona del Mar. If there were any atheists in the audience that day, they have to be wondering if the music we heard could possibly have been less than divinely inspired.
It was generated by a group under the direction of Norm Freeman (on the vibes), with Theo Saunders (piano), Putter Smith (bass) and Kendall Kay (drums), each of whom offer musical resumes of their work individually over several decades, with many of the greatest musicians in the business, from pop to Broadway to classical. Name dropping would fill the rest of this column and need more space.
Father Freeman has another, closer connection. He was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1997, and is now priest-in-charge of St. George's Church and Academy in Laguna Hills.
Last Sunday, the musicians — improvising much of the time — had almost as much fun as we did in the audience, converting such ballads as "Pennies from Heaven" and "It Might As Well Be Spring" and the operatic "Summertime" to a jazz beat in arrangements they often created themselves. The music offered islands of jazz between Biblical commercials by Pastor Peter Haynes, and somehow Duke Ellington and Ecclesiastes didn't seem at all incompatible. As Father Freeman says: "Jazz gives voice to the human spirit through a musical language that transcends the limits of speech."
Over and beyond the inspiring program — or rather because of it — the thing that struck me most about this Sunday afternoon Jazz Vespers was the abundance of empty seats. Church members said this was actually a good crowd, but from my perspective there should have been jazz aficionados piling up at the door. I would gladly have paid concert rates to hear this music, and to see it performed gratis before empty seats seemed like a great waste to me.
I hope that reporting here on my Jazz Vesper Sunday will help get the word out. This group of musicians will be back about the same time next year, and they're worth a note on your calendar. So is the entire Vespers season at St. Michael's, called "First Sundays at Five," that mostly features choral music and runs from October to June. And oh, yes, there is food and wine afterward, and a chance for members of the audience to meet and converse with the artists.
Listening, Lent and reflection on the recent Anglican Primates' Meeting were among themes addressed as Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori facilitated a live webcast conversation with Episcopalians churchwide on Wednesday, February 28 . You may watch the video of the webcast here .
You can also listen to remarks given by the Presiding Bishop last week about her experience at the Primate's Meeting here (MP3 file) .
You can read a summary of Bishop Schori's remarks here.
FATHER FREEMAN IN THE NEWS
To learn more about Father Norm's musical journey, click the following link to an article that appears in Episcopal Life Online magazine. http://episcopal-life.org/81827_84191_ENG_HTM.htm
The January 25, 2007 edition of the Saddleback Valley News featured a story and interview with The Reverend Norman R. Freeman, Jr.
Download the article by clicking here.
(Approx. 1 MB; Adobe Acrobat reader required)
The October 15, 2003 edition of the Orange County Register featured a front-page story on recent events in the Episcopal Church and included a photograph of The Rev. Canon Ogle administering the Holy Sacrament.
Download the article by clicking here.
(Approx. 1.6 MB; Adobe Acrobat reader required)