Richard is host of one of the longest continuously running free jazz and New Music radio programs in the country, Fresh Ears, which airs Tuesdays on KFAI from 10:30 p.m. to midnight. Born and raised in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis, Richard is essentially self-taught as a pianist and synthesist, aside from a few strategic piano lessons over the years in styles ranging from classical to jazz to gospel. Growing up, he played cornet, tuba, and piano, and later the tuba again in the 5th Army band at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, near Chicago.

Richard Paske Image by Teddy Maki, City Pages, Apr. 12/00

At the University of Minnesota, he earned degrees in Religious Studies (concentrating in art history and philosophy), and in Music Studies. Richard is now mostly a keyboard player and composer/arranger, but also plays the electric bass and, for the odd gig, the tuba. A St. Paul resident, Richard teaches MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) at Musictech College in St. Paul and performs at many venues throughout the Twin Cities. He also teaches piano and MIDI independently at his studio and writes program guides for the Education Department of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and for the National Symphony Orchestra, both in Washington, D.C.

Richard's early history with KFAI
Richard was part of the mid-'70s group of Twin Cities people who organized to create a community radio station. After a five-year battle to win a broadcasting license, KFAI went on the air in 1978. Richard's first show on the station he had helped create aired a year later and was called, simply, MUSIC. Richard didn't want his show to be labeled, so he gave it this all-inclusive name. Later, it changed to Music with Dick Paske, and finally, its current name is Fresh Ears, which he took from a Thomas Dolby interview he read in a magazine called Keyboard. The word "fresh" also went well with KFAI's slogan, "Fresh Air radio." Richard's show is one of the longest continuously running radio shows of its kind; only San Francisco composer and community radio DJ Carl Stone's show heard on KPFA in Berkeley, CA, has run longer.

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In the early days of his show, Richard played mostly so-called New Music, the contemporary classical music of the post-World War II, because that was his main interest as a composer/performer. The artists often mentioned by Richard in connection with this genre are American composers John Cage, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Ashley, and Terry Riley. According to Richard, his listeners came mostly from a '60s-'70s counter culture in which many young people were eager to hear new sounds with open ears. His programming was quite eclectic at the time; in addition to New Music, he also played jazz, indigenous world music, and even medieval and renaissance music. In the early days of KFAI, music styles were not assigned time slots the way they are now; about five years ago, Richard's show was moved to the new jazz slot, which remains 10:30 p.m. to midnight during the week, and from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday mornings. Now Fresh Ears is mostly jazz, as Richard's own interests and music have headed in that direction.

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Richard's approach to programming
Richard doesn't plan very much of Fresh Ears before airtime; mostly it's improvised, but he also produces specials dedicated to specific influential artists. In 2001, for example, Richard dedicated the first Tuesday of every month to Sun Ra, following the past few years' re-release of much of that artist's work.

Read an article City Pages jazz columnist Keith Harris wrote about Richard's series on Sun Ra: http://citypages.com/databank/22/1052/article9337.asp

This year's first-Tuesday series is called "Strange, Beautiful Trip: Musical (R)evolution in the 1960s," with such topics as "A Brief History of Looping." Richard has also produced specials on Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Cage, Yoko Ono, and many others.

Sometimes Richard plays music from his own collection, but more often record labels send him material to air. Some of the labels whose music he plays regularly include New York-based Lovely Music, international U.S. label Blue Note, German company Between the Lines, and British record label Emanem. Independently and self-produced musicians also supply him with music for his show. Richard tries to be open minded about what he'll play on his show; he acknowledges that he only has one set of ears and that something that isn't his taste might resonate with some of his listeners. In twenty-three years of being a DJ, he's only once actually stopped playing a tune in mid-stream, because he thought it was claiming to be original but was really blatantly derivative of jazz legend Ornette Coleman. Richard thinks it's important to try to leave his own taste aside at times; he cites this as an idea from John Cage, whose book Silence had a big influence on his thinking about music. Richard plays a lot of music from the free jazz era, when artists like Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane were coming out of the bop era and into a new politically conscious black nationalism with new ways of playing jazz.

