Look up est, Est, EST, or -est in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

EST or Est or est may stand for:

Places[link]

• Est (Netherlands), a town in Gelderland
• Estonia, a nation in northern Europe
  • Estonian language, the Estonian language in ISO 639.2 or ISO 639–3 language codes
• Est Region (Burkina Faso), one of Burkina Faso's 13 administrative regions
• Est Region (Cameroon), a region in the southeast of the Republic of Cameroon
• Ed Sullivan Theater, a building in New York housing radio and television studios
• Empire State Building, a skyscraper in New York
• Est! Est!! Est!!! di Montefiascone, Italian wine region
• European Society for Translation Studies, an organization that promotes research on translation, interpreting, and localization
• est is the French word for East

Film, TV and music[link]

• Est (TV series), a TV reality game show in which contestants are locked in a room and psychoanalyzed
• E.S.T. (band), a Russian heavy metal music band
• Esbjörn Svensson Trio, a Swedish jazz trio that issued recordings under the acronym "E.S.T."
• "E.S.T.", a song by British band White Lies from their debut album To Lose My Life...

Organizations[link]

• Energy Saving Trust, a United Kingdom organization for fighting climate change
• Edwards Systems Technology, a fire and life safety systems company that became part of UTC Fire & Security in 2010 when UTC purchased GE Security.
• Erhard Seminars Training, usually est in lower case, a New Age Large Group Awareness Training seminar program
• European Society for Translation Studies

Time[link]

• European Summer Time
• Eastern Standard Time (North America)
• Australian Eastern Standard Time (see Time in Australia)

Science and medicine[link]

• Expressed sequence tag, the (usually partial) sequence of a gene transcript in biology
• Endodermal sinus tumor, a cancer of the germ cell tumor group
• Ecological Systems Theory, a theory in developmental psychology
• Electroconvulsive therapy or electroshock therapy, a psychiatric treatment that electrically induces seizures
• Evidence-based practice or empirically-supported treatments, an approach to mental and behavioral health treatment

Other uses[link]

• Est (Fire Emblem archetype), opposite of the Jeigan archetype in the Nintendo video game series
• Estimation, an approximately calculated result with uncertain input
• Electron spiral toroid, a technology for maintaining small stable plasma toroids
• Electronic Sell-Through, a system of selling video over the internet
• European Seniors Tour, a professional golf tour for men aged 50 and over
• Extended standard theory, an early theory of generative grammar

See also[link]

• Establishment (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Esbjörn Svensson
Esbjörn Svensson, in concert in Ghent, 2007.
Background information
Birth name	Bror Fredrik Esbjörn Svensson
Born	(1964-04-16)April 16, 1964 Skultuna, Sweden
Died	June 14, 2008(2008-06-14) (aged 44) Stockholm, Sweden
Genres	Jazz
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1980–2008
Associated acts	Esbjörn Svensson Trio
Website	www.est-music.com/

Esbjörn Svensson (April 16, 1964 – June 14, 2008) was a jazz Swedish pianist and founder of the jazz group Esbjörn Svensson Trio, commonly known as E.S.T. Svensson became one of Europe's most successful jazz musicians at the turn of the 21st century before dying at the age of 44 in a scuba diving accident.

Early life and work[link]

Svensson was introduced to both classical music and jazz very early in life through his mother, a classical pianist, and his father, a jazz enthusiast, and first showed interest in classical music. In his teenage years, he developed an interest in rock music and started a few garage bands with classmates, before going back to classical music and finally making his way towards jazz. At age 16, Svensson went to a music college, where he took piano lessons. He later studied at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm, for four years.

In 1990, Svensson started his own jazz combo with his childhood friend Magnus Öström on percussion. Both had made their first appearances on stage as sidemen in the Swedish and Danish jazz scene during the 1980s. In 1993, bassist Dan Berglund joined the duo, and the Esbjörn Svensson Trio was born. The trio released its debut album, When Everyone Has Gone, in 1993, and in the following years established itself in the Nordic jazz scene. Svensson was nominated for Swedish Jazz Musician of the Year in 1995 and 1996.

Rise to prominence, success, and death[link]

The trio's international breakthrough came with their 1999 album From Gagarin’s Point Of View, their first album to be released outside Scandinavia. With the release of their albums Good Morning Susie Soho (2000) and Strange Place For Snow (2002), the trio drew the attention of United States audiences. In 2002, they went on a 9-month tour through Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Their subsequent albums, Seven Days Of Falling (2003), Viaticum (2005), and Tuesday Wonderland (2006), were equally well received by critics and fans and resulted in several music industry award nominations as well as making the jazz and pop charts.

E.S.T. was the first European jazz combo to make the front page of the American jazz magazine Down Beat (May 2006 issue). Their last live album, E.S.T. Live in Hamburg, a recording of their fall 2006 concert in Hamburg, Germany, as part of the Tuesday Wonderland Tour, was released in November 2007. Before Svensson's death, the trio was working on the concept of integrating electronic and mechanical sound expansions into a jazz trio context. E.S.T.'s last performance took place in Moscow, Russia, at the Tchaikovsky Hall, on May 30, 2008. In addition to his work with E.S.T., Svensson recorded albums with Nils Landgren and Viktoria Tolstoy.

On June 14, 2008, Svensson went missing during a scuba diving session on Ingarö outside Stockholm, Sweden. His diving companions eventually found him lying unconscious on the seabed. Having sustained serious injuries, he was rushed to Karolinska University Hospital by helicopter, but could not be saved. He was 44 years old, married and the father of two sons.^[1]

Discography[link]

Studio Albums:

• When Everyone Has Gone (1993) Dragon
• Winter in Venice (1997) Superstudio GUL
• EST plays Monk (1996) Superstudio GUL
• From Gagarin's Point of View (1999) Superstudio GUL
• Good Morning Susie Soho (2000) Superstudio GUL
• Strange Place for Snow (2002) Superstudio GUL
• Seven Days of Falling (2003) Superstudio GUL
• Viaticum (2005) Spamboolimbo
• Tuesday Wonderland (2006, Recorded and mixed by Åke Linton at Bohus Sound Recording Studios, Gothenburg, Sweden in March 2006)
• Leucocyte (2008, recorded by Åke Linton at Studios 301, Sydney, Australia)
• 301 (2012, recorded in January 2007 at Studio 301, Sydney, Australia) ACT

Live Albums:

• E.S.T. Live '95 (1995, released in Sweden as Mr. & Mrs. Handkerchief) ACT Music + Vision

• Live in Stockholm (2003) DVD, recorded December 10, 2000 – including videos and an interview
• Live in Hamburg (2007, recorded November 22, 2006)

