It was in 1982 that I got to know Steve Vai because he was in Frank Zappa’s band. Together with Frank’s secretary at the time, and still a dear friend, Susan Rubio, I went to the Ahoy hall in Rotterdam for the show. A few years later, Menno Kalmann and I had a little production company called Siësta Productions and we started importing Steve’s Flex-able album, along with guitar lessons and other stuff. I still have the handwritten ‘contract’ I received from Laurel Fishman.
Much later, as a radio producer, I started recording Vai shows. An example is Devil Food from Ultrazone album.
And then it happened: 1997: I was prepping a large radio special with Steve and for that I flew to Sacramento: there was a G3 show there with among others Robert Fripp. I interviewed Steve in his hotel room. After the interview, my gear was already packed up, I asked if Steve had any dreams, now being a famous virtuoso and a star. He didn’t think for a second and replied: yes, I want to work with orchestras. I had previously mentioned several times that I always thought that besides being a guitar player, there was a great composer hidden under that guitar stardom. The first time I heard Bledsoe Blvd and Salamanders In The Sun, I heard a connection with the tradition of Ravel, Strawinsky, Zappa and Bernstein.
Well, I went to work and managed to create a whole evening for NPS Radio of Vai Orchestra music with the Metropole Orkest under the baton of my good friend Dick Bakker. This was so successful that we managed to do a reprise of the show, now with the involvement of television. All this resulted in the CD and DVD Sound Theories Vol. 1&2
After that, I hooked up Steve wit another friend, Marcel Mandos, artistic manager of the Noord Nederlands Orkest (NNO) in Groningen. After a commission for an orchestra piece for a Strawinsky Festival, we created a proper Vai Festival, with besides the orchestral performances a Naked Tracks Guitar Competition and stunning solo piano performances of Steve’s music by our friend Mike Keneally.
The next step was the collaboration with Finnish conductor Jukka Iisakkila for a live performance in Helsinki. It was in that week in 2016 that Steve decided to have all his orchestral pieces recorded in studio sessions, to create what you may call ‘definite versions’.
And so it happened: in May 2022 we had an unprecedented 20-day session with the Metropole Orkest in Hilversum and in August of that year, 10 days with the Tampere Filharmonia in Finland. All these recordings will be released in years to come and will prove that when I heard Bledsoe over 40 years ago, my instinct did not betray me.
As I write this I am in Tampere, with Jukka, Steve, Pia, Douglas MacArthur (Steve’s guitar tech a.k.a. The Young Prince) and my good buddy Jeroen Noordhuis (yes, the Vai.com Jeroen!) and over a hundred musicians and staff of lovely and dedicated people in Tampere.
https://glivelab.fi/tampere/events/vieraana-steve-vai-maksuton-free-646f5f9fdf8793814fc45552/
For me personally it resulted in another job description besides Creative Catalyst (once suggested by Scott Chatfield): Steve Vai’s Manager Of Orchestral Endeavors.
Besides artistic and business responsibilities it also includes getting the right muffins in time in case the composer gets hungry.
Tampere, Finland, September 2023.
