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FEATURED UCSF ARTIST| NINA'S ARTS NOTES 1st appeared 5 October 1998 Cosmo Fraser -- Soothing the Soul “What music does for the soul can't be explained, you can't count it with dollars and cents. It creates a different you. It also smooths many of the rough edges of life. When people have problems, if they can sit down and play an instrument or sing a song or hum, I think it really can soothe the soul and change their outlook.”
History is full of physician/musicians but few of them have had or needed two sets of publicists and promotional people, (one outfit has the catchy name of “dogtown productions,”) a personal website (www.cosmomusic.com) a fan club, and a dizzying schedule of media interviews and appearances, interwoven with fulltime UCSF responsibilities. This doctor/singer has recently issued his second CD, "Fire This Time" entirely of his own songs, and it's selling well, as did his first in l995, "Reggae Music Man." Fraser's life also encompasses his family--wife and three sons, the oldest 16--his love of soccer, and the many other interests of an exploring mind. Cosmo was born in Jamaica and grew up in the countryside hearing the stories and the natural folk music of the people who worked the land. He started singing as a kid, learning the changing styles from Mento to Ska to Rock Steady, as well as imported American R & B, and then in the late 60s and early 70s came Reggae. “We Jamaicans always seemed to have a beat of our own, “ he says. “Our history was different from other Caribbean islands, with a certain amount of political turmoil, and our music came from the African experience and the particular mingling of cultures among our two million people. “ If any of you are as new to this as I was, you may need to know that the word Reggae was coined to describe the music of Bob Marley, Jacob Miller, and others who were building on earlier styles to create a new syncopated and sophisticated beat for their songs about what was happening in their world: lost love, sadness, hard times, good times, political issues. As Cosmo explains, “Both men and women can sing Reggae; the basic instruments are bass, drums, and guitar for the rhythmic punctuation called Skank, but with few exceptions a good Reggae performer or player has to be Jamaican and born into it. When instrumentalists who play other kinds of music try to play Reggae, that’s when they realize, ‘My God, it sounds simple but it’s very complicated music to play.’” The two main avenues of Cosmo’s life were marked out early. A top student in math and science, he says, “I always wanted to be a singer and I always wanted to be a mathematician.” His scientific abilities took him to Columbia University in New York where he majored in electrical engineering and computer science, while continuing to sing in competitions and gigs around town. Then he met a girl who was in pre-med at Barnard and learned enough to consider medicine as a career for himself. “It was a very tough decision,” he recalls. ” I had been accepted at several medical schools and at MIT and other engineering schools. I chose medicine, thinking only of practicing privately and being independent, whereas an engineer usually has to work for a company and is more confined. I’ve always believed that the only limit to one's ability is oneself and I've never wanted to limit or confine myself to anything."
Working with the renowned head of UCSF's Nephrology Department at the VAMC, Allen Arieff , who recently retired, Fraser became interested in hyponatremia, an acute shortage of sodium in the body. He and his colleagues pioneered in discovering that male and female sex hormones play very different roles in balancing sodium and water levels in the brain and that after surgery or severe stress, administering a balanced salt solution rather than a hypotonic fluid like dextrose and water would avoid fluid reaching into the brain, particularly in women and children, and resulting in brain swelling and death. "At first people thought we were crazy scientists from California," Fraser says, "now the whole world knows about our ideas and they are accepted as reality." Along with his teaching and VA Nursing Home practice, Dr Fraser is now studying the chemistry of aging and brain function. Cosmo, who started singing again only a few years ago, is climbing the charts with his Reggae band. "My lyrics are about real issues," he says, " and in songs I can express them and show people why they should care. I'm not just a doctor having fun. I want to create the kind of music people talk about forever. " P. S. Your arts reporter has become a Reggae fan. Filipino Life in the Bay Area A unique and remarkable record of family life, work, weddings, dances and other celebrations among Bay Area Filipinos was made during the l950s in beautiful and very moving black and white photographs by Ricardo O. Alvarado, who lived from 1914 to 1976. Starting with the Manong generation, his exhibit in the Main SF Public Library is called "Through My Father's Eyes," and also includes a time chart of the Filipino population in California and San Francisco from 1849 to 1998. Alvarado photographs on display until November 30. Main LIbrary is at 100 Larkin Street at Grove and Fulton, just off Market. In related events, a Slide/Lecture with Peter Bacho and Al Robles entitled "Revisiting the Pinoy Past" is scheduled for October 8 at 7 pm at the Main Library. For information call 557-4277. On Saturday October 24 from 2-5 p.m. A Centennial Poetry Reading, in which Filipino American poets and musicians reflect on the Centennial of the Spanish American War, will be held at the Chinatown Commnity Arts Gallery in the Hoiday Inn at 750 Kearny Street. All events are free. * * * * * Free At Last And while in the spacious new Main Library, be sure to visit the Skylight Gallery to see Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America. To portray the debate over slavery in the US, the exhibition features cartoons, photographs, personal mementos, and documents, including a fragment of Abraham Lincoln's famous "House Divided" speech and letters of Civil War soldiers. Previously unavailable to the public, this exhibition gives a human face to the horrors of slavery and provides profound insights into how abolition became a national issue. "Free at Last" runs through October 25. * * * * * Performances at Six The popular after-work concert series "Performances at Six" begins its new season on Thursday, October 22, in Embarcadero Center. Don't get the idea that this is all serious stuff: the series kicks off with Bluegrass and country fiddle music by the Hillbillies from Mars including French Canadian, Irish, and Appalachian songs and dances on instruments ranging from bagppies to mandolins. Next up on October 29 the Peregrine Trio in a classical program of works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, and Brahms, played by violinist Robin Hansen, cellist Burke Schuchman, and pianist Martha Wasley. The music of legendary jazz violinists Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli will be presented by present-day jazz violinist Jenny Scheinman and her quartet in an hour of gypsy swing on November 5. November 12 brings pianist Matthew Laurence Edwards, playing Schumann, Poulenc, and Stravinsky. Well-known Bay Area singers Sara Ganz, mezzo-soprano, and Donna Bruno, soprano, close out the fall programs with a concert of Lieder duets, accompanied by pianist Daniel Lockert, on November 19. Presented by San Francisco Performances, all of these delightful concerts at six will be at E.C. Cabaret on the Promenade (Third) level of Three Embarcadero Center (at Drumm between Sarcramento and Clay.) Easily reachable from UCSF by N-Judah to Embarcadero Station or #1 California bus right to Embarcadero Three. Free Parking in the Embarcadero Center garages with validation after 5 , which is when concert doors open. Tickets $6 at the door include glass of wine or mineral water. Half price for fulltime students with ID. A San Francisco resident for 20 years, Nina Beckwith is a longtime arts writer and music critic and a former Time magazine overseas correspondent. She was founding editor of the UC Berkeley Library newsletter Bene Legere and worked for six years with the late Dr. Peter Ostwald, Director of the UCSF Health Program for Performing Artists. |
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As medical scientist, UCSF associate
professor Cosmo Fraser, chief of Geriatric Nephrology at the VA, is rigorously devoted to
explaining and treating physiological problems. As Cosmo, singer and composer, he strives
to create those unexplainable effects music has upon our souls and hearts.
For the next 12 years, singing dropped out of Cosmo's life in
Brooklyn as medical student, intern, resident, and then for some time after he came West
in l982 for a UCSF Fellowship in Nephrology. He had decided on Nephrology or Renal
Physiology, he says, " because figuring out the many complicated chemical and
physiological functions of the kidney was what reminded me most of mathematics in the
field of medicine."