Compilation Albums

• Somewhere Else Before (U.S. compilation from From Gagarin's Point of View and Good Morning Susie Soho, 2001)
• Retrospective - The Very Best of E.S.T. (2009)

Also appears on

• Beginner's Guide to Scandinavia (3CD, Nascente 2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Obituary in The Guardian
• Obituary in The Daily Telegraph
• Photos of Esbjörn Svensson Trio by Luca D'Agostino, 2006
• Photos of Esbjörn Svensson Trio by Emre Boyar, 2005

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2009)

Pat Metheny
Background information
Born	(1954-08-12) August 12, 1954 (age 57) Lee's Summit. Missouri, United States
Genres	Jazz, jazz fusion, folk jazz world fusion, post-bop, jazz-rock, crossover jazz
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, guitar synthesizer
Years active	1974–present
Labels	ECM, Geffen, Nonesuch
Associated acts	Pat Metheny Group, Noa, The Orb, Steve Reich
Website	www.patmetheny.com
Notable instruments
Gibson ES-175 Ibanez PM20 Signature Model Ibanez PM100 Signature Model Ibanez PM35 Roland GR-300 Pikasso guitar

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny (/məˈθiːni/mə-THEE-nee; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.

He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, post-bop, latin jazz and jazz fusion.^[1] Pat Metheny has three gold albums and 19 Grammy Awards.^[2] He is the brother of jazz flugelhornist and journalist Mike Metheny.

Biography[link]

Metheny was born and raised in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb southeast of Kansas City. Following his graduation from Lee's Summit High School, he briefly attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in 1972, where he was quickly offered a teaching position. He then moved to Boston to take a teaching assistantship at the Berklee College of Music with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton.^[3] He first made his name as a teenage prodigy under the wing of Burton.^[4] In 1974 he made his recording debut on two sessions for pianist Paul Bley's and Carol Goss' Improvising Artists label, along with fretless electric bassist Jaco Pastorius.

Metheny entered the wider jazz scene in 1975 when he joined Gary Burton's band, where he played alongside resident jazz guitarist Mick Goodrick. Goodrick was a 1967 alumnus of Berklee, who had held a teaching post there in the early 1970s. The two guitarists were interviewed jointly by Guitar Player Magazine in 1975, bringing them to the attention of fellow guitar aficionados around the world. Metheny's musical momentum carried him rapidly to the point that he had soon written enough material to record his debut album Bright Size Life with Pastorius and drummer Bob Moses.

Metheny's next recording, 1977's Watercolors, was the first to feature pianist Lyle Mays, Metheny's most frequent collaborator. The other musicians on this session were Eberhard Weber on upright bass and Danny Gottlieb on drums. Metheny's next album formalized his partnership with Mays and began the Pat Metheny Group, featuring several songs they co-wrote; the album was released as the eponymous Pat Metheny Group on West German musician/producer Manfred Eicher's ECM record label. Pat Metheny also has released notable solo, trio, quartet and duet recordings with musicians such as Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes, Toninho Horta, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Pedro Aznar, Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Haden, John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Bill Stewart, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, Joni Mitchell and many others.

Pat Metheny has also joined projects such as Song X with Ornette Coleman; Parallel Realities; and Jazz Baltica, with Ulf Wakenius and other Nordic jazz players like E.S.T., Nils Landgren and has played with unique singers from all over the world, such as Silje Nergaard on Tell Me Where You're Going (1990), Bruce Hornsby on Harbor Lights (1993) and Hot House (1995), Noa on Noa (1994), Abbey Lincoln on A Turtle's Dream (1994) and Anna Maria Jopek on Upojenie (2002). His collaboration with other great musicians also contains works with Milton Nascimento, Santana, Dominic Miller, Michael Brecker, Trilok Gurtu etc.

Pat Metheny has been touring for more than 30 years, playing between 120 and 240 concerts a year.

Pat Metheny Group[link]

The Pat Metheny Group is a fusion band founded in 1977. The first Pat Metheny Group release, 1978's Pat Metheny Group, featured the writing duo of Pat Metheny and pianist Lyle Mays, a collaboration which has spanned over 25 years and 15 albums. The recording featured the electric bass playing of Jaco Pastorius's protégé Mark Egan. The second group album, American Garage (1980), was a breakout hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard Jazz chart and crossing over onto the pop charts as well, largely on the strength of the up-tempo opening track "(Cross the) Heartland" which would become a signature tune for the group. This early incarnation of the group included Mark Egan on electric bass and Dan Gottlieb on drums.

The group built upon its success through constant touring across the USA and Europe. The early group featured a unique sound, particularly due to Metheny's Gibson ES-175 guitar coupled to two Eventide Clockworks' Harmonizer digital delay units and Mays' Oberheim and Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 synthesizers and Steinway piano. Even in this early state the band played in a wide range of styles from folk to rock to experimental. Metheny later started working with the Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer and the Synclavier guitar system made by New England Digital. Mays expanded his setup with the Synclavier keyboard and later with various other synthesizers.

Left to right: Steve Rodby and Pat Metheny.

From 1982 to 1985 the Pat Metheny Group released Offramp (1982), a live set Travels (1983), and First Circle (1984), as well as The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), a soundtrack album for the movie of the same name in which they collaborated with David Bowie. A single from the soundtrack, 'This Is Not America', reached number 14 in the British Top 40 in early 1985 as well as number 32 in the USA.

Offramp marked the first appearance of bassist Steve Rodby (replacing Mark Egan) and Brazilian "guest artist" Nana Vasconcelos whose work on percussion and wordless vocals marked the first addition of Latin music shadings to the Group's sound, a trend which would continue and intensify on First Circle with the addition of Argentinian multi-instrumentalist Pedro Aznar, which also marked the group debut of drummer Paul Wertico (replacing Dan Gottlieb) - both Rodby and Wertico were members of the Fred Simon Group at the time, and had played in Simon-Bard as well, in Chicago, before joining Metheny.

This period became a peak of commercial popularity of the band, especially for the live recording Travels. First Circle would also be Metheny's last project with ECM Records; Metheny had been a key artist for ECM but left following conceptual disagreements with label founder Manfred Eicher. The next Pat Metheny Group releases would be based around a further intensification of the Brazilian rhythms first heard in the early 1980s. Additional Latin musicians appear as guests, notably Brazilian percussion player Armando Marçal. Still Life (Talking) (1987) was the Group's first release on new label Geffen Records, and featured several popular tracks, followed by Letter from Home (1989) which also featured Aznar and Marçal. During this period The Steppenwolf Theater Company of Chicago featured an assortment of compositions by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays for their production of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans where it has remained special optional music for all productions of the play around the world since.

