<\/p>\n
This week on the Joy Beat, a sudden and dire diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic melanoma in both lungs led retired Dr. Stanley Sagov on a path to treatment, recovery and rediscovery. Now, three years later, he\u2019s back on the performance stage. <\/i><\/p>\n
Sagov joined <\/i>All Things Considered host Arun Rath to discuss his new album Coming Back to Life, his new band \u2014 Remembering The Future Jazz Workshop \u2014 and new insights about music. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.<\/i><\/p>\n
Arun Rath:<\/b> There is so much I want to talk with you about, but let\u2019s start right with this brand new music. The first thing I have to tell listeners is that you are playing all of the instruments on this, what we\u2019re hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Stanley Sagov: <\/b>Yes. I mean, since the pandemic, when we all \u2014 musicians \u2014 lost the venues, we took advantage of the technology that allows us to make music on our own. And especially with wind controllers, one can make music that sounds very much like a live band. And I\u2019ve been doing this kind of music with electronic stuff in the studio, but to simulate live music for about 20 years.<\/p>\n If you\u2019d like to nominate someone or something for the Joy Beat, leave us a voicemail at 617-300-BEAT (2328).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rath: <\/b>Wow, that\u2019s brilliant. Well, let\u2019s talk about this comeback, what you\u2019ve been through getting to this album. It was three years ago now since you had the diagnosis?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Sagov: <\/b>Yes, I had a condition which was a chronic recurrent condition for which an image was taken. It had resolved by the time the image got taken, but at the edge of the image, there was an incidental finding of these melanomas that you mentioned, which were completely asymptomatic. I had no symptoms, I was not short of breath, I was not coughing, I didn\u2019t cough up blood, I had no exercise intolerance \u2014 and if I hadn\u2019t had the study, I would be dead. <\/p>\n So by accident, it was found, which is increasingly the case now. Because we\u2019re increasingly using images in emergency rooms and other places where incidental findings \u2014 that are often advanced at the time of diagnosis \u2014 have to be revealed to somebody that had no idea they were sick.<\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m tearing up a bit because there\u2019s certain kinds of expression that music is better at than any other form. It\u2019s got sound, it\u2019s human, it\u2019s got the feel of being produced from someone\u2019s body.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Stanley Sagov<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rath: <\/b>Wow. And you\u2019re somebody who was a medical doctor and that was a surprise to you.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sagov: <\/b>That\u2019s true. So there\u2019s an increasing amount of that. <\/p>\n And the good side of it is that, at the same time, the treatment of advanced cancer has improved considerably because at any other time other than this last decade or so, I would not be having this conversation with you. I would\u2019ve been dead within months. <\/p>\n Rath: <\/b>Wow. And how did you work with \u2014 or not work with \u2014 music over the course of this recovery? Getting to this record that we have now, how does the record reflect that?<\/p>\n Sagov: <\/b>Well, music does what words cannot do. Let\u2019s start there. I\u2019m tearing up a bit because there\u2019s certain kinds of expression that music is better at than any other form. It\u2019s got sound, it\u2019s human, it\u2019s got the feel of being produced from someone\u2019s body. And after 10 or 15 years of applied, motivated learning so that you become a mature musician and know your own style and taste. And there\u2019s nothing that allows me to transform emotions, especially powerful and especially difficult emotions, into expression than music.<\/p>\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/p><\/div> Rath:<\/b> It was interesting hearing this album. This first tune that we heard is fairly representative. It\u2019s joyful, a lot of the songs are quite playful.<\/p>\n Sagov: <\/b>Well, you know, the emotions in music are associative. If I were to talk to you as Beethoven does, [Sagov sings, imitating the dramatic strings in Beethoven\u2019s Fifth Symphony] we don\u2019t talk like that. I don\u2019t talk in a serious tone to you and then immediately switch with apparently no distinction to something lighthearted and meant to evoke a different emotion. <\/p>\n But music does that routinely. And it\u2019s part of what makes us incapable in a way of defending ourselves as much as we might with other media, like reading or even looking perhaps at graphic images. Because the music\u2019s happening in real time and it\u2019s here and it\u2019s gone and it\u2019s here and it\u2019s gone. And that emotion that you had. You already had it. You can\u2019t control it. You can\u2019t stop having had it. You can\u2019t un-feel what you feel. And of course, that\u2019s why we love it. And especially because it communicates bittersweetness in a uniquely effective way.