Dave Grusin; photograph by Sedal Sardan
Dave Grusin is a composer, arranger, and pianist. He has won numerous awards for his scores for feature films and television, including an Academy Award and twelve Grammys. He was the composer for Mike Nichols’ Oscar-winning film, The Graduate, and he was awarded an Oscar for best original score for The Milagro Beanfield War. He has been nominated for seven Oscars for films such as The Firm, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Havana, Heaven Can Wait, and On Golden Pond. About thirty-five CD titles are available that feature Dave Grusin’s work as producer, arranger, and musician.
Shadowgraph: You seem to be able to compose music for so many different genres—jazz, classical, film—it appears as though you could compose anything. Is that unusual among musicians?
Dave Grusin: No, I don’t think it is. Well, improvising is something that not every musician does. For a lot of classical musicians, that wasn’t part of their training, there was never any reason for them to improvise. But so many people go both ways, and I would say a lot of the improvisers I know, specifically the jazz guys, have dabbled or had their beginnings in classical music. But I don’t know too many of the “big guys” (like Chick Corea or Herbie Hancock) that spend a lot of time dealing with classical music, or film composition. I have an analogy I sometimes use … it feels like we’re steel balls in a pinball machine and we just bounce off things, so wherever we end up is the sum of that experience. So I don’t think composing in different genres per se is unusual. If you’ve spent your time doing these things, it’s not that big of a deal.
Shadowgraph: How were you trained?
Grusin: Oh, I just started taking lessons like any kid. My parents were both musicians. My dad was a good violinist. My mother played a little piano. She wasn’t really good but she did it for fun. There was always music in the house. And my father would walk around the house playing the violin.
Shadowgraph: Do you play more than just the piano?
Grusin: No. I had a minor in clarinet when I was in college. But I was never a very good player, and I played mostly to participate … because piano players don’t often get to play in groups.
Shadowgraph: I imagine that must be one of the amazing things about being a musician—the company. Do you prefer to work alone or to collaborate?
Grusin: In terms of writing music, I can’t really do it with anyone else in the room. For instance, when I write songs with lyric writers, a lot of them enjoy working in the same place at the same time, but I can’t do that. I have to take the words they write and run away and hide. I work alone and then come back and see if what I did was okay.
Shadowgraph: How would you describe how you create music?
Grusin: Well, because I’ve been doing it for a living for so long, it is a matter of identifying what the problem is that needs to be solved. It’s more like that than a wonderful artistic process, and particularly with film, something always needs to be solved. And how does that creative process happen in film? It’s triggered by whatever is needed. When I sit down to write, it’s a blank page. I didn’t study composition the way a lot of my heroes did, like Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin, and Leonard Rosenman, some of the great film composers whom I think are fantastic. My fantasy was, these guys were so full of structural understanding and analysis, and had such training in those areas, that they didn’t need to have an idea in their heads. They could just sit down, and by virtue of their education, they could write anything. And I’m not sure I’m wrong about that.
But to break down my process to the simplest basics: if I have an idea with only two different notes in it, that becomes my first statement. Then I ask where should it go from there… what are the next two notes? And maybe those first two notes are the question, and the next two are the answer. So, it’s all motivic. They are all little motifs. I find in my own experience that if I can come up with the beginning of a phrase, or, you know, not a whole piece by any means, but something motivic that is interesting enough for me to spend time on, it will almost always tell me where to go next.
Shadowgraph: I’ve noticed motifs in your work, especially in The Firm. How is that music created in relation to the story? Do you watch the film and then compose?
Grusin: It’s a long involved process, and in my own experience the routine is always similar. I know what the story is about, and I talk to the director and look at the film and spend time with him or the producer to decide just where music is going to go—where it starts and where it ends—and that can happen at any time during the filmmaking process. Sometimes those numbers don’t mean anything at the end because they’ve all changed during the edit. But mostly, for me, it’s a chance to find out what the filmmakers are thinking about, and what they want the music to do. My old friend Sidney Pollack, whom I did a lot of films with, always had a complicated idea about the music. First of all he was a huge fan of music in general….he just loved listening to it. And as we all got older, he started questioning whether or not what I came up with was totally right for the scene or just something that he liked because of how it sounded. So he’d ask if he was shooting himself in the foot by letting me do this or that theme. There was one hilarious statement I’ll never forget. We were recording a score… I think it was a picture called Random Hearts, one of the last ones we worked on together. I had a fairly large orchestra, and when I went in the booth to listen to the take, I noticed he had this quizzical look on his face. So I said, “What do you think?” And he said, “It’s just beautiful, it’s really beautiful. The only thing I’m worried about is that it sounds a little too much like music.” Hilarious. And yet I knew what he meant, because he’s really thinking about whether it’s serving the needs of his picture. So that’s the process.