Metheny then again delved into adventurous solo and band projects, and four years went by before the release of the next record for the next Pat Metheny Group, a live set entitled The Road to You, which featured tracks from the two Geffen studio albums amongst new tunes. The group integrated new instrumentation and technologies into its work, notably Mays' unique playing technique accomplished by adding midi-controlled synth sounds at command during acoustic solos via a pedal on the piano.

Mays and Metheny themselves refer to the following three Pat Metheny Group releases as the triptych: We Live Here (1995), Quartet (1996), and Imaginary Day (1997). Moving away from the Latin style which had dominated the releases of the previous 10 years, these albums were the most wide-ranging and least commercial Group releases, including experimentations with sequenced synthetic drums on one track, free-form improvisation on acoustic instruments, and symphonic signatures, blues and sonata schemes.

After another hiatus, the Pat Metheny Group re-emerged in 2002 with the release Speaking of Now, another change in direction adding musicians to the band who are one generation younger and thus grew up with the Pat Metheny Group. The new members on the bandstand are the drummer Antonio Sanchez from Mexico City, trumpet player Cuong Vu, and bassist, vocalist, guitarist, and percussionist Richard Bona from Cameroon.

Metheny touring in 2003
Courtesy: Tyrone Lancaster

The latest release, 2005's The Way Up, is another large concept record which consists of one 68 minute-long piece (although split into four sections solely for CD navigation), a tightly organized, but not through-composed piece based on a pair of three-note kernels: The opening B, A#, F# and the derived B, A, F#. The reception of The Way Up was consistent, with standing ovations in each of the almost 90 concerts during the world tour 2005. On The Way Up, harmonica player Grégoire Maret from Switzerland was introduced as a new group member, while Richard Bona contributed only as a guest musician.

During the world tour Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Nando Lauria completed the line-up of the Pat Metheny Group. The Way Up was released through Nonesuch Records and all of Metheny's Geffen and Warner Brothers back catalogue is to be released on the label. Core members of the group are leader and founder, guitarist Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays (piano, keyboards) and Steve Rodby (double and electric bass) who joined in 1980. Drummer Paul Wertico replaced Dan Gottlieb in 1983 and continued to play with the group for more than 18 years, until he was replaced by Antonio Sanchez, currently also a member of The Pat Metheny Trio.

The current Pat Metheny Group members are Pat Metheny (guitars), Lyle Mays (piano and keyboards), Steve Rodby (double bass, electric bass), Antonio Sanchez (drums), Cuong Vu (trumpet). Other musicians that have been hired regularly for Metheny Group tours are: the late Mark Ledford (vocals, trumpet, guitar); David Blamires (vocals, miscellaneous instruments); Armando Marçal (percussion); Pedro Aznar (vocals, guitar, percussion); Richard Bona (vocals, guitar, bass, and percussion). On the most recent tour to promote the record "The Way Up", Grégoire Maret (harmonica, percussion, vocals) and Nando Lauria (guitar, percussion, vocals) joined the Group. Pat Metheny has collected 19 Grammy Awards, and of them, as part of The Pat Metheny Group, 10 of those awards were consecutive.

Side projects[link]

When working outside of the confines of the PMG, Metheny has shown different sides to his musical personality. On Secret Story (1992) and Orchestrion (2009), he has ventured into forms of orchestrating his music not covered by the PMG. In the late '80s Metheny began collaborating more with established jazz figures such as Ornette Coleman, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Joshua Redman, Charlie Haden, Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Christian McBride, David Sanchez and Roy Haynes. Despite his conversion from Brazilian and Latin jazz into more traditional jazz, Metheny still pushed the envelope in the mid-90s with avante garde albums in Zero Tolerance for Silence and The Sign of Four (with Derek Bailey). Metheny's latest side projects teams him with Brad Mehldau and his Trio. In 2006, Metheny appeared as a sideman on Brecker's last album, Pilgrimage.

Guitar contributions[link]

Pat Metheny and his guitar.

Continuing the tradition of jazz guitarists borrowing tones and techniques from their rock counterparts, Metheny has made alterations to the jazz guitar tone palette.

Twelve-string electric[link]

Prior to Metheny, Pat Martino had used the electric twelve-string guitar on a studio album, Desperado, and John McLaughlin had used a double-neck electric guitar with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. (Lenny Breau had introduced the acoustic twelve-string to jazz.^{[citation needed]}) Metheny introduced alternate 12-string tunings to jazz^{[citation needed]}; these can be heard on tunes such as "Sirabhorn" (from Bright Size Life) and San Lorenzo (from Pat Metheny Group and Travels).

Six-string electric[link]

Metheny's tone, which has evolved over the years, involves using the natural full-frequency response of his hollow-body guitar, combined with high-midrange settings on his amplifier to create a smooth, sustaining lead sound that is virtually devoid of piercing treble yet is able to cut through a dense mix. By using digital signal processing that involves digital delay/chorus and reverb, he has created a big, rich, and resonant instrumental voice.

Guitar synthesizer[link]

Metheny was also one of the first jazz guitarists to make heavy use of the Roland GR-300 Guitar Synthesizer. While John Abercrombie and Bill Frisell also used it heavily in the 1980s, Metheny is the only one of the three who still uses the instrument on a regular basis. Unlike many guitar synth users, Metheny limits himself to a very small number of sounds. In interviews, he has argued that each of the timbres achievable through guitar synthesis should be treated as a separate instrument, and that he has tried to master each of these "instruments" instead of using it for incidental color. One of the "patches" that Pat used often is on Roland's JV-80 "Vintage Synth" expansion card titled "Pat's GR-300".

42-string Pikasso guitar[link]

Metheny plays a custom-made Pikasso I created by Canadian luthier Linda Manzer on "Into the Dream" and on the albums Quartet, Imaginary Day, Jim Hall & Pat Metheny, Trio→Live, and the Speaking of Now Live and Imaginary Day DVDs. Metheny has also used the guitar in his guest appearances on other artist's albums.

Manzer has also made many acoustic guitars for Metheny, including a mini guitar, an acoustic sitar guitar, and also the baritone guitar, which Metheny used for the recording of One Quiet Night. His latest use of the Pikasso is found on the album Metheny Mehldau Quartet, his second collaboration with pianist Brad Mehldau and his trio sidemen Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard; the Pikasso is featured in Metheny's impressionistic composition "The Sound of Water."

Influences[link]

Metheny playing the guitar controller for the Roland GR300 Guitar Synthesizer.

As a young musician, Pat Metheny did everything he could to sound like Wes Montgomery, but when he was 14 or 15, he decided that he felt that it was disrespectful to imitate him.^[5] In the liner notes on the 2-disc Montgomery compilation Impressions: the Verve Jazz Sides, Metheny is quoted as saying, "(Smokin' at the Half Note) is the absolute greatest jazz-guitar album ever made. It is also the record that taught me how to play."

