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Happy Birthday Tom Constanten



Happy Birthday Tom Constanten

Tom Constanten, composer and second keyboardist for the Grateful Dead, was born on March 19, 1944 in Long Branch, NJ. In the fall of 1961, he met future Dead bassist Phil Lesh while studying astronomy at U.C. Berkeley in California. The two hit it off famously. Soon they were rooming together, cranking out avant-garde compositions. They enrolled at the legendary Mills College to study with composer Luciano Berio. When Berio invited the pair to accompany him to Europe, Constanten eagerly accepted, while Lesh stayed Stateside. While in Germany, Constanten studied with many of the luminaries of the contemporary classical music world, including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Henri Pousseur. Following a stint in the air force in 1965 and 1966 (to avoid the draft), Constanten rejoined Lesh as a member of the then artistically thriving Grateful Dead. Constanten brought an experimental influence to an already wildly eclectic (and just plain wild) ensemble. He added prepared piano and other assorted weirdness to the band's two psychedelic studio masterpieces, Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa in 1967 and 1968. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as well on the road, where the band found their home for most of the year. Combined with his burgeoning interest in scientology, Constanten found his playing drowned out by the band's wall of guitars. By 1970, he'd amicably parted ways with them.

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