The Multiple Miracles of Red Rocks
As a kid, I often visualized myself in live musical performances. Thanks to my ignition in elementary school at the hands of Dr. Wagner and the hustle required to keep up with my older sisters, my earliest visions were grand ones. They were of me, seated at a gigantic grand piano, with an orchestra at my command, playing my original compositions. I went to bed nearly every night wrapped in this recurring dream. I awoke, recalling that same dream. At nearly every point in the process, almost from the moment I conceived of the idea to create John Tesh: Live at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony, things could have fallen apart. A few times they nearly did.
When I took the idea to PBS, they were not entirely thrilled with the idea, not that I could blame them. At that point, I had no distribution for my recordings. I had been dropped as an artist by my record label. My live concert experience was mostly small jazz clubs. Even if I wrote a song that would produce significant air play on the radio, there was no guarantee that it would generate the kind of emotional, almost spiritual response that successful pledge specials on public television were generating.
The Three Tenors Live in Rome. Yanni: Live at the Acropolis. These were not merely concerts; they were giant symphonic events, staged in exotic locales. These concerts, edited down into thirty-minute program segments and separated by twenty-minute pledge pitches, generated millions of dollars in revenue for PBS. And then, with their proven track records on PBS, Yanni, the Tenors, and later Riverdance and Les Misérables could command hefty license fees to defray production costs.
Could my Red Rocks special be the next Three Tenors in Rome? I’m pretty sure their programmers bottom-lined it like this: Let’s see . . . the guy who hosts Entertainment Tonight performs his sports music with an orchestra and gymnasts? Uh, maybe not. I’m certain, given the circumstances, I would have come to the same conclusion, especially after one particularly awkward final conference call.
PBS: So, John, how many concerts did you perform last year?
Me: Uh, three.
PBS: How many records did you sell that year?
Me: Maybe a thousand.
PBS: How extensive will your concert tour be to support the Red Rocks TV special?
Me: Well, I have a full-time job at ET, so I’m not sure how that would work out. Why do you need that information now?
PBS: It’s really not possible to offer you a commitment of production funds right now. We will be happy to have a look at the concert special after it’s done. If a station wants to test it, that will be up to them.
PBS’s approach to its pledge drive broadcasting was atypical in the world of network television. PBS corporate supported their local stations by purchasing the broadcast rights directly from the artists so their stations could then use it in fund-raising. However, at the same time, the local affiliates were empowered to make their own decisions when it came to scheduling those shows. For example, if Long Island’s WLIW was airing Yanni’s concert on Wednesday evening, and it generated more pledge dollars than Riverdance, WLIW could make the decision to replace already-scheduled airings of Riverdance on Thursday with multiple showings of the Yanni program. The local programmers were playing quarterback, reading the defense at the line of scrimmage, and then making quick adjustments, calling an audible, in their programming.
The beauty of this system was that it was, at its basic level, a meritocracy. Compared to the world of commercial television, this was an honest, respectable business model. Plus, the money the local stations raised with their pledge programs promoted the production and broadcasting of programs families could actually watch. In the end, PBS’s idiosyncratic paradigm opened the door for me as an independent producer/artist to become an outlier in both the public television universe and the recording industry.
But first, I needed to find a way to get this special made. The budget for the Red Rocks special, as it currently stood, was pushing $800,000, and Connie and I had no commitment from PBS to put it on the air. This would be an enormous risk and I could not take that gamble alone. I needed to persuade Connie to sign off on this creative moonshot, but I had to be sure that this was more than just the realization of a singular childhood dream. There needed to be real long-term purpose behind it.
To her credit, Connie is naturally risk averse, so I knew I needed a strategy, a vision. Fortunately, we’d been down this road together before, when we started our tiny, independent record company to produce and distribute my music after every major record label had rejected it. When Connie and I discussed it, she ultimately gave her support for the Red Rocks special, and it deepened, even more, the love and affection I had for her. From the moment I’d met her, Connie had been my muse for creativity and a touchstone for all my career decisions. She understood that a bold statement like this could materialize a lifelong dream for her husband to become a professional musician.