The angular compositions, asymmetrical lines, relentless rhythmic drive, and deep blues feeling of Ornette Coleman's New York is Now (Blue Note) inspired Metheny to find his own direction.^[6] He has recorded Coleman compositions on a number of his records (starting with a medley of "Round Trip" and "Broadway Blues" on his debut Bright Size Life); worked extensively with Coleman collaborators such as Charlie Haden, Dewey Redman, and Billy Higgins; and has even made a record, Song X, with Coleman.

Metheny's playing (as well as his tone) also show significant influence by Jim Hall, Joe Diorio, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass, John McLaughlin and other classic jazz players^{[citation needed]}. Metheny has often been quoted saying that he is as likely to name non-guitarists as significant stylistic influences as fellow guitar players, giving as examples players like Clifford Brown and John Coltrane^{[citation needed]}. He has stated that Miles Davis' live album Four & More was hugely influential on his pursuit into jazz music. He has also admitted to being heavily influenced by The Beatles, going so far as to say that everything by The Beatles has impacted him as a musician. He has paid significant attention to the evolution of guitar playing across genres, however, and is familiar with the playing of notables from the likes of rocker Eddie Van Halen to Leo Kottke.^{[citation needed]}

In particular, he has been influenced by Brazilian music--both the European-influenced jazz sound of the bossa nova and the intensely polyrhythmic Afro-Brazilian sounds of the country's northeast.^{[citation needed]} Metheny made 3 albums on ECM with the Brazilian vocalist and percussionist Naná Vasconcelos in the early 1980s. He also lived in Brazil from the late 1980s to the early 1990s and performed with several local musicians such as Milton Nascimento and Toninho Horta. He also played with Antonio Carlos Jobim as a tribute, in a live performance in Carnegie Hall Salutes The Jazz Masters: Verve 50th Anniversary before Jobim’s passing away.

He is also a fan of several pop music artists, especially singer/songwriters including The Beatles; James Taylor (after whom he named the song "James" on Offramp); Bruce Hornsby, Cheap Trick, Joni Mitchell, with whom he performed on her Shadows and Light (1980, Asylum/ Elektra) live tour. Metheny is also fond of Buckethead's music. He also worked with, sponsored or helped to make attractive recordings of unique singer/songwriters from all over the world such as Pedro Aznar (Argentina), David Bowie (UK), Silje Nergaard (Norway), Noa (Israel), and Anna Maria Jopek (Poland).^[7]

Two of Metheny's recordings, The Way Up and Orchestrion, evidence the influence of American minimalist composer Steve Reich and utilize similar rhythmic figures structured around pulse. Reich's composition Electric Counterpoint was first recorded by Metheny and appears on the Different Trains CD released by Nonesuch Records in 1987.

Metheny Brothers[link]

Pat took part in recording some of the CDs by his older brother, trumpeter Mike Metheny, a jazz musician and a trumpet player based in Kansas City, Missouri, among them Day In - Night Out (1986) and more recently Close Enough for Love (2001).^[8][9]

Bibliography[link]

• Goins, Wayne E. (2001). Emotional Response to Music: Pat Metheny's Secret Story. Edwin Mellen Press. 

Discography[link]

Early recognition[link]

Chuck Lorre (producer of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory) mentions Pat Metheny in his weekly 'vanity card'^[10] (shown briefly after the credits of the Season 1 Episode 12 episode of The Big Bang Theory entitled "The Jerusalem Duality"). To summarize, Chuck Lorre was a professional guitarist at the age of 22. He was invited to audit a jazz guitar class at the University of Miami, and his ego was crushed when Pat Metheny began to play. Chuck says that this experience played a part in shifting his focus toward television.

Awards & Recognition[link]

In 2011, Pat Metheny was voted "Guitarist of the Year" in the DownBeat Magazine's Readers Poll.

In 2010, Pat Metheny was voted "Guitarist of the Year" in the DownBeat Magazine's Readers Poll.

In 2009, Pat Metheny was voted "Guitarist of the Year" in the DownBeat Magazine Readers Poll.

In 1995, Pat Metheny was granted the Miles Davis Award by the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

List of Grammy Awards received by Pat Metheny:^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pat Metheny

• The Pat Metheny homepage - biographies, discographies, discussion and songbook forums, tour dates, etc.
• The most complete Pat Metheny discography with radio shows, promos a. o.
• Pat Metheny entry at AllMusic.com
• Pat Metheny profile, NNDB
• Pat Metheny's guitar rig
• Pat Metheny at the Internet Movie Database
• Pat Metheny discography at MusicBrainz
• Pat Metheny's artist file on the Montreal International Jazz Festival's website

George Kelly Barnes
Mugshot of George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes
Born	(1895-07-18)July 18, 1895 Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Died	July 18, 1954(1954-07-18) (aged 59) Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kansas, U.S.
Charge(s)	Conspiracy to kidnap and bank robbing
Occupation	Gangster, bootlegger and businessman
Spouse	Kathryn Kelly

George Celino Barnes (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954), better known as "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster during the prohibition era.^[1][2] His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thompson submachine gun. His most famous crime was the kidnapping of oil tycoon and businessman Charles Urschel in July 1933 for which he, and his gang, earned $200,000 ransom. Unfortunately, their victim had collected and left considerable evidence that assisted the subsequent FBI investigation that eventually led to Kelly's arrest in Memphis, Tennessee on September 26, 1933.^[2] His crimes also included bootlegging and armed robbery.

Career[link]

During the Prohibition era of the 1920s and 1930s Kelly worked as a bootlegger for himself as well as a colleague. After a short time, and several run-ins with the local Memphis police, he decided to leave town and head west with his girlfriend. To protect his family and escape law enforcement officers, he changed his name to George R. Kelly.^[3] He continued to commit smaller crimes and bootlegging. He was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for smuggling liquor onto an Indian Reservation in 1928 and sentenced for three years to Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas, beginning February 11, 1928. He was reportedly a model inmate and was released early. Shortly thereafter, Kelly married Kathryn Thorne, who purchased Kelly’s first machine gun and went to great lengths to familiarize his name in the underground crime circles. She was known to hand out the expended .45cal cartridge casings from his Tommy Gun as souvenirs. Some historians claim that Kathryn even went so far as to plot some small bank robberies.^{[citation needed]}

George "Machine Gun" Kelly is led from Shelby County Jail enroute to the Memphis airport and Oklahoma City for his trial for the kidnapping of Charles F. Urschel, October 2, 1933

Nonetheless, Kelly’s last criminal activity proved disastrous when he kidnapped a wealthy Oklahoma City resident, Charles F. Urschel and his friend Walter R. Jarrett. Urschel, having been blindfolded, made sure to foil his kidnappers by noting all possible evidence of his experience such as background sounds, counting footsteps and leaving fingerprints on every surface in reach. This in turn proved invaluable for the FBI in their investigation, as they learned that Urschel had been held in Paradise, Texas.

