Pianist/composer Louis Durra has worked with The Jazz Tap Ensemble, Savion Glover, Bill Holman, Ruben Blades, many vocalists. He was nominated for several awards for Music Direction of "Play It Cool". He and his trio have recorded Long-Playing, 33? Stereophonic Compact Discs. www.louisdurra.com
I played two sessions for film composer Miriam Cutler. She had scored a documentary about journalist Helen Thomas for HBO. She'd 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'd already recorded accordion, terrific playing by Nick Ariondo. My parts doubled his sometimes. Everything else in the monitors was 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 I do. At sessions, I usually want much less piano in the cans than anyone else does. Since my cue mix was the same as the control room, we had to compromise a bit on levels...
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 a pleasure to be around them and work with them. Last week I went to a theater and saw another documentary of hers I played on previously, a really interesting film. It's nice that her music is getting out there and that people have an opportunity to see these films.
What is Jazz? If you hafta ask, you ain't never gonna know!
– Fats Waller
Antiphonal: referring to the prohibition of cell phones in the concert hall.