Not everyone agreed with our risky blueprint for realizing this dream, however. My entertainment attorney pleaded with my business manager, Steve Callas, to dismantle our plans. He insisted that Connie and I should not be using our own money to invest in such a risky venture. He believed that the only sane way to produce a show of this magnitude was to use someone else’s money. I knew he was right. I knew the risk bordered on recklessness. It was horrible stewardship of finances. But I still felt a supernatural pull in my heart to put my head down and forge ahead to produce the show. And besides, we had already passed the point of no return after Connie was officially all in. Our costs continued to rise, and we would lose at least a quarter of a million dollars if we bailed out now.
I knew I had no choice but to remove all doubt from my subconscious and replace it with visions of victory. I began to see the album at number one. I imagined millions of viewers watching on PBS. I rehearsed each song in my head. I filled my entire being with positivity and prayers of thanks.
Anchored by real belief, it was ultimately Connie’s yes to the Red Rocks wager that galvanized my resolve to make it happen. Her commitment to the idea, and to me, lightened my spirits, but it also added weight to the responsibility I already felt to properly manage the risk we were about to take. Because, in addition to no major record company support, no commitment from PBS, and gambling an enormous amount of money on my music career (which did not even exist yet), our home was still in shambles after having just barely survived the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Shards of glass were everywhere and, oh, by the way, Connie was also four months pregnant with our daughter, Prima, and she was starring in another CBS show, Second Chances, alongside then little-known actress Jennifer Lopez.
Eventually, everyone was fully on board, and we got down to work. David Michaels set about selecting his handpicked dream team of crew members for the production, and I began the process of working out the orchestrations for my songs with Charlie and John Bisharat. These brothers possessed enormous talents. Charlie had been playing solo violin and co-writing with me for a few years. He is that rare talent who possesses both perfect pitch and virtuoso skills on his instrument. Charlie suggested his brother, John, as orchestrator and conductor. In the weeks and months leading up to Red Rocks, the three of us would meet for hours at a time, going over each song and expanding the arrangements to ensure that the orchestra would be featured in the performance and not just background support. John Bisharat’s orchestrations were brilliant from the beginning, and when we began rehearsals with the orchestra members in Denver, his sheet music required few changes.
Then, on the evening of May 26, 1994, barely two and a half months before the concert, everything nearly came apart for reasons wholly unrelated to and infinitely more important than the music.
It was the day after Connie’s birthday. As we prepared for bed, Connie said, “John, there is something wrong. Something is wrong!” She was thirty-six weeks pregnant and having already been through a previous pregnancy and birth with Gib, she knew what she was feeling was not typical. I felt helpless. Her rising stress level began to concern me. With terrible Neanderthal-esque advice, I gave her the only counsel I could think of in the moment: “I think you need some protein, honey,” I said and left our bedroom for the kitchen. A few minutes later, I returned and said, “Here. Have some cheese.” She looked at me like I had just suggested she eat worms.
“You want me to eat cheese?!” she said. “That’s it?”
What came out of my mouth at that moment has become a longstanding family “Dad Guffaw” that gets pulled out whenever someone in our family is not feeling well, but I swear I read about the healing benefits of cheddar somewhere. I still can’t produce a medical journal to support it or to defend myself, though.
That night was a restless one, but Connie awoke feeling more stable and with less concern, so we started our day like normal. Connie headed off for an early meeting for her skin-care line with her business partner, Sheree LaDove, in Beverly Hills. I pointed my car toward Paramount Studios to begin my day at Entertainment Tonight. As we were about to begin taping, I got an urgent message in my earpiece that Connie was on the phone. She was calling from the ob-gyn’s office at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to tell me she was being admitted. I tore off my microphone and bolted from the set. In the middle of her business meeting, the odd feeling had returned, and Connie’s intuition was now signaling that she needed more than camembert or cheddar.