Machine Gun Kelly's hideout at 1408 Rayner Street in Memphis, Tennnessee (2010)

An investigation conducted at Memphis disclosed that after 56 days on the run, the Kellys were staying at the residence of J.C. Tichenor. Special Agents from Birmingham, Alabama, headed by Special Agent in Charge, William "ash" Rorer, were immediately dispatched to Memphis on the orders of J. Edgar Hoover, where, in the early morning hours of September 26, 1933 a raid was conducted, led by agent Rorer. George and Kathryn Kelly were taken into custody and Memphis police officers Sergeant William Raney and officer Thomas Waterson. Caught without a weapon, George Kelly supposedly cried, "Don’t shoot, G-Men! Don’t shoot, G-Men!" as he surrendered to FBI Agents. The term (which had applied to all federal investigators, meaning simply 'Government Men') became synonymous with FBI Agents. Reports of the raid, however, indicate that George Kelly came to the door, dropped his pistol and said, "Okay, boys, I’ve been waiting for you all night." Recent research revealed a 1933 newspaper interview with one of the federal agents at the arrest. He commented that, upon their arrest, Kathryn Kelly put her arms around George and said, "These G-men will never leave us alone." The FBI press machine generated the G-Man story to build its own reputation.^[4] The arrest of the Kellys, however, was overshadowed by the escape of John Dillinger's gang from Michigan City, Indiana.

In October 1933, George and Kathryn Kelly were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial was held at the Post Office, Courthouse and Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. Kathryn Kelly and her mother had all charges dropped and were released in 1958 from prison in Cincinnati.

The kidnapping of Urschel and the two trials that resulted were historic in several ways: 1) they were the only federal criminal trials in the United States in which moving cameras were allowed to film; 2) the first kidnapping trials after the passage of the so-called Lindbergh Law, which made kidnapping a federal crime; 3) the first major case solved by J. Edgar Hoover’s evolving and powerful FBI. For that, Kelly got sent into Alcatraz; 4) the first crime in which defendants were transported by airplane. At the time, it was the largest ransom ever paid in the United States.

Death[link]

His gravestone marked "George B. Kelley"

Machine Gun Kelly spent his remaining 21 years in prison. During his time at Alcatraz he got the nickname "Pop Gun Kelly." This was in reference, according to a former prisoner, to the fact that Kelly was a model prisoner and was nowhere near the tough, brutal gangster his wife made him out to be. He spent 17 years on Alcatraz, working in the prison industries, and was quietly transferred back to Leavenworth in 1951. He died of a heart attack at Leavenworth Federal Prison, Kansas on July 18, 1954, his 59th birthday. He is buried at Cottondale Texas Cemetery with a small headstone marked "George B. Kelley 1954".^[5]

In popular culture[link]

• Crime novelist Ace Atkins' 2010 book Infamous is based on the Urschel kidnapping and subsequent multi-state misadventures of George and Kathryn Kelly as they attempted to flee both the FBI and other gangsters eager to claim the Urschel ransom money.
• Machine Gun Kelly and Kathryn Kelly were the inspiration for "Machine Gun Kelly" (1970), a song written by Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar and recorded by James Taylor on his 1971 Album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon.
• Machine Gun Kelly and his crimes were (loosely) portrayed in the 1958 film Machine-Gun Kelly starring Charles Bronson.
• Machine Gun Kelly is a central character in the 1974 TV film Melvin Purvis: G-Man.
• Kelly is (along with Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson) one of the main characters of the comic book series Pretty, Baby, Machine.
• Punk band the Angelic Upstarts released a single in 1984 titled Machine Gun Kelly.
• Machine Gun Kelly is referenced in the film So I Married an Axe Murderer by Phil Hartman's character while touring Alcatraz.
• In the song "MVP" by the late Harlem rapper Big L, he says: "I run up like Machine Gun Kelly, with a black skully, put one in your belly, leave you smelly, then take your Pelle Pelle."
• In the song "Bluesman" by Harry Chapin, there's a line that goes "No! A fool plays the blues like Machine Gun Kelly, Five hundred notes to the bar...".
• Female Rapper Foxy Brown refers to "Machine Gun Kelly" in her song "Massacre"
• Mentioned in These Animal Men's I'm Not Your Babylon: "Machine Gun Kelly was the first to crack".
• Rapper of the same name from Cleveland, Ohio. See Machine Gun Kelly (rapper).

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Machine Gun Kelly

Further reading[link]

• Hamilton, Stanley (2003). Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1247-5. 
• Atkins, Ace (2010). Infamous. G.P. Putnam's Sons. 
• Dowd, James (April 26, 2010). Book tells tale of capturing infamous Machine Gun Kelly. Memphis Commercial Appeal (newspaper). http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/apr/26/capturing-kelly/. 

External links[link]

• Machine Gun Kelly at Find a Grave
• FBI file on George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes

Werner Erhard
Werner Erhard in 1977
Born	(1935-09-05) September 5, 1935 (age 76) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation	Retired[1]
Spouse	Patricia Fry, September 26, 1953–1960 (divorced) Ellen Erhard (June Bryde), March 29, 1960 – November 1983 (divorced)
Children	7
Website
wernererhard.com

Werner Hans Erhard^[2]:7 (born John Paul Rosenberg, September 5, 1935) is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations.^[3][4] He is currently writing about integrity, performance^[5] and leadership^[6][7] and has lectured at (among others) Harvard,^[5][8] Yale,^[9] USC,^[10] the University of Rochester^[11] and Rotterdam School of Management^[12]

Erhard was first known for "The est Training" (1971–1983) and "The Forum" (1984–1991), which were offered to the public through an organizational structure that included Erhard Seminars Training Inc. (1971–1975), est, an educational corporation (1975–1981), and Werner Erhard & Associates (WEA, 1981–1991). Erhard, along with John Denver, Robert W. Fuller, and others, founded The Hunger Project in 1977.

In 1991, Erhard retired from business, sold his then-existing intellectual property to a group of his former employees (who formed Landmark Education) and moved abroad.

