Improvisation, recorded in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, July 16, 1985

Powell wrote that the river traveler “stands in the presence of awful mysteries, profound, solemn…”

“Past confluence with Little Colorado River...canyon walls narrow...black Granite Gorge - ominous, foreboding...distant roar of rapids ahead: Unkar, Hance, Sockdolager.”

“Sockdolager” in 19th-century slang means “knockdown punch.” Cellist David Darling’s raft flipped in Sockdolager Rapid on the 1980 expedition. Sockdolager lived up to its name.”

“Sockdolager” is to me a masterpiece of program music, a cameo that captures this whole scenario: the foreboding, the harrowing experience, and the deliverance.

The event took place during our first river-rafting/recording expedition through the Grand Canyon in 1980. We were 45 people, on three large rafts and one small. David and his cello were on the small one, along with a boatman and another passenger.

Each of the rapids, in this 280 mile journey on the Colorado River, has a name, and the “fabled” rapids each have a lineage of drama. The one named Sockdolager is at mile 79. The raft on which I was riding had just gone through this rapid, when our boatman looked back and yelled “David’s raft flipped!” I turned around and could see David trying to climb on top of his overturned raft, and then we saw his cello floating towards us in its waterproof bag. We were able to rescue it.

Five years later, after making three more Canyon expeditions with various colleagues, I felt it was time to finally produce the first volume of the Canyon album. I asked David about creating a piece that might evoke that memorable experience.

We imagined the cello both telling the story (in unison with his voice), and also conjuring the fearsome energy of those waters, with the double-stop churning that had long been part of David’s unique cellistic quiver. So we realized that we needed two cellists, and who better to collaborate with David than his successor in the Consort, Eugene Friesen, the third of the genius cellists who have graced the Consort over the years. I was thrilled with this opportunity to have these two masters improvising together.

David made a rough sketch of a musical map, and they were off, on the adventure together.

I later overdubbed my horn. I hear this high voice now as a kind of guardian angel for the journey.