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Perhaps no image better illustrates John Tesh's career than the one he witnessed while shooting John Tesh: One World, his March, 1999 TV special to be broadcast on PBS: A helicopter lifting his nine-foot grand piano then setting it down high atop a Southwestern mesa. With two gold albums, more than a dozen Top 10 new Age best sellers, two pop radio hits and a handful of Top 10 Contemporary Jazz disks, the Emmy Award-winning composer has indeed set his piano in lofty territory.
Now, having brought his music to millions of fans, Tesh is bringing them the world on a new album that embraces and celebrates diverse musical cultures from Native America to Irish, Spanish to Italian, classical to pop, from soul singer James Ingram to flamenco dancer Arleen Hurtado to Contemporary Christian music phenomenon, Point Of Grace.
"This album isn't World Music but it covers a broad scope of the world," says Tesh of One World (GTSP/Word Records). "Every culture lives in a different musical world but when I physically take my piano there, it blurs those lines a little and there's a wonderful musical sharing that happens."
Having traveled the world several times over, including broadcasting sports on television in numerous countries, from the Tour de France to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and having previously written music with Spanish and Irish influences, Tesh decided to travel to the sources, record with local musicians and, for the TV special, feature local dancers. A year of preparation culminated into a month of globetrotting in late 1998. "The whole project was definitely ambitious. This was a pure musical experience. Fans tell us they like it when we explore new music. In Ireland we were in 7/4 time, Italy 6/8, and the U.S. 4/4. We're recording and performing on the same turf with virtuosos of different musical styles and that's exciting."
In Monument Valley on the Utah-Arizona border, Tesh performed on a mesa with Native American musicians and dancer, Robert Mirabal. In Rome, he played with an Italian orchestra in front of the Coliseum, a rare event made possible only by the intercession of the Italian ambassador to the United States. At the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, he was accompanied by two opera singers performing an aria by Delibes. In Kilfenora, Ireland, a song practiced in rehearsal became a jam session at a dancehall next to a pub, complete with accordion, low whistle, uillean pipes, flutes and 25 dancing townsfolk.
From a castle near GaIway, to a 14th century villa in Frascati, Italy; from Flagstaff, Arizona to the Pantheon in Rome with Lorenza Ponce, a violinist who sings in Latin while she plays, Tesh was determined to present new places, new faces and new music.
One of the many aspects of the special diverging from Tesh's past TV successes, 1995's Live At Red Rocks and 1997's Avalon, is not a concert in front of a live audience. Instead, it's an hour of music, dance and spectacularly beautiful, historic landscapes. "It would have been impossible for a crowd to get to many of the places we went. So this is much more intimate. There's less the hysteria of "liveness" and more the performance of music. I really don't even talk all that much in this special. I believe the music, dancing and the vistas will speak for themselves." He did, however, Try to help choreograph, he says with a laugh: "The most ridiculous thing was me trying to dance to show what I wanted from these Celtic and Spanish dancers. It was their dose of comedy for the day."
For many, "Tesh was a revelation when he first appeared on PBS with Live At Red Rocks. "People look to PBS for that sense of discovery. It's where 'Riverdance' and Andrea Bocelli were brought to the public's attention too. That's why this special (produced and directed by music video pioneer Jon Small) had to be completely different. Fortunately, PBS is always willing to take a chance on new things. So we're a perfect fit."
Ironically, television, which first made him a household name, had for some time sidetracked Tesh from his true love, music. "I was defined by 'Entertainment Tonight' for years." He says. "I loved that show, but it had less to do with my life than anything."
His life began in the New York City suburb of Garden City. Playing piano and trumpet from the age of 6, he studied with teachers from the Julliard School of Music and was named to the New York State Symphonic Orchestra in high school, while also playing the organ in a rock band. He continued to play while at North Carolina State (his family's from the area). In 1975, a degree in communications in hand, his voice landed him jobs in local TV news, shuffling from Nashville (where Oprah Winfrey was at a competing station) to Raleigh to Orlando and finally to New York's WCBS where, at 23, he was its youngest reporter.
After two local Emmys and an Associated Press Award for investigative journalism, the three-sport high school varsity athlete joined CBS Sports in 1981. Reporting on the Tour de France the next year, he offered to compose original music to underscore the coverage. Viewers contacted the network, asking where they could purchase a tape. Wondering if there was a market, Tesh placed an ad in two bicycling magazines. Receiving 5,000 responses, he began manufacturing cassettes for mail orders- and sold 30,000 out of his garage.
In 1983, he won an Emmy for Best Musical Composition for his Pan American Games Theme. Even as he became co-host of "E. T." in 1986, he continued to compose and perform. His original music has been heard on broadcasts of the Olympics, Wimbledon, the NBA (his "Roundball Rock" theme is NBC's signature music), NFL, World Gymnastics Championships and Ironman Triathlon, as well as the animated series "Bobby's World" for years. In 1987, he won an Emmy for his Tour de France music which, when released on his first album, was a Top 5 New Age hit. After being named Best New Artist by Keyboard Magazine in 1988, Garden City ~ (1989), his second album on Private Music, again went Top 5, and at the New York Music Awards won the Best Jazz Album category, with Tesh named Best Instrumental Composer. He took home his third Emmy in 1991, for Best Opening Music for NBC Sports' World Track and Field Championships.
In 1992, Tesh formed GTS Records and released the music he composed for the Barcelona Olympics on The Games. That same year, A Romantic Christmas became his first gold record. "But it was time to do something huge. I wanted to go to the next level, to prove to people that I was serious about music." Live At Red Rocks did just that. Ranked as one of the most successful fund raising programs on PBS (on par with "The Three Tenors" and Riverdance"), many stations broadcast the program several times. "The people who watch PBS, and they are numerous and varied, are the people who come to my concerts." Says Tesh. "Some of them are dragged there by their wives or girlfriends but then they'll come backstage and say, "Wow, this was far less boring than I thought it would be.' I'll take it as a compliment!" Suddenly, Live At Red Rocks was a gold album, a double platinum home video, and the Adult Contemporary star was a phenomenon.
Also in 1995, PolyGram purchased a half-interest in his company and GTS (names for stepson Gib, himself, and wife Connie Sellecca) was renamed GTSP (with the additional of newborn Prima). The next year, GTSP was honored as the #1 Contemporary Jazz Label on Billboard's Top Independent Chart. Then, in 1996, Tesh boldly left "E. T." and its seven-figure salary: "I finally decided that I wanted to be a full-time musician and that I had to quit the TV job."" He then set out on a 60-city, three-month tour prior to the release of Avalon. In 1998, Grand Passion: became his third consecutive original album to hit #1 on the New Age charts.
His mix of classical, pop, rock and jazz has sold more than five million albums and sold out innumerable concerts. He has a mailing list of 250,000 fans, an 800 number, and a Web site selling everything from mousepads to tour jackets.
But does he consider himself a star? "Living in Nashville for a while I picked up one very important tip from country artists: The fan," says Tesh, "it's all about the fan- and never forget it. I believe in myself but I don't believe any of this is really happening. I'm certainly the anybody in 'anybody can do this."' But 'anybody' doesn't get a genre of music names for him: Teshmusic, big but not intimidating, familiar yet original, intense but still fun.
His music is very much like himself.
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