If we didn’t have what we had before then we wouldn’t want to get rid of it in order to try something we hadn’t tried. But when the sum total of all the parts puts you back in touch with the same elements and feelings we experienced before then, we might as well have stayed there to begin with. So the elements and the feelings are what have to change and sometimes they cannot do that unless they are placed into the eyes of another structure.

Every recording is different and should have a valid reason to be released. The two recordings represent the fifth and sixth ensembles I’ve released as a leader, and symbolically they follow a creative process I use that breaks down the events of creativity into sort of chapters that you can single out and invent ideas about. Each chapter builds upon the other and as they develop they finish the story that’s being read.

In this case there are six chapters and these two recordings represent the fifth and sixth chapter. THE BEGGAR is the fifth and THE ROBOT IN DIAMONDS is the sixth. I have written a book about these stages. But for a brief look we’ll say the beggar is the teacher, reflecting off the child in every student and focusing on giving his spirit away to benefit others. The beggar is the last point of being in need for the body, giving up the body and giving away the spirit and knowledge obtained until there is no body left, just the magnetic field.

The Robot in Diamonds is the magnetic field that drives things forward and ignites things to a state of form or art to communicate. It is not the art, it is only the magnetic field. But the story ends once the forms is born and so these recordings conclude a story of the first phases of my published works as a leader.

Don’t worry too much about the meaning. It is primarily for me to bring a direct secure premise to my work. But art is abstract like feelings or dreams or imagination. I’ve always felt that music should be a lamp turned on to the subject at hand so it can be worked upon and so it can work upon us.—Steve Cohn