Early life (1935–1971)[link]

John Paul Rosenberg was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 5, 1935.^[2]:6[13] His father was a small restaurant owner who left Judaism for a Baptist mission before joining his wife in the Episcopal Church^[2]:6[13] where she taught Sunday School.^[2]:6 They agreed that their son should choose his religion for himself when he was old enough.^[2]:6 He chose to be baptized in the Episcopal Church, served there for eight years as an acolyte^[2]:6 and has been an Episcopalian ever since.^[14]

He graduated from Norristown High School, Norristown, Pennsylvania, in June 1953, along with his future wife Patricia Fry.^[2]:30 Rosenberg married Fry on September 26, 1953^[15]:4 and they had four children together.^[2]:51 In 1960, he left Fry and their children in Philadelphia, traveled to Indianapolis with June Bryde^[15]:4 and changed his name to Werner Hans Erhard.^{[16]:382–383} Rosenberg chose his new name from Esquire magazine articles he read about then West German economics minister Ludwig Erhard and the philosopher and physicist Werner Heisenberg.^[2]:57–58 June Bryde changed her name to Ellen Virginia Erhard.^[16]:383 The renamed Erhards moved to St. Louis, where Erhard took a job as a car salesman.^[16]:383 His wife and children were forced to rely on welfare and help from family and friends, and after five years without contact, Patricia Rosenberg divorced Erhard for desertion and remarried.^[16]:383

In 1961, Erhard sold correspondence courses in the Midwest, then California, and eventually moved to Spokane, Washington.^[2]:85 After a few months, he took a job with Encyclopædia Britannica's "Great Books" program and was soon promoted to area training manager. In January 1962, Erhard switched to the Parents Magazine Cultural Institute, a division of W.R.Grace & Co.^[2]:112 In the summer of 1962, he was promoted to the position of territorial manager for California, Nevada, and Arizona, and moved to San Francisco; and in the spring of 1963 to Los Angeles.^[2]:82–106 In January 1964, Parents promoted Erhard and transferred him to Arlington, Virginia as a southeast manager.^[2]:94 In August 1964, Erhard resigned his position in Arlington over a dispute with the company president and returned to his previous position in San Francisco.^{[2]:107–114}

The Erhards moved into an apartment in Sausalito and had a second daughter, Adair, on December 27, 1964. In the next few years, Erhard brought on as staff at Parents many people who would become important in est, including Elaine Cronin, Gonneke Spits and Laurel Scheaf. In 1967, Erhard was promoted to vice president.^{[17]:117–138}

Influences[link]

During his time in St. Louis, Erhard read two books which were to have a marked effect on him: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (1937) and Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz (1960).^[16]:383 When a member of his staff at Parents Magazine introduced him to the ideas of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, both key figures in the human potential movement, his interests became more focused on personal fulfillment rather than sales success.^[16] After his move to Sausalito, he attended talks by Alan Watts, a notable Western interpreter of Zen Buddhism, who introduced him to the distinction between mind and self;^[16] Erhard subsequently became close friends with Watts.^{[2]:117–138} In William Bartley's biography, Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est (1978), Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging Zen as the essential contribution that "created the space for" est.^[2]:146,147 Bartley details Erhard's connections with Zen beginning with his extensive studies with Alan Watts in the mid 1960s^[2]:118 and quotes Erhard as acknowledging:

Of all the disciplines that I studied, practiced, learned, Zen was the essential one. It was not so much an influence on me, rather it created space. It allowed those things that were there to be there. It gave some form to my experience. And it built up in me the critical mass from which was kindled the experience that produced est.^[2]:118

Erhard attended the Dale Carnegie course in 1967.^[16] He was sufficiently impressed with it to make his staff attend the course as well, and began to think about developing a course of his own.^[16] Over the following years, Erhard continued to investigate a wide range of other new religious and therapeutic movements, including Encounter, Transactional Analysis, Enlightenment Intensive, Subud and Scientology.^[16]:383 Erhard read L. Ron Hubbard extensively, and Scientology ideas have influenced both est and The Forum.^[16]:383 Erhard later said, "I have a lot of respect for L. Ron Hubbard and I consider him to be a genius and perhaps less acknowledged than he ought to be."^[16]:383 William Bartley, in his biography of Werner Erhard, recounts that he asked Erhard to describe the differences between est and Scientology; Erhard replied:

The essential difference between est and Scientology is two-fold. The first has to do with Scientology’s emphasis on survival and its idea that the purpose of life is survival. est sees the purpose of life as wholeness or completion – truth – not survival.

The other main difference between est and Scientology lies in the treatment of knowing. Ron Hubbard seems to have no difficulty in codifying the truth and in urging people to believe it. But I suspect all codifications, particularly my own. In presenting my own ideas, I emphasize their epistemological context. I hold them as pointers to the truth, not as the truth itself.

I don’t think anyone ought to believe the ideas that we use in est. The est philosophy is not a belief system and most certainly ought not to be believed. In any case, even the truth, when believed, is a lie. You must experience the truth, not believe it.^[2]:151,157

In 1970, Erhard became involved in Mind Dynamics.^[16]:383 Founded by Alexander Everett, Mind Dynamics seminars included teachings based on Rosicrucianism and Theosophy, as well as the methods of Edgar Cayce and José Silva, founder of Silva Mind Control.^{[16]:383–384} Erhard subsequently trained as a Mind Dynamics instructor with Everett, and took over the San Francisco Mind Dynamics franchise, teaching classes in San Francisco and soon also Los Angeles.^[16]:384 The two directors of Mind Dynamics (William Penn Patrick and Alexander Everett) eventually invited him into their partnership, but Erhard rejected the offer, saying he would rather develop his own seminar program – "est", which he announced on September 13, 1971, at his last Mind Dynamics course in San Francisco.^[16]:384

Est era (1971–1984)[link]

"est", short for Erhard Seminars Training, also Latin for "It is," offered intensive communications and self-empowerment workshops.^[16]:384 Their purpose was "to transform one's ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change or had been putting up with, clear up just in the process of life itself."^[16]:384 Participants at est workshops had to adhere to strict rules and were given designated breaks for bathroom visits and one meal break.^[16]:384 They were not permitted to smoke, eat or drink during the workshop.^[16]:384 Sessions lasted from 9:00 am to midnight or the early hours of the morning, with one meal break.^[16]:384 Participants were frequently referred to as "estholes"; they had to hand over wristwatches and were not allowed to take notes, or to speak unless called upon, in which case they had to wait for a microphone to be brought to them.^[16]:384 The second day of the workshop featured the "danger process".^[16]:384 Groups of participants were brought onto the stage and confronted by est staff, trying to provoke a reaction; afterwards, participants were asked to "imagine that they were afraid of everyone else and then that everyone else was afraid of them."^[16]:384 This was followed by lectures on the third and fourth days, covering topics such as reality and the nature of the mind, ending with the conclusion that "what is, is and what ain't, ain't," and that "true enlightenment is knowing you are a machine."^[16]:384 Participants were told they were perfect the way they were and were asked to indicate by a show of hands if they "had gotten it".^[16]:384

