Previously, the Owsley Stanley Foundation teased the 12th chapter of Bear’s Sonic Journals and their plan to launch the collection on Sunday, March 15, the final night of Grahame Lesh & Friends-hosted Unbroken Chain: A Celebration of the Life and Music of Phil Lesh at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, N.Y. In a detailed follow-up shared on Facebook, the foundation explained the intent behind their Phil Lesh tribute project, Bear’s Sonic Journals: Concordance, 150 Years of Charles Ives, by focusing on one of the bassist’s great musical influences.

According to the Owsley Stanley Foundation’s outline, “The first CD on the new release is a recording that Phil made with Bear in 1974 of John Kirkpatrick playing the Concord Sonata in celebration of Ives’s centennial. Kirkpatrick was the pianist who popularized the Concord and put Charles Ives on the map when he debuted the Concord in 1939 to critical acclaim, 20 years after Ives composed it.”

“For the second CD on this release, we collaborated with Donald Berman, the last student of John Kirkpatrick and the current President of the Charles Ives Society, who plays his version of the Concord,” the group notes. 

Providing further detail, “The four movements of the Concord were composed to honor four Transcendentalist writers and thinkers from Concord, Massachusetts: Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts (Bronson and Louisa May), and Thoreau. Berman commissioned four new compositions based on the lives and works of four women Transcendentalists (Emily Dickinson, Harriet Tubman, Louisa May Alcott, and Margaret Fuller) by four different 21st century composers. This release presents a world premiere recording of these pieces.” 

In addition to the sonic contents, Concordance, 150 Years of Charles Ives will arrive with a complimentary 112-page booklet featuring essays and reflections from friends and family of Lesh, including Dave Schools, Tom Constanten, Ned Lagin, and Grahahame Lesh. The essay section will also feature contributions from Ives scholars to weave connections focused on an interlude of inspiration for one of rock’s most enduring acts. 

Teasing the intersecting pathways of musical inspiration, the post concluded, “From Ives to Phil to the Grateful Dead, from Ives to Kirkpatrick to Berman, it’s a tale of overlapping, intergenerational influence that goes back in time from the Civil War era to Anthem of the Sun and on to the present.”

Physical copies of Bear’s Sonic Journals: Concordance, 150 Years of Charles Ives will be available during the West Coast chapter of Unbroken Chain: A Celebration of the Life and Music of Phil Lesh, which will take place at The Fillmore in San Francisco, March 20-22. 

Orders can be placed on March 27 via owsleystanleyfoundation.org.