By the time I arrived at Cedars, Connie was already hooked up to telemetry monitoring both her and the baby. It turns out, Connie was almost completely out of amniotic fluid. While I was at her bedside, she revealed to me that the doctor basically said, “I don’t know what it was you were feeling, but thank God you’re here. You made the right choice to come in!”
The prescription was immediate bed rest in the hospital. The challenge was to keep the baby inside Connie for as long as possible and, to that end, to figure out where the amniotic fluid had gone since her water had not broken. Most importantly, the doctors wanted to let Connie’s body replenish the amniotic fluid to ensure that the baby stayed in the womb long enough for her lungs to be fully developed when she was born. Over the next week, several amniocentesis procedures were performed to give doctors an idea of the baby’s lung maturity. Following a week of bed rest, including a drug to stop the progression of contractions, which had begun, Connie’s physicians finally had the confidence that the baby’s lungs were sufficiently developed for the birthing process to proceed.
Except there was another challenge: Prima was in the breech position. Her legs and buttocks were facing down toward the vaginal canal. This typically means birth by Caesarean section. Connie had delivered Gib in natural childbirth, so she wanted to know if this baby could also be delivered naturally, without serious risk. Her team of doctors suggested an ECV—or external cephalic version. The procedure, performed by two or more obstetricians, is designed to turn the baby head down by manipulating the baby from the outside. The problem with this idea was that with a lack of amniotic fluid, it would basically be like trying to move a six-and-a-half-pound baby dolphin along the bottom of a dry pond bed.
We agreed to try the ECV along with extensive monitoring to ensure our baby’s safety. The medical team began to push and pull on Connie’s stomach with brute force. Connie groaned in pain. I felt weak. I saw the outline of what looked like a little foot pressed against Connie’s stomach like a relief map, looking like it might explode out of her skin. I was watching a horror film. The foot would move and then snap back to its original position. After five or ten minutes of the doctors trying to push Prima’s little butt and head in opposite directions through my wife’s giant pregnant belly, I had had enough.
“Stop! Stop!” I said. These were brilliant physicians, and Connie was showing incredible bravery. She wanted to do the work. She wanted to push our baby out into this world. But now it was my intuition telling me we were about to snap off one of the kid’s little legs. My courageous wife would need a C-section. In a short time, I was in the operating room and struggling to hide my fear and trepidation. As I drew another breath through my hospital mask, I listened intently to the sounds of the monitoring devices and the commands of the surgeons and the anesthesiologist. And then I heard something else. Singing. Connie was holding her giant belly and, with a “jolly ol’ Saint Nick” look on her face, was belting out the lyrics from the Paul Anka song “Having My Baby.” Except she had replaced my with your. “Having YOUR baby!”
It made me laugh. I told her Paul Anka wouldn’t mind the ad-lib.
It was vintage Concetta. Any other patient in this situation would have been a tad bit apprehensive. My wife was serenading us with a 1963 pop song.
The singing stopped when the anesthesia kicked in and the surgeon made his incision. Not long after, Connie called out from the operating table, “Hey, guys, I think you’re losing me here! I feel like I’m going to pass out.”
The surgeon looked to the anesthesiologist, who nodded and then administered a drug known as a “presser” to raise her blood pressure. Her vital signs went back to normal. Mine were now pretty much fried.
Up until this moment, the gender of our baby had been kept secret. We had decided if it was a boy, he’d be Primo, after Connie’s dad. If it was a girl, she would be Prima, also after Connie’s dad. (My mom’s name was Mildred. Case closed.)
When all six pounds, seven ounces of Prima Tesh emerged from Connie’s tummy, she was all legs and a head. No wonder they couldn’t turn this kid. Heck, Connie had just delivered a baby giraffe! What added even more emotion to the event was that Gib, at only thirteen years old, had been permitted in the operating room with us. His job was to videotape the entire procedure. Talk about a bonding experience! When the doctor lifted Gib’s little sister up by her ankles, our son reverentially lowered the video camera and proclaimed, “Wow, it’s purple!” Everyone laughed. He spoke the truth. It was a miracle. A beautiful purple baby girl.