While Erhard led all the early est courses himself, by the mid-1970s there were ten trainers trained by him.^[16]:384 Once est proved to be successful, Erhard contacted his first wife and the children he had left behind; both his ex-wife Pat and his own younger siblings subsequently took jobs in the est organization.^[16]:384 Further est centers opened in Los Angeles, Aspen, Honolulu and New York, and est was enthusiastically endorsed by celebrities such as John Denver and Valerie Harper.^[16]:384

Werner Erhard Foundation (1973–1991)[link]

In the early 1970s, the est Foundation became the Werner Erhard Foundation^[18] with the aim of "providing financial and organizational support to individuals and groups engaged in charitable and educational pursuits – research, communication, education, and scholarly endeavors in the fields of individual and social transformation and human well-being". Among its activities was an annual lecture series in physics, a science in which Erhard was especially interested.^[19][20] These lectures attracted leading names in theoretical physics of the era, including Stephen Hawking,^[20] Leonard Susskind and Richard Feynman.^[21]

Werner Erhard and Associates (1981–1991) and "The Forum"[link]

In the 1980s, Erhard worked with Fernando Flores ^[22] — philosopher, senator ^[23] of Chile and businessman, and created a new program called "the Forum", which began in January 1985.

On February 1, 1991,^{[citation needed]} some of the employees of Werner Erhard and Associates purchased its assets, licensed the right to use its intellectual property and assumed some of its liabilities, paying $3 million and committing to remitting up to $15 million over the following 18 years in licensing fees.^[24] Shortly afterwards the new owners established Landmark Education.^[25] Presentations that evolved from the "Forum" continue to take place today^[update] in major cities in the US and worldwide as the "Landmark Forum" under the auspices of Landmark Education.

1991 – present[link]

Since his retirement in 1991, Erhard has kept a low profile except for a few public appearances. He appeared on Larry King Live in an episode titled "Whatever Happened to Werner Erhard?" via satellite from Moscow, Russia on December 8, 1993. As of 2001^[update] Erhard maintained a residence with Gonneke Spits in Georgetown, Cayman Islands.^[26]

He has worked in the area of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland with author Peter Block.^[27] He attended an event on May 11, 2004 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University entitled "From Thought to Action: Growing Leaders in a Changing World". The event was in honor of a friend, Warren Bennis, who had taken Erhard Seminars Training and then consulted for Werner Erhard and Associates.

In recent years Erhard has devoted his time to academic investigation, and presentations in writing and lectures of his ideas. In 2007, Werner Erhard presented a talk exploring the link between integrity, leadership, and increased performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for Public Leadership,^[28] led a course on integrity at the 2007 MIT Sloan School of Management’s SIP (Sloan Innovation Period),^[29] and spoke at the Harvard Law School program on Corporate Governance.^[30] In 2008, he took part in a presentation on integrity at DePaul University^[31] and co-led a course on leadership at the Simon School of Business.^[32] In 2009 he presented Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model at the Gruter Institute Squaw Valley Conference: Law, Behavior & the Brain.^[33]

Erhard was selected to contribute to the 2011 Harvard University publication, The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing and Being,^[34] edited by the Dean of Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria^[35] and HBS leadership professors Scott Snook and Rakesh Khurana.^[36] In their introduction the editors write, “Erhard, Jensen and Granger anchor this collection by taking dead aim at the BE component. In a highly provocative chapter titled “Creating Leaders”, this eclectic group of scholars argues for adopting a decidedly ontological approach to leadership education...For these authors, integrity, authenticity, and being committed to something bigger than oneself form the base of ‘the context for leadership,’ a context that once mastered, leaves one actually being a leader. It is not enough to know about or simply understand these foundational factors, but rather by following a rigorous, phenomenologically based methodology, students have the opportunity to create for themselves a context that leaves them actually being a leader and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression." ^[37]

Disputes[link]

On March 3, 1991, CBS News broadcast an episode of the program 60 Minutes titled "Werner Erhard".^[38][39] The program, which CBS later removed from their archives for factual inaccuracies,^[40] featured allegations, which were later retracted,^[41][42] of sexual abuse, incest, and physical abuse made by Erhard's daughters and associates.^[43][44] On March 3, 1992, Erhard sued CBS, San Jose Mercury News reporter John Hubner and approximately twenty other defendants for libel, defamation, slander, and invasion of privacy, as well as conspiracy.^[45][46] On May 20, 1992, Erhard filed for dismissal of his own case and sent checks for $100 to each of the defendants, covering their filing fees in the case.^[47] Erhard later told Larry King in an interview that he dropped the suit after receiving legal advice telling him that in order to win it, it would not be sufficient to prove that CBS knew the allegations were false, but that he would also need to prove that CBS acted with malice.^[48] Erhard stated to King that his family members (as reported in Time Magazine)^[42] had since retracted their allegations, which had been made under pressure from CBS, and that accusations of tax evasion aired in the program were "misunderstandings" that were in the process of being resolved.^[48]

Erhard's daughters later retracted the allegations they had made against their father.^[41][42] Celeste Erhard, one of the daughters featured in the CBS program, subsequently sued journalist John Hubner and the San Jose Mercury News seeking US$2 million.^[49] Celeste Erhard accused the newspaper of having "defrauded her and invaded her privacy".^[49] She asserted that she had exaggerated information, had been promised a book deal to be co-authored with Hubner for revenue of $2 million, and stated on the record that the articles and her appearance on CBS television's 60 Minutes were to get publicity for the book.^[49][50] Celeste Erhard did not dispute the accuracy of the quotes in the newspaper.^[51] The case was dismissed in August 1993, the judge ruling that the statute of limitation had expired and that Celeste Erhard "had suffered no monetary damages or physical harm and that she failed to present legal evidence that Hubner had deliberately misled her."^[49]

The video of the CBS 60 Minutes program was subsequently withdrawn from the market.^[52] Suzanne Snider in The Believer, May 2003, reported that it "was filled with so many factual discrepancies that the transcript was made unavailable with this disclaimer: 'This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons.'"^[40]

In 1992 a court ruled that "The Forum" had not caused any “mental injuries” to Stephanie Ney; though it entered a default judgment of $380,000 against Werner Erhard – in absentia.^[15]:262

In 1993, Erhard filed a wrongful disclosure lawsuit against the IRS, asserting that IRS agents had inappropriately revealed to the media details of information from his tax returns.^[53] In the first half of April 1991, IRS spokesmen were widely quoted as saying that "Erhard owed millions of dollars in back taxes, that he was transferring assets out of the country, and that the agency was suing Erhard", branding Erhard a "tax cheat".^[53] On April 15, the IRS was reported to have placed a lien of $6.7 million on personal property belonging to Erhard.^[54] Erhard stated that he had never refused to pay taxes that were lawfully due.^[53] In September 1996, the IRS settled the lawsuit with Erhard, paying him $200,000 in damages; IRS officials admitted that media reports quoting them on Erhard's tax liabilities had been false, and that they took no action to have the media correct these statements.^[53][55]

