A tribute to James Knapp – Joan Skinner’s dear husband and an inspiration to all of us releasers from the Studio Daysin Belltown.
A note from Sally Metcalf:
When I first started Releasing, Jamie played prepared piano for our classes, as there wasn’t much music around yet that worked for Releasing imagery. Jamie was like a fellowReleaser, sitting at the old black grand piano with his eyes closed, transported, along with us.He sometimes composed pieces for his orchestra specifically for Joan to use with us, until the burgeoning electronic music trend, and local artists such as Stuart Dempster, at last poured a
tsunami of metaphorical sound waves into SRT classes.
Jamie also taught us to dance in, and go back and forth between, many different complex meters: 5/4, 7/8, 9/8, etc. A great skill for the choreography Joan and Robert were doing in the early 70s, sometimes to music composed by Jamie in those very meters.
This article is a tribute to Jamie’s remarkable career in all things Jazz. What a gift he was to so many people!
