This is when my conversation with cellist Dan Zamzow really heats up.
I’ve mentioned how the Twin Cities has shrunk since I started dating post-divorce. In the past, I was afraid. I was petrified. Now, I figure that Gloria Gaynor song is overplayed and confrontation is unavoidable, so why not take advantage of those sex degrees of separation?
The first time I laid eyes (and ears) on Dan was when his experimental jazz/blues/soul ensemble, Liminal Phase, opened for Trouble Over Tokyo. If you don’t recall, that was the night I met New Dude…and also the first time I ran into She & Him post-threesome. Connect the dots, dear readers, and you’ll see that Dan knows Him. He just doesn’t realize it yet.
But as I said, my lips are zipped. On the ménage a trois connection only.
“Does everything I say or write turn into an innuendo?” Dan asked via email when I requested an interview. “I’m cool with that.”
It seems appropriately ironic that on the one-month anniversary of the night that rocked my world, Dan takes me to the edge. Correction: we meet up at the Edge, a coffee house in Minneapolis where Dan mans the counter part-time.
“So…when did you become a foodie?” I ask right off the bat.
“Whoa!” Dan says, holding up his palms as though I’d just threatened to handcuff him. “Slow down.”
Dan disappears behind the small city of syrup bottles, coffee mugs, and brewing equipment. It’s after-hours and we have the place to ourselves.
“What do you drink?” he asks.
“Tea, please,” I say, following him with my camera poised.
“Where do you normally go for coffee?” he inquires.
“I don’t go anywhere,” I say. Dan cocks his head in confusion; in a previous e-mail, I’d confessed that I've never learned how to use a coffee maker.
“I’m embarrassed to say that I drink…instant coffee,” I whisper.
“You should be embarrassed,” he replies.
Drinks prepared, we sit down at a table. It’s another night of firsts, starting with this, my first iced peppermint tea, which is so cool, crisp, and refreshing, I may as well be drinking a candy cane. It’s the perfect beverage for this humid summer night that feels prepared to burst.
Dan is also the first cellist I’ve ever met. When I ask Dan how he got his start, he tells me he was born into a music-making family. After classical training in Iowa, he moved to the Twin Cities for a recording education and now plays cello in unconventional collaborations like Liminal Phase and his latest venture, a hip-hop group called Deep Soul Deities.
When I ask why Dan doesn’t go solo he drops the aforementioned “I get off playing with other people” line.
“With Liminal Phase, we perform more than we rehearse," Dan explains. "I like that sense of urgency; and because it’s somewhat improvisational, there are no mistakes. The flip side to that is that it forces you to be present.”
Dan also produces, an endeavor he intends to be creative, not commercial. He prefers analog tape and avoids auto-tune.
“It’s about manipulating sounds,” he says. “There are two kinds of listeners: those that focus on the lyrics and those that focus on the music. I like the music. I don’t even know the lyrics to some of my favorite songs.”
I’ve always been a lyrics lover, but Dan might change my ways. To see him perform live is to witness electricity zipping across cello strings. Who needs words when the notes speak for themselves?
Tonight, our conversation’s soundtrack is a mix of Nina Simone, The Black Keys, and Erykah Badu. When Dan asks what kind of music my daughters listen to, I confess that my seven-year-old is crazy for Hannah Montana and Taylor Swift; my six-year-old, however, is more experimental. And she likes it loud. Just like her mother.
“In the last year, I’ve found myself much more attracted to noise,” I say, cupping my hands over my ears like headphones. “I don’t know how to describe this in musical terms, but I’m addicted to the vibrations. I want the music to literally shake me to the core. Does that make sense?”
“Sure,” Dan says. “The proximity of vibrations affects how you experience the music. Vibrations are good.”
Hellz yeah, they are!
Dan is one of the few musicians I’ve met recently who pays attention to how food affects performance. Though he’s offered haute nibbles from locales like Barbette and Café Maude, he prefers not to eat for three hours pre-show. Going hungry “heightens the experience,” he says. When he does chow down, however, he makes sure to be mindful about his meal and prefers local, organic grub.
“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?” I ask.
Dan almost looks offended. “No way!” he exclaims. “I’d never sacrifice a piece of chicken!”
But he does have a green thumb. And uses it well, per his description of his garden.
"I so admire people who can make things grow," I say. "Plants and instruments are two things I don't do."
“Plants are not that hard to take care of,” Dan says. “All you have to do is give them water, pay a little attention to them, and say ‘I love you’ everyday.”
I raise an eyebrow in doubtful response.
“It’s about attitude. And commitment,” Dan says. “Like writing. Or cooking.”
“Or relationships,” I say. “So why can’t I keep plants alive, even indoors?!”
“Well,” Dan relents, “It’s hard to have plants and kids!”
“Yeah, let’s go with that excuse.”
“My friends tell me it’s a positive sign that I have these lush, green things growing in my bedroom," Dan says. "It means something…but I’m not sure what…”
“It shows you’re nurturing,” I say.
Dan points a finger at me. “That must be it…though I haven’t had much commitment in my relationships.”
My interviewee reveals that he’s at a turning point, residentially speaking. Dan will soon move out of the house he shares with "a bunch of dudes" and shack up with a female roomie instead.
“Just as friends?” I ask.
Dan nods.
“Does she know that?” I say with a smirk.
“We’ve had conversations…but, yeah, we’ll have to lay down some ground rules.”
Dan blushes a bit, fully aware of the Pandora’s Box that such a living arrangement could turn out to be. That said, the only woman he’s really ga-ga over is Sharon Jones, the feisty soul singer he recently had the good fortune to meet at the Rock the Garden music festival.
