One woman, two careers

Marin native practices psychology, plays violin and composes

By Paul Liberatore

IJ senior feature writer

PATTI WEISS considered becoming a doctor - until a physician friend warned her that she wouldn't have time to study medicine and work as a professional musician at the same time.

So she decided to lower her sights - but not by much.

"The only way to balance both was to get a Ph.D. in clinical psychology instead," she says.

And that's what she did, receiving a doctorate in neuropsychology in 1999, four months after her debut album came out.

"She's a very smart person, which is an advantage for a musician, especially if you're a virtuoso," says guitarist Matthew Montfort, who has hired Weiss to perform with his world fusion band, Ancient Future, and has played with her in other groups.

"She plays with lots of fire," he says. "And I enjoy talking about psychology with her."

For the past six years, Weiss has worked with troubled teen-agers in the adolescent psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco.

During that time, she also played as a guest musician with the Gipsy Kings on their last three North American tours, has composed and performed music for five movies, including "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," written by her childhood friend, Audrey Wells, and has released her debut album, "Surrounded by Angels."

She did all that while at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in Palo Alto.

"I'm not the kind of person who can do music full-time," she says one morning over tea in her parents' Sausalito home.,"I'm too hyper to sit still long enough to practice. Two hours is my limit. Plus I knew I couldn't be happy on the road. I need more structure in my life."

Weiss believes her dual interest in mental health and music stems from her admiration of her father, Jules Weiss, a psychiatrist and avid cellist. Her mother, Dorothy, former owner of Bay Tree Books in Mill Valley, plays the piano. When she was growing up, Weiss and her parents would play together in living-roomi trios.

At age 6, Wetss began studying classical violin. When she was a 14-year-old student at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, she discovered the joys of jazz and improvisation during lunchtime jam sessions conducted by English teacher Dick Fregulia, a jazz pianist.

"I was the only violinist," she recalls, "and the only girl."

After high school, she studied for a year at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, then left to trek from Greece to India and overland through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and India, settling down for six months to study with Indian classical violinist Joi Shriwastava.

During her journey she met another Marin musician, pianist Anna Toso of Corte Madera. For four months, they performed as a duo in Sri Lanka, Nepal and India, collaborating on music that would eventual appear on "Surrounded by Angels."

After returning home, Weiss was accepted at the University of California at Berkeley and eventually she received a bachelor's degree in South Asian Languages.

She speaks Hindi and Urdu, which she admits are "not massively useful," as well as French, Italian, Persian and Spanish.

When she was in college in Berkeley, she spent nearly every night sitting in at jazz spots like Yoshi's and the noted blues joint Eli's Mile High Club. Before beginning graduate school, she taught violin in Paris and jammed in Parisian jazz clubs, where she met Regina Carter, a well-known American jazz violinist.

All of these exotic influences come together on "Surrounded by Angels," a multicultural album that she describes as "a musical journey around the world."

Weiss, 42, executive produced the project and financed it with $50,000 of her own money. Some 70 musicians, including a 22-piece gamelan orchestra, play on the album, which took six years to finish.

She is not shy about crediting extensive psychoanalysis for helping her achieve at such a high level.

"Everyone is slightly sell-defeating," she says. "Psychoanalysis can remove the blocks that affect your ability to perform at the peak of your abilities."

While some people have called her double life as a musician and a mental-health professional schizophrenic, she sees it as quite balanced, even symbiotic.

She has found that her credentials as a musician give her a cachet with the young people she deals with at St. Mary's, particularly when it comes to talking to them about drug abuse.

"BecauseI've been in the music business and seen so much of that, the kids will listen to me," she says. "It's not a magic wand, but it really helps."

While the teen-agers, many of them victims of mistreatment and abuse, receive help from her, she draws inspiration from them.

"Being around the kids gives me something to say in my music," she says. "To play music, you have to have something to say."

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