Some people believe certain places seem to have an intangible quality that fosters spirituality and creativity. One such place is Stonehenge. Another is Sedona, Ariz.
To Alan Scott Bachman, that place is the Great Salt Lake. "I was amazed at how beautiful it is. It's the most magical spot in the country," he says.Bachman, a transplanted New Yorker, draws upon spiritual forces he feels here to create a unique tapestry of music that he markets in shops around the world. His latest album, with his band called Desert Wind, is an eclectic experience in Hebrew mysticism with African, Middle Eastern, Celtic and Latin musical influences thrown into the cultural mix.
It was Salt Lake City - the place he calls a "spiritual university" - that brought it all together. "Here, my own spirituality jelled into my music. . .," he said.
That Utah would become home to a musician is not all that unusual; an increasing number of world-class musicians are relocating here. But what makes Bachman's story unusual is the road he traveled getting here.
Bachman, an attorney by profession, was born and reared in a traditional Jewish family in upstate New York. He went to college at Syracuse and then attended law school at Gonzaga in Washington state. He worked a few years for a local government in Oregon.
It was in Oregon he organized a band he called Desert Wind. But the desert winds - and his growing passion for music - eventually pushed Bachman to Las Vegas.
Toward the end of 1986, Bachman packed his bags to return to Oregon. But before he could get there, he got a job offer from the Utah attorney general's office.
While Utah offered the chance to practice law, could it foster his creative musical pursuits? "There's an incredible wealth of talent in this area," he says. On his latest album, recorded in a studio in Bachman's basement and entitled "Shekina, Hebrew Goddess," Bachman assembled a variety of Utah and international musicians.
The album features a cultural mix of Muslims, Jews and Mormons, as well as the international flavoring of musicians from India, Germany and even a transplanted Libyan.
The album focuses intently upon spiritual healing, peace and the role of the feminine in divinity. "You have to have a complete divine to have a whole people," he says. "The problems in society correlate with how we view divinity. The peacefulness of society equates with the completeness of the divine" - a completeness Bachman believes is manifest through the Hebrew goddess Shekina.
It's all pretty philosophical stuff for an attorney-bureaucrat who handles the legal troubles of the normally mundane Division of Facilities, Construction and Management.
Actually, he says, his two passions are not incompatible. The practice of law is a healing profession. "A good lawyer is a healer, an advocate for a cause. The same can be said of music."
By Jerry Spangler, Deseret News staff writer.