<\/p>\n The blues person in that song that I played may be playing about having been betrayed by their woman or whatever, but that\u2019s the beginning of the story. That\u2019s not the end of the story. There\u2019s going to be perhaps an accounting made, perhaps there\u2019s going to be another romantic possibility, perhaps the person\u2019s going to just vent their expression of how they feel. The story is never, it\u2019s not, \u201cOh, my woman left me so I\u2019m done.\u201d It\u2019s: \u201cSomething happened, and I\u2019m still here, and I\u2019m here to express myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Rath:<\/b> Dr. Sagov, recording in the studio, I have to imagine, is one kind of pleasure. But this is jazz, and performing live with an audience who is reacting and feeding into it is something entirely different. How are you feeling about performing at the Regattabar this weekend?<\/p>\n Sagov: <\/b>Well, you know, it\u2019s a very interesting example of what jazz includes. When I was getting treated, I was in conversation with my publicist Sue Auclair, and with Seiko Kinoshita <\/b>from the Blue Note that books me at Regattabar. And they, throughout the pandemic and throughout the three years of treatment, they were saying: \u201cWhen do you want to come back? When could you come back?\u201d <\/p>\n And I kept not feeling able to imagine when I would be strong enough to be able to play a concert and to manage the alertness and the interactive virtuosity that\u2019s required to play jazz at a high level and share it with an audience. <\/p>\n I have a band that\u2019s been playing together, you know, since the 1970s. My bass player, John Lockwood, we\u2019ve been playing since we were teenagers together in South Africa. So I have a long history. But two of my core members couldn\u2019t make it this time \u2014 they were already booked. So, I\u2019m meeting two people that have never played with our band on the bandstand. They\u2019ve heard the music, as you have, that I made in my studio. They came to my house each one, one day each, to meet with me in person and to hear the music in person and to play a bit with me. <\/p>\n But we\u2019ve never played on a stage together and we\u2019ve never all played together. So, you in the audience \u2014 and you\u2019re coming, too, I believe \u2014 will see us meet each other on the stage in real time, except for the sound check. <\/p>\n Some of the music is quite complicated, and the way I\u2019ve handled that is, first of all, I\u2019ve chosen to play with people that are very good at what they do. And I try to hire people better than I am, and I\u2019ve succeeded, I think, this time again. So, I\u2019m relying on them to show me all the things that I know that they can do and will love to do. <\/p>\n And all the time that I\u2019ve been practicing for months now, I\u2019ve had them in my mind, these two new players. What might they sound like? What vehicle could I make to make them comfortable, to show how they love to play? And I sent it to them, you know, after I finished something, and they tell me. And then I write it down, I make a transcription of the head, what they need to know, and make a chart of it. <\/p>\n And I\u2019ve sent them 20 pieces. They\u2019ve seen the titles of a couple of the pieces. On the night, you\u2019re going to see me from the keyboard say, \u201cLet\u2019s try this.\u201d And then they\u2019ll shuffle around and I\u2019ll get it and look at it, and then I\u2019ll start to play. <\/p>\n And my wife said: \u201cWell, what do you want from the audience?\u201d I said, \u201cI want from the audience exactly what I want from the musicians: I want attention. I want respectful engagement. I want you to really enter, with us, into our imagination of: What did we just play? And, what was that? And, what does it mean to you? And what\u2019s next? I want us to be present together.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wgbh.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week on the Joy Beat, a sudden and dire diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic melanoma in both lungs led retired Dr. Stanley Sagov on a path to treatment, recovery and rediscovery. Now, three years later, he\u2019s back on the performance stage. Sagov joined All Things Considered host Arun Rath to discuss his new album […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2462935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2462934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/\u2018Music-does-what-words-cannot-do-How-a-diagnosis-led.com2Fbrightspot2F0e2Fb32F02c4766f49f6b24ac.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2462934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2462936,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462934\/revisions\/2462936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2462935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2462934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2462934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2462934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You could choose our next Joy Beat!<\/h4>\n
\n Saraya Wintersmith
\n <\/span>
\n
\n GBH News
\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n