But then, in the case of the The Firm, I did write music while he was shooting it in Memphis. He had been going every night to B.B. King’s jazz club, and he’d listen to piano and guitar blues, and he decided that the film ought to have a piano blues score. That’s how it started. And I thought, okay, great, that sounds like a lot of fun. And so I went on location—he was shooting in the Cayman Islands, and I was working on some blusey motivic things I had come up with, and he liked some of it. Then I began thinking that the “blues” genre by itself wasn’t going to serve the whole film. (I thought parts of it would need some dramatic score.) But he said, “Well, maybe, but it has to be just on piano.” He had gotten that into his head by then: he wanted a solo piano score. So that was his call, and as we were recording, I made sure I recorded it on a multi- track machine (it was tape in those days) cause I knew when it was all done, he was going to want to add an orchestra on there somewhere. But he was like a bulldog, he was nailed into that idea, and wouldn’t acquiesce at all.
Shadowgraph: So when composing for film you are solving a problem. When you compose for yourself are you also trying to solve a problem or elicit a particular emotion?
Grusin: No, it doesn’t start from that point. It’s a different beginning attitude. I’m not trying to make people feel a certain way emotionally, I’m just trying to come up with something I like. That’s the criteria. And I don’t do all that much unassigned composition.…. when I’m putting an album together, I’ll try to come up with some new tunes. Or I’ll write something for an artist like Lee Ritenour, for example. But film is totally different. There is that problem–solving thing that I have to always keep in mind.
Shadowgraph: In The Milagro Beanfield War some of the music was actually a character. But the music is always a character in some ways ….
Grusin: Yes, the cultural influences are a big deal. If I get a film assignment that has some geographic elements in it, that makes it so much easier to get started. As in the case of Milagro, we knew we were talking about music from Northern New Mexico, which has a specific cultural sound. And because we were here, there were all kinds of local people who were accessible. Roberto Mondragón, who was Lieutenant Governor [of New Mexico] at one time, was a great guitar player and he had such a great attitude. Cipriano Vigil was another big influence. He was teaching college in Espanola, but he had a group that played exactly the kind of indigenous music that was needed. It’s not Spanish, and it’s not Mexican, because it has evolved into its own organic kind of thing, from a real specific geographic location. So that’s where I started from … trying to come up with my own version of that genre.
Shadowgraph: In terms of pure piano, who are some of your most influential pianists?
Grusin: Well, from a jazz standpoint, certainly Bill Evans. At the time when I was listening to him, in college in the 50’s, he was this breath of fresh air. Even with all the wonderful jazz pianists that were around then, for me he had this sense of lyricism—beyond just straight hard swinging bebop. But I loved those guys too: Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, certainly Oscar Peterson. Art Tatum was/is maybe my all-time favorite. I was lucky enough to grow up during a time when all of that stuff was still available, while all the new jazz was coming along, and I was just immersed in all of it. It was a wonderful time to be alive and to be dealing with jazz. I had an amazing experience one time: we did a TV music special, and Quincy Jones was putting the bands together. It was Duke Ellington’s band, Count Basie’s Band, and a studio band that I played in … with 5 or 6 great singers: Sara Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Roberta Flack, Peggy Lee, Carmen Macrae … everyone that was happening at that time. It was so much fun.
I had been working on a variety show with a singer named Andy Williams, who had many wonderful musical guests, including the Count Basie Band. So that’s how I got to meet Basie and Ellington, all my old heroes. And during a break on this TV special, I was talking to Basie in the hall backstage, when Eubie Blake and his wife came walking by