Todd Green has conquered the baglama. And he’s learned the quirks of the yali tambur. Then again, there’s nothing quite challenging like a cumbus. Or a sarangi, surpeti, gopichad and kamenchech. But oh, the rehba, rabaga and gembri. How can one forget a gembri?

It sounds like a grocery list of weird vegetables. Or characters from an upcoming "Star Wars."

Sorry. They’re just a few of the amazing and exotic collection of musical instruments Green plays in concert and in workshops around the country.

The Bozeman, Mont., resident dazzled Glen Cove Elementary School students with his instruments Wednesday and is the featured performer Saturday night at California Maritime Academy on behalf of the Vallejo Community Concert Association.

"It’s a chance to the share the music," Green said of his many daytime performances. "Except for the guitar, they’ve never heard of most of these things before."

Green didn’t merely play his own assorted instruments for the kids. He pulled out a few trash receptacles and even an empty orange juice can to show the students that instruments can come from anywhere.

"I try to expose them to something that’s not typical," Green said. "There is something else out there besides what they hear on CDs and TV."

Green started guitar when he was 10 and has been writing and performing ever since he turned 15. He studied with Pat Metheny, George Benson and other noted musicians from Boston to New York City.

"I went the usual route when I was a kid," Green said. "The Beatles were what got me going. I’ve played guitar most of my life."

In New York, Green started exploring other aspects of music, studying everything from the tabu from India to the bansori flute and South American pan pipes.

Then he moved to Montana.

"I traded the manmade mountains for the real ones," he joked.

Green started "this one-man band thing" about 10 years ago and has never looked back.

"I gave up electric music pretty much completely," he said.

While Montana "is a beautiful area," Green said there aren’t "a let of outlets for ethnic musicians." So when he’s in the Bay Area, he makes it a point to join other performing.

Green left Glen Cove for Sacramento and returns for the CMA concert at Rizza Auditorium. Then it’s off to Wisconsin, Minnesota, back to Montana, then off to Salt Lake and Wyoming.

Typically, Green’s management has no problem getting him work, he said.

"It’s very unusual," he said of his act. "There are a lot of very unusually looking, just wonderful instruments. Each have a personality. People who hear it are just drawn to it."

Children, he said, "are just fascinated by the sounds. It’s quite a variety."

Green brings 30 instruments to a show, mainly strings, flutes and percussions from all parts of the globe.

Stuff you’ll never hear on pop radio? He couldn’t really tell you.

"I’m totally out of touch," Green said.

The musician said he does have a claim to fame as a performer on the first rap record in New York.

"It was the early 1980s when it was a local phenomenon," said Green.

Green sees his school programs as a semi-crusade.

"I feel it’s a mission I’m on," he said. "Hopefully, I’m planting seeds that come to fruition and expose them to something other than television."

Green hears "all kinds of things" from children after a performance.

"Some are surprisingly detailed questions," he said. "And I’ll never hear silly things. You never know. It runs the whole gamut."

Despite an apparently exhausting schedule, Green said "there’s never enough" work.

"I’m tireless," he said.

It’s not as though he’s walking some beach when he’s on the road.

"All my free time is spent practicing," Green said. "I do a bike ride now and then.">

Green doesn’t just show up at an event and play. His fickle instruments won’t let him.

"I usually get to an event five hours before the concert," he said. "That blows people away. But the instruments need to adjust to the humidity and temperature. The worst case is everything going out of tune at the same time. There is a lot of set-up time."

How in the world does he pack so many exotic instruments?

"With great care," he said. "I have big cases, little cases. Some bigger cases. It’s a work out."

Though an audience member can bet he or she will hear most or all of the 30 instruments on stage, Green said he often doesn’t know what he’ll do next.

"It’s just me up there surrounded by all these instruments and it can be totally spontaneous," he said. "A lot of what I do is improvised."

Todd Green performs Saturday, 7:30 p.m. at Rizza Auditorium, California Maritime Academy. A family ticket is $15, adults are $10 and students $5. For more information, call (406)-557-0325.

Article by Richard Freedman
Times-Herald staff writer