“She is dynamite!” I say.
“I love her,” Dan says dreamily, his smile widening as he recalls his encounter with Sharon. “I talked to--no, I gushed at--her, I gave her a copy of my CD, and I walked around with a big shit-eating grin for the rest of the day. Then I posted our photo as my Facebook profile pic.”
“That was Sharon Jones?” I exclaim. “I thought that was your mom!”
Sugar mama, maybe. Dan’s real mom, however, is just as talented as Sharon. She’s the one who introduced Dan to homemade pie crust. He recounts how his mother used to “flip shit” when her recipe failed to pass the muster around the holidays.
“My dad had to take us kids out of the house so we wouldn’t witness my mom getting upset,” he says. “But now I understand. I feel so proud when I get a good crimp in my crust.”
Dan had offered to fill his mama’s homemade crust with just about anything for this interview. My choice was sweet potatoes. Pure soul food.
“I added a twist,” he says as he reveals his delectable masterpiece, topped with hand-whipped cream. “It’s a crystallized ginger glaze on the edge of the crust. Let me know what you think.”
The crust is fucking fantastic; the ginger feels fresh and effervescent on my tongue and compliments the subtle tartness of the sweet potatoes. I compliment Dan on how his crust stays in-tact during the slicing process and doesn’t “fall into shreds” as my pies often do.
“Do you use butter?” he asks, immediately diagnosing my problem. “’Cause you’ve gotta use shortening.”
As we eat, I ask Dan what he’d like to be doing with his music that he isn’t doing now.
“Nothing,” he says. “Because it’s not up to me. I just let whatever comes up come out. It’s ready; the question is whether or not people are ready to experience it.”
Dan truly is an artist’s artist. And a sweetie pie. Over two hours pass by in a blink of an eye. And if I may get mushy for a moment, the twinkle in his eyes is unprecedented. Dan is a genuinely happy person. A cool cat.
If anything disappoints about this evening, it’d be the lack of flirtation in our conversation. That’s not to say that Dan isn’t just as sexy as my previous Rockstar Guest Chefs, because he totally is. And despite not being my type, with his striking facial features, long curly hair (which he unfortunately wraps up in a rubber band before I can fondle a ringlet or two), and slim figure, there’s something about him. An aura. Or animal magnetism. Suffice to say, the lips on my face aren’t the only ones tingling during our talk.
“So what do you get out of these interviews?” Dan asks once we’ve both cleaned our plates. “Besides free food?”
It’s a fair question, though as far as effort goes, one blog post probably takes as long for me to write as it does for him to make a homemade pie crust. In other words: 4-eva.
“Artists need one another,” I say. I try to explain (albeit not very eloquently) how most non-artists see creativity as a luxury and many so-called “successful” artists are all about the big sell. Down-to-Earth artists like Dan and I need to feed another--and not only with pie.
Dan suddenly stiffens. (His back, gutter dwellers!) Cue light bulb moment.
“I think I can answer your question about the moment when I became a foodie,” Dan says. “I was in college and I made Jell-O in the microwave."
Dan describes the utter awesomeness that was cooking (even if it’s just adding water to chemically sugared powder) for the first time.
“It's like you woke up to how powerful making your own food can be,” I say.
“Yeah,” Dan says, smiling at the satisfaction of having come full circle. “And that’s what you’re doing with your blog. You’re waking people up.”
I want to believe him, but I’m wary. It’s a lofty goal, and an admirable one, but I can’t imagine many of my readers would agree that what I’m doing is on par with a spiritual experience.
Then again, who knows? I know I've awoken at least one kind of *appetite* in some of my readers. And it appears, based on a follow-up email from Dan a few days after our get-together, that I awoke one of his as well…
Thanks for the interview experience...it was my first. I was worried that you'd ask some tough questions or I'd come off like a punk, but it wasn't like that at all. We explored some cool ideas and laughed together with mouths full of pie and cream...yum.
-Dan
Do I need to paint a picture for you? “Mouths full of pie and cream” kind of says it all. :)
***
Twin Citians, get in the mood on August 5th at the Kitty Cat Klub when Dan plays with Liminal Phase. Or, if you’re more of the shake-your-ass kind of music luvah, hear Dan with Deep Soul Deities on August 16th at the Acadia Café.
Can’t wait for a taste of Dan’s music? Visit www.deepsouldeities.com to hear their latest release Strange Brew.
And for your viewing pleasure, here’s a video of a Liminal Phase performance, appropriately titled, “Where’s The Celery?”
DAN ZAMZOW'S HEART & SOUL SWEET POTATO PIE
Ingredients
For the crust:
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
2 ½ to 3 ½ tablespoons cold water
For the glaze:
1 tablespoon melted butter
Dash lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon sugar
For the filling:
2 ½ pounds sweet potatoes, boiled and mashed
½ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cinnamon
3 eggs
¼ cup milk
Whipped cream
Method
• Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 9-inch pie pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
• In large bowl, combine flour, salt, shortening and water. Stir with wooden spoon until dough forms. Roll dough out on floured surface, then transfer to pan. Crimp edge of crust with thumb.
• Combine melted butter and lemon juice in small bowl. Using pastry brush, coat edges of crust with butter mixture.
• In small bowl, combine ginger and sugar. Sprinkle modestly over buttered pie crust.
• In separate bowl, combine mashed sweet potatoes with sugar, butter, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Beat until smooth.
• Pour sweet potato puree into shell. Bake 40 minutes or until center is set and edges of crust are golden.
• Let cool before serving with whipped cream.
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