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Richard's own music
Lately, Richard has been doing solo gigs all over the Twin Cities in a style he calls "electroBop." Another name he gives it is "digital lounge music." He likes the idea of his music being background sound, citing French turn of the (last) century composer Erik Satie, arguably the first ambient music composer. Satie called it "furniture music," and when he first introduced it publicly in 1902, he discouraged his audience from concentrating solely on his music while he played, and Richard sees his electroBop in a similar light. While Richard plays out quite a bit these days, he says being a jazz musician in the Twin Cities has its challenges: hardly anyone can make a living doing nothing but playing jazz locally.

Listen to these live-recorded samples of two tunes Richard played at downtown Minneapolis music and art club sursumcorda on June 18, 2002:

"Possibility (Zen Moon Beach)," an original composition in its first performance by Richard:
RealMedia download (1.10 MB)
MP3 download (2.49 MB)

"Chameleon," a Herbie Hancock tune:
RealMedia download (938 MB)
MP3 download (2.05 MB)

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Only since December 2001 has Richard been performing electronic music again; about six years ago, he stopped making electronic music altogether and performed only on acoustic piano for five to six years. The ten years prior to this was all electronic work in the New Music genre. His 1996 McKnight fellowship allowed him to compose and concentrate on acoustic piano, and the erstwhile Loring Bar provided a twice-monthly solo piano venue, his favorite in the Twin Cities. He lost this gig in mid-summer 2001, when the Loring stopped booking 6:30-8:30 p.m. musicians. Since the Loring closed down in June 2002, and there are not many high-quality, in-tune pianos in the local venues, Richard has returned to the musical electronics of synthesizers and MIDI, where he has total control over the sound and over his instruments. His one-man band setup now includes a Kurzweil K2000 synthesizer/sampler, a PC laptop running a MIDI sequencer, and a piano module (a small digital piano/organ). Richard loves being a one-man band, not only because it's very reliable and efficient, but also because of the musical freedom it offers him; he's amazed at the sounds just one person can make. In addition, he's able to take more gigs because it's only his schedule he has to consider.

Lately Richard's also composing some new songs that have lyrics, which he hasn't done in years. He starts with the words, which have been popping into his head while driving or walking. Later, after melodies begin to emerge, he goes to the piano or synthesizer to begin building the arrangement. Then the words sometimes change because they no longer fit with the new melody. He's not yet singing these songs in public, hasn't sung in performance for many years, but he's excited to see where these new songs take him.

Richard plays electric bass in a trio with electric guitar player Dean Granros and saxophonist Pete Whitman called Mostly Real; Richard calls it "the hippest dinner music in town." Playing graduations and similar functions, they do tunes from the Real Book, a fake book for jazz standards. Richard plays electric bass in another trio called Wingless Transportation, with Dean Granros on electric guitar and Phil Hey on drums. Wingless Transportation was formed in 1982, disbanded in '83 as the members moved on to other projects, and reunited in 2001. In April 2002, they brought their highly improvisational electric jazz to the sursumcorda "Jazz?" festival, and Richard plans to release a CD featuring some of their earlier work.

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Richard is anxiously awaiting a big development in the fall. From 1991 to '96 he used a Macintosh program called Max that allows you to create your own electronic music environment. For example, he programmed Max to follow the tempo of his left hand and to build multi-layered improvisations with multiple looped parts, all created from scratch in front of an audience. Max will be available on the PC platform in October. When that happens, he will start re-tooling the pieces he has now so that each accompaniment part will be "musically intelligent," and will be controllable with his feet, leaving his hands free for keyboard improvisations. Each accompaniment part will be programmed to improvise from its own set of musical rules in response to Richard's keyboard improvisations. Richard will control the direction and intensity of the accompaniment's improvisations with foot pedals while he plays the keyboard with his hands.

Some of the venues where Richard plays

Some of Richard's local music picks

Fat Kid Wednesdays, a local acoustic jazz trio

Poor Line Condition, a local live drum and bass group of young musicians who also play straight-ahead jazz in other contexts

George Cartwright, a transplanted Memphis/New York jazz saxophonist, composer, improviser, and band leader who now lives and plays in the Twin Cities

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Some non-local acts Richard likes to see when they're in town

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Local jazz acts that have gone national or international

Bill Carrothers, an international jazz pianist especially well known in France

Happy Apple, a jazz trio getting international attention lately