A private investigator quoted in the Los Angeles Times stated that by October 1989, Scientology had collected five filing cabinets worth of materials about Erhard, many from ex-members of est who had joined Scientology, and that Scientology was clearly in the process of organizing a "media blitz" aimed at discrediting Erhard.^[56] According to Harry Rosenberg, Erhard's brother, "Werner made some very, very powerful enemies. They really got him."^[41]

Impact[link]

"Erhard’s influence extends far beyond the couple of million people who have done his courses: there is hardly a self-help book or a management training programme that does not borrow some of his principles."^[57] Erhard and his programs have been cited^[58] as having a significant cultural impact on America in the 1970s.^[59] Erhard’s teachings have influenced the field of professional “Life Coaching,” although Erhard was not considered to be a coach. The late Thomas Leonard, who was the founder of Coach U, the International Coach Federation, Coachville and the International Association of Coaches was an est employee in the 1980‘s. ^[60] Paul Fireman (former CEO of Reebok),^[61] Peter Block,^[62] leadership expert Warren Bennis,^[63] and economist Michael Jensen,^[64][65] spoke positively of Erhard. Tiger Woods' father cited est as helping him become a better parent.^[66] Over the years, Werner Erhard’s philosophy has been cited in helping to promote^[67] a multi-billion-dollar personal growth industry based on Erhard's original concepts.^[68][69]

The validity of Erhard's work and his motivations have been met with mixed reviews. Psychiatrist Marc Galanter described Erhard as "a man with no formal experience in mental health, self help, or religious revivalism, but a background in retail sales."^[70] Michael Zimmerman, Philosophy Professor at Tulane University, described Erhard as "a kind of artist, a thinker, an inventor, who has big debts to others, borrowed from others, but then put the whole thing together in a way that no one else had ever done."^[71] Philosophy professor Robert Todd Carroll referred to est as a "hodge-podge of philosophical bits and pieces culled from the carcasses of existential philosophy, motivational psychology."^[72] Social critic John Bassett MacCleary called Erhard "a former used-car salesman" and est "just another moneymaking scam."^[73] NYU psychology professor Paul Vitz noted that est "was primarily a business" and that its "style of operation has been labeled as fascist."^[74]

Related organizations[link]

The Hunger Project[link]

Along with John Denver and Oberlin College President Robert W. Fuller, Erhard co-founded the non-profit organization, The Hunger Project. In 1977 Erhard authored the Hunger Project Source Document, subtitled, “The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come.”^[75]

Landmark education[link]

In 1991 the group that would shortly form Landmark Education purchased the intellectual property of Werner Erhard. In 1998, Time Magazine published an article^[76] about Landmark Education and its historical connection to Werner Erhard. The article stated that: "In 1991, before he left the U.S., Erhard sold the 'technology' behind his seminars to his employees, who formed a new company called the Landmark Education Corp., with Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg at the helm." Landmark Education states that its programs have as their basis ideas originally developed by Erhard, but that Erhard has no financial interest, ownership, or management role in Landmark Education.^[77] In Stephanie Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation (1994),^[78] the courts determined Landmark Education Corporation did not have successor-liability to Werner Erhard & Associates, the corporation whose assets Landmark Education purchased.

According to Pressman in Outrageous Betrayal: Landmark Education further agreed to pay Erhard a long-term licensing fee for the material used in the Forum and other courses. Erhard stood to earn up to $15 million over the next 18 years."^{[15]:253–255} However, Arthur Schreiber's declaration of May 3, 2005 states: "Landmark Education has never paid Erhard under the license agreements (he assigned his rights to others)." ^[79]

In 2001, New York Magazine reported that Landmark Education's CEO Harry Rosenberg said that the company had bought outright Erhard's license and his rights to the business in Japan and Mexico.^[26] From time to time Erhard consults with Landmark Education.^[80]

Barbados group[link]

The Barbados Group represents a "self-selected group of scholars, consultants and practitioners"^[81] which aims to build an ontological paradigm of performance in organizations.^[82] The group and its main publication-vehicle SSRN both have at their head Michael Jensen, Emeritus Professor at the Harvard Business School. Werner Erhard's Barbados Group publications can be found at SSRN.^[83] Some members of the Barbados Group are affiliated with Landmark Education.^[84]

The Barbados Group was analyzed by economics journalist and author David Warsh, in an article in Economic Principals.^[85]

Film[link]

[edit] The Century of the Self

Werner Erhard was featured in the 2002 British documentary by Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self, episode part 3 of 4. This segment of the video discusses the est Training in detail, and includes interviews with est graduates John Denver, and Jerry Rubin.

[edit] Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard

In 2006, Erhard appeared in the documentary Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard.^[86] The film was co-produced by Walter Maksym, who had earlier served as Erhard's attorney.^[86]

Publications[link]

Selected Bibliography[link]

• Handbook For Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being; edited by Scott Snook, Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana - Chapter 16 - Creating Leaders: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model, authored by Werner Erhard, Michael C. Jensen, and Kari Granger.^[87]
• The Hunger Project Source Document - The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come^[88]
• Introductory Reading for Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological Model^[89]
• Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics, and Legality^[89]

Others[link]

• Bartley, III, William Warren Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of est, New York, New York, USA: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc (1978) ISBN 0-517-53502-5.
• Pressman, Steven Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile, New York, New York, USA: St. Martin's Press (1993) ISBN 0-312-09296-2
• Bry, Adelaide est: 60 Hours That Transform Your life, Harper Collins (1976) ISBN 978-0-06-010562-4
• Hargrove, Robert est: Making Life Work, Delacorte (1976) ISBN 978-0-440-19556-6
• Kettle, James The est Experience, Zebra Books (1976) ISBN 978-0-89083-168-7
• Marks, Pat R. est: The Movement and the Man, Playboy Press (1976) ASIN B004BI5A3E
• Weir, D., Noyes, D. Raising Hell How the Center for Investigative Reporting Gets the Story, (Chapter on "Let Them Eat est.") Addison-Wesley (1983) ISBN 0-201-10858-5
• Rhinehart, Luke The Book of est, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1976) ISBN 978-0-557-30615-2
• Self, Jane 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard: How America's Top Rated Television Show Was Used in an Attempt to Destroy a Man Who Was Making A Difference Breakthru Publishing (1992) ISBN 0-942540-23-9
• Fenwick, Sheridan Getting It: The psychology of est, J. B. Lippincott Company. (1976) ISBN 0-397-01170-9

Notes[link]