Bill Quist is a trained classical pianist, but at a fundraiser on Tuesday for a forthcoming release of two CDs, one attendee described his songs as “intergalactic.” The samples played for the small crowd gathered at a downtown inn were from improvisations he recorded on synthesizer; one was reminiscent of the depths of the sea (“Whale Tears”), another of spirits in the ether (“Angel Choir”). Many travel the world, too: in one piece, the keys sound like an human voice singing among birdsong in the jungle (“Wild Love Birds”). Another recalls southeast Asian instruments (“Bali Land”) and still others remind the artist of South America.
Mr. Quist said that for this improvisational set, he didn’t know which sounds he would be working with until he started playing; instead, he had a friend sit with him in the studio and select them. “I heard the first note and just went with it,” he said.
Mr. Quist, a 63-year old who has long lived between Bolinas and San Francisco, has recorded 20 sets of improvisations since 2001, but he has never released them. (He once got as far as designing the cover for what would have been a cassette, but didn’t have the money to keep going.) Now he has plans to release two sets—#12 and #20—through a forthcoming website, a substantial step for someone who has never had an email account and doesn’t own a computer for fear it will distract him from his instrument. The songs will be available on disc or for download. (“I think they’re called files?” he said, adding that he is hiring someone to help him with the website?)
Both albums are named after Egyptian goddesses: #12 for Isis, #20 for Ma’at. The latter, which he played at the fundraiser, has a more unconventional sound, he said; Isis, named for the goddess of love and health, is more traditional. The titles were spurred by the violence in the Middle East. “You know for 5,000 years [Isis has] been the Egyptian goddess of love. I’m not gonna say anything about the other guys, but I believe in the Egyptian goddess of love,” he said.
Mr. Quist said an extra $216 a month he now receives in Social Security is helping him fund the project, but he needs to raise more for the pressing. “It’s not like I’m just asking for a handout. Okay, I am asking for a handout, but the artwork is done, the liner notes are done, most of the editing is done, I have an online presence coming. All I need—well, I need a little money to pay people,” he said.
Mr. Quist, who in his youth studied at Interlochen Arts Academy in his home state of Michigan, played with the San Francisco symphony in the 1970s and released a collection of Erik Satie piano solos in 1979 on Windham Hill, a record label founded in 1976 that was well-regarded in its hey day. (Sony now owns the label and no longer releases new music on it.) Mr. Quist has also sung with the San Francisco Choral Artists and played with a number of musicians in Bolinas, like Molly Maguire, for a range of local events over the years.
But he’s been house-sitting for the past eight years (“Which is kind of a fancy way of saying couch surfing,” he said) because he cannot afford rising rents.
At one point in an interview with him this week, his cell phone rang. “It could be a job!” he said. In fact it was his friend Tom Higgins, who owns 11 Wharf Road, the inn where Mr. Quist held his fundraiser on Tuesday. “Make sure he plays the piano for you. He tends to talk and talk, but he plays beautifully,” Mr. Higgins told this reporter. Mr. Quist admitted that he could be pretty loquacious.
“People used to think I was on cocaine,” he said. “I said no, I’m an Aries. And I do things by myself—music, gardening, house-sitting, photography—so when I get out and about, I am kind of talkative.”
When he was first getting started, he said, a professor he met at a party in Los Angeles told him if he wanted to dedicate himself to the piano, he should only take music jobs. He has essentially followed that advice, perhaps to his own financial detriment. Though playing piano comes naturally, almost effortlessly—he’s been at the keys long enough that he doesn’t practice anymore—“making a living, that’s the problem,” he said.
“I never really paid a lot of attention to make a living because it didn’t used to cost that much to live. The change today is that no one has time anymore to be artistic. People have one or two or three jobs,” he said. “I was lucky to be here early—an artist in West Marin. We didn’t make much, but we had a very rich life, and that’s what we’ve lost here.”
Mr. Quist can talk at length about the economic crunch that artists are now under in places like Bolinas and San Francisco, along with a litany of other topics: his home town of Bloomfield Hills, politics and war. But as he listened to his own improvisational recordings, he entered a different zone, listening for tweaks that must be made before the CD is released (“The bass needs to be a bit louder,” he mused). And he’s visibly enraptured with the sound of the keyboard, not just its variety but how it allows him greater control than a traditional percussive piano would, with each note fading the moment it is played. “With a piano, it’s always decaying. But the keyboard—it sustains,” he said.
Donations for the music project can be sent to P.O. Box 233, Stinson Beach, CA, 94970.