E-Mail This Article to a Friend The end of an era (continued)

All the hubbub about the break-up announcement makes it easy to forget that anything else has been going on recently in the Phish camp, but just over a month ago, Elektra released Trey Anastasio’s sixth solo album, Seis de Mayo. Back in April, Trey spoke with me about that disc over the phone from his Vermont home. His publicist had asked me nicely beforehand to steer clear of Phish questions, and I obliged. I now wish I hadn’t. Even so, when I listen back to the interview tape, it’s clear that Anastasio was already looking beyond Phish. His voice practically bubbled over with excitement as he described the ins and outs of his latest non-Phish project. "Sorry, I’m talking too fast," he said at one point with a genial laugh. "I just had a huge cup of coffee."

Caffeine may have been a minor culprit, but the principal reason for Anastasio’s ebullience was artistic satisfaction. For with Seis de Mayo, he’d finally realized a long-held dream: to hear his music being played on disc by something other than a rock combo. Comprising seven instrumental pieces scored for ensembles that range in size from string quartet to 66-piece orchestra, the album is a respectable, often impressive, showcase for Trey the composer. And in the wake of that May 25 announcement, it sounds even more like a pointer toward future directions. "I was thinking about making an album like this even before there was a Phish," Anastasio revealed. "I like playing guitar, but what I always wanted to do more than anything was compose."

Most diehard Phish fans already know that Anastasio majored in music composition at Goddard and the University of Vermont, and that he studied for several years with composer Ernie Stires. But if you’re used to thinking of Phish as a jam band, you may be surprised to learn how much of their catalogue has been through-composed, with little to no room for improvisation. In fact, almost everything on the group’s first four albums was written the old-fashioned way: notes scribbled (usually by Trey) on manuscript charts with a No. 2 pencil.

A neat way to work? Absolutely. But as Anastasio pointed out, fitting ambitious musical ideas into a rock-band context had its drawbacks. "The pieces weren’t always allowed to be what they were. We’d usually have to find a spot to plop in lyrics, so we could call it a rock song. And the music can lose something too when you’re just playing it on electric bass and guitar. Acoustic instruments add extra overtones that you’ll never hear with an electric band."

Following Phish’s October 2000 decision to take a break, Anastasio began exploring other outlets for his compositions. Approached to write a piece for the Vermont Youth Orchestra, he set about orchestrating "Guyute," which originally appeared in edited form on Phish’s 1998 album The Story of the Ghost. It took six months to complete the orchestration, but as the Seis de Mayo recording (performed by Seattlemusic, an offshoot of the Seattle Symphony) shows, the effort was well worth it. Boisterous, witty and considerably more sweeping than Phish’s rendition, the full-orchestra "Guyute" calls to mind such disparate American composers as Aaron Copland and Frank Zappa.

The VYO’s first performance of "Guyute," in 2002, set the stage for the rest of what would become Seis de Mayo, which takes its name from the date of its initial recording session. "That title also symbolizes where I’m at in my life," Trey said. "That ‘day after the party’ feeling. We all got so caught up in Phish, then the hiatus came and it was like, party’s over, what are you left with? Well, this kind of writing is what I started out doing, before all the craziness."

The rest of Seis de Mayo is a series of charming miniatures. Some have a Phish pedigree: "All Things Reconsidered," now a sly chromatic fugue for string quartet, was heard first on Rift (1993), and the stirring "Prologue" was once part of "Pebbles and Marbles" on Round Room (2002). Others, like the woozy, brass-led "Coming To," are new. But they all share a distinct compositional personality, complex yet unassuming. Anastasio even said that, according to his Phish band mates, "this stuff sounds more like the me they know than anything else."

Finding extra significance now in words like that doesn’t take a trained psychoanalyst. But playing up their future-portent angle doesn’t seem right, especially since Trey’s nature has always been to play things down. During our conversation, he repeatedly expressed concern about how his new venture might be portrayed by the media; he didn’t want anyone to think he was putting on airs. "This isn’t ‘rock guy goes classical.’ My dream was simply to make an album that you can put on while you’re cooking a good meal. It should last just long enough to chop the garlic and onions and get everything in the oven." He added, sounding absolutely serious, "Try it some time."