Discovering that Alex Caldiero lived in Orem by choice had me reshuffling my deck of preconceptions almost immediately. It was like learning that Georgia O’Keefe secretly harbored a lack of depth perception punctuated by color blindness. Or that Ernie “The Bread Man” Scow suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder. It was inexplicable!
Well, as it turns out, maybe not. Obviously there were underlying layers of psychological and philosophical strata to Mr. Caldiero that I had yet to identify. When you’ve seen him perform his shtick somewhat frequently over the past half-dozen years or so, you learn there are complexities aplenty when attempting to define this man.
In the beginning, while explaining to others my infatuation with his art, I would call him a “performance poet.” But I always knew that what he was up to was much more than that. I just didn’t have sufficient vocabulary to adequately express it. Anyway, I would have never called him that to his face. Those who reference themselves as “poets” are not very high up on Alex Caldiero’s cultural food chain.
I’m not alone in this quandary. Many people who encounter Alex have trouble characterizing his process. He can leave you speechless. The fact is, he is quite “singular.” There is no one else out there to whom he can be compared. “You just have to go see him” is a mantra you hear over and over.
Now, however, there is kind of a “study guide” to the Caldiero mind set. A film by two of his students entitled “The Sonosopher: Alex Caldiero in Life In Sound ” has so far had a couple of fundraising screenings and has been submitted to various film festivals for consideration.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Prior to arriving in his cookie-cutter subdivision in Orem, the dots connect from a small town in the Sicily of his birth to an immigrant steamship passage across the Atlantic and his coming of age in Brooklyn.
There, a Catholic education preceded a conversion to Mormonism. He sees Joseph Smith as coming from a long line of “coyote” tricksters and mystics and visionaries who are also charlatans, a résumé with which he is quite familiar. Within the lies, there is ecstatic truth, so to speak.
Somehow, his take on the faith didn’t sit well with the church hierarchy and he suddenly found himself persona non grata down at the ward house. While dealing with that state of affairs, Caldiero holds a position as Artist-in-Residence at Utah Valley University where he now hangs his hat and assorted drums and bells and whistles.
It was there during one of Caldiero’s more esoteric language classes that Torbin Bernhard and Travis Low decided that, although totally lacking in both experience and expertise, they should be the ones to tell their mentor’s story on film. Seeing their novice status as a plus, Alex became a co-conspirator and now, two years later, it’s a wrap.
As one quite well versed on the beat-generation literary and poetic legacies, it was Caldiero himself who coined the term “sonosopher” as a means of describing his improvisational techniques with sound while distancing himself from the generic term “poet.”
Ironically, it was 54 years ago today that Allen Ginsberg’s first read his iconic poem “Howl” at the “6 Gallery” in San Francisco. When Salt Lake celebrated the 50th anniversary of the hallowed event, it was Caldiero who got the call to perform the reading before an overflowing house at the City Library.
I think it’s safe to say that never has the work received more honor than with the forceful and inventive interpretation bestowed on it that evening. The effect continues to resonate with those who partook of the distinctive quality of breath and rhythm and sound showered upon the faithful by Caldiero’s stunning rendition. Now, if only a recording cleared for public consumption would surface.
Playing both his intonations and the silences between them as improvisational jazz riffs, some of his pieces recall the sonic spirituality of a latter-day Coltrane. But reading influences into Caldiero’s art is missing the point. You either dig it or you don’t. It is what it is. Thank heavens!
Now, with my tastes running to the somewhat obscure, I seldom recommend anything to friends. But be aware that the next time word comes through the grapevine that Alex is set to once again strut his sonosophy in public that I will do my best to witness his verbal dance. He’s flat-out ahhhh-some!
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.