I played four sessions over a few days time. At each session, the demands were a little different. Here's what happened...
The first two were sessions for film composer Miriam Cutler. She had scored a documentary about journalist Helen Thomas. She had done a MIDI mockup of the score and was replacing the parts with acoustic instruments. For the first session I brought a Roland VK-8 over to her house, an organ with drawbars that imitates a Hammond B3 well.
We started by listening to some of the soundtrack of “Get Shorty”. Green Onions was in the soundtrack and there were good greasy organ parts on other cues. We used what we heard as a starting point for sounds. I decided to get sounds entirely by shifting drawbars, not using presets and a volume pedal because that way I could make the sound evolve during long notes or over the length of the cue. I memorized a drawbar starting point for each cue so I could get back when I needed to. It made the parts more expressive.
She had already recorded accordion, terrific playing by Nick Ariondo. My parts doubled his sometimes. Everything else in the monitors were parts from her MIDI mockup. The accordion spoke kind of slowly, the organ speaks quickly, so I was listening to the click and to his parts and estimating when to play. When overdubbing I listen and try to remember the timing of as many of the attacks and releases as I can. It’s like counting cards -- “these are right on the click; these hits are late; these two parts are flamming...
We had a good time doing it. We started listening to dialogue as we recorded. Miriam is a "sperienced" film composer, sensitive to dialogue and editing. She's also a nice, bright, cultured type so it's always nice working with her. Sometimes I was playing her written parts, sometimes she was having me get away from the score and it was a nice challenge to improvise parts yet stay suitable to dialogue. As we listened, she had the accordion down and the organ up…I said, “why don’t you put it a little the opposite, have the accordion up and the organ behind?". That ended up being a nice thing; it made the music sound more human and greasy.
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The next morning, we met at Carl Sealove’s to record piano for the same documentary. Carl has a Mason Hamlin – it’s a terrific instrument. I struggle with the headphone mix there sometimes since they usually listen to the same monitor mix that I do. At sessions, I hear a lot of piano acoustically since I'm sitting at it -- I usually want much less piano in the cans than anyone else does.
There were a few kinds of cues, she was conservative with her themes. There were triadic even parts - really simple and effective. You really felt tension and release. There was swinging, bluesy piano parts that went with the organ. She used the same ideas in different cues but with different tempos, keys and scoring so it was a nice varied score. I liked what was going down. Again, I was playing with the accordion and sometimes with the organ that I played the night before, and since the accordion spoke a little slowly I would find myself playing later…playing behind the click to match the accordion. When I finished, Carl was going to play bass on the cues, I hope it wasn't too hard to follow!
Carl recorded in Digital Performer (which is what Miriam uses). We went from cue to cue very quickly and Miriam would have me do several passes. One where I would play the written part, then other passes where she would make requests like, “play something high and loopy”, “play something that fills up the middle”, “just go nuts on this one in a Kurt Weill kind of way” -- it’s a nice way to work. It must mean a lot of extra listening and editing for her when she’s done -- but we’ve done several scores like this and she seems like she enjoys every part of the process. Again, these are smart, witty people. It’s really a pleasure to be around them and work with them.
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That was Thursday night and Friday night…the following Monday night Matt Aschkynazo and I went to Stagg Street Studio in Van Nuys. Gary Denton, the studio owner, engineered… We had done some quartet recording before with Larry Steen playing acoustic bass and Chris Wabich playing drums. We were coming back to replace a couple of guitar solos. Matt wanted me along to listen and to record a couple of duo tunes. Stagg Street has a Yamaha C7, they’ve changed out the action and revoiced it. It was sounding good.
We got started around 9pm. There had been a little leakage at the original session and it became clear that wherever he wanted to replace guitar, I’d have to replace piano. We started with the duo tunes, I’m really curious to hear what went down on one of them. It was a bluesy tune, a Scofield tune, "Heaven Hill". We tried a “drunk and stoned” way of playing on one of the takes and made the time wobble all through the take. We were both having fun. I don’t know if it was a keeper but it was great fun playing that way... We worked our way down our "list. We got plenty done but I felt myself getting tired and snippy. We'd only worked 3 hours but it was close to midnight and I was fading. Recording when you're not alert or feeling well can be a real test. Once I played a session after scratching my cornea. The playing went well but I was in this weird kind of pain! Matt suggested we come back another night and I was releaved.
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Wednesday morning I had a session to record a piece with a vocalist called, “O Sleep, Why Dost Thou Leave Me?” -- an art song by Handel. The session was with a tenor who was using it as part of an audition reel. Karen Swerdlow sent the project my way and she has a Kawai tall upright at her studio -- not the first choice for a classical music session but workable. The vocalist had a sweet lyric tenor sound and sangthe song very well.
The morning of the session I spent an hour trying different ornamentation – trills and mordents and working out fingerings until I ended up with something that sounded good to me - and a little intricate. When I got to the studio, I went straight to the piano and tried phrases, getting the right touch to evoke a clavichord... The tenor asked me if I would try a keyboard with a harpsichord sound for this? We tried a Korg Triton…it sounded wa-a-y too cheesy. I can’t remember ever hearing a keyboard harpsichord spatch sound good. So we used the piano and it worked it out well.
The vocalist was happy with the second take so we called it. One of those questions we all wrestle with: I felt like I had a better take in me, but the client said we were done. I often wonder whether to say something or not. (I did a session with Guitarist Jeff Golub once and he was not shy about asking for additional takes until he was happy, maybe I should be more assertive like that). The vocalist sounded very good; I've lost his card or I'd mention him here.
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