What happened next still makes me shudder. Baby Prima was not crying. She was grunting. It was a deep, low-pitched, haunting sort of noise that sounded nothing like any of the babies in birthing-class videos. It turned out, a nurse said that grunting sound meant that she wasn’t breathing normally.
Prior to our arrival at the hospital, our family had decided that if mother and baby were separated for any reason, I would stay with the baby and Gib would stay with Connie. So as the doctors sutured Connie’s midsection and attended to her recovery, they positioned her body strategically away from the action that was unfolding around Prima. When facing critical medical challenges, doctors and nurses are trained to control their emotions around patients and families, but this operating room team could not disguise what appeared to be an intense intervention on Prima’s behalf. They suctioned her tiny throat and after placing her briefly on Connie’s chest, they announced that the baby needed to be transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Prima was laid in a plastic incubator, which was then placed onto a cart. I followed the cart to the NICU while Connie and Gib headed to the recovery room, one floor down.
I am still wearing my mask and gloves when I enter the NICU and see a long row of isolettes lining both sides of a fifty-foot corridor. Still numb with apprehension, I begin to wonder if I’ve been transported to a world that resembles a kind of suspended animation for infants. Inside these twenty or thirty plastic rectangles are newborns, most no bigger than my fist. Their isolettes regulate temperature, humidity, and oxygen levels. Each has armholes through which adults can reach the infants without disturbing their controlled environment.
My daughter, in her isolette, is between two infants one-fifth her size. Taped to the side of her mouth is an endotracheal tube—a small plastic tube that leads into her mouth and travels down her windpipe to her lungs. On her left index finger is a pulse oximeter to measure the oxygen in her blood. The nurses have also run an arterial line—a thin tube inserted into Prima’s artery—to check her blood pressure and measure blood gases. There’s nothing comforting about seeing your child in this condition, and I’m in a room surrounded by them. My knees are weak, but Prima is no longer grunting. She appears to be in no distress. She is stable, so I head down the elevator to see Connie.
The physical pain she was in previously is nothing compared to her frustration over being separated from her newborn. A physician, nurse, and hospital administrator arrive at Connie’s bedside and tell us, “Your little girl is very sick.” They diagnose her with “wet lung,” a fairly common condition in babies delivered by C-section, in part because their lungs don’t benefit from being squeezed the way they are during a vaginal birth. “She is getting the best possible care in the NICU,” they reassure us. I am terrified. Connie, however, thinks they are overreacting.
“She’s going to be okay,” Connie says. “I want to see her now.”
The doctor is smiling but insists that Connie stay where she is and recover from her surgery. He promises that she can visit Prima in the NICU the next morning. Then, in a move that is quintessential Concetta, this bold, Italian mamma-bear pulls herself into a sitting position on the hospital bed. She grabs my arm for support, and with her other hand she grabs the IV stand that still connects her to her recovery hydration.
“I want to see her now,” she demands. And she marches toward the elevator, with nervous hospital staff trailing behind.
Connie knows instinctively that a mother’s touch along with nursing her baby will provide a powerful dose of healing therapy. Inside the isolette, Prima’s little arms are restrained by cloth ties, one to each side, so that she won’t reflexively pull on the endotracheal tube that is supporting her breathing. Connie reaches into Prima’s isolette and touches her daughter’s tiny palm. Prima’s fingers curl around mommy’s pinky. My face is soaked with tears.
Connie is right, I think. She is going to be okay. Indeed, it’s wonderful to watch our Prima today in the light of those first scary moments and minutes and days. It turns out God planted a full measure of fight inside her that we all enjoy today. Relentless. Hard worker. Incredible talent. She dances on stage with us at concerts, and while audiences often remark at her incredible technique, the thing they notice most is the palpable joy that seems to leap from the stage. But Prima’s very first concert would be at one of God’s natural wonders as her tiny body is held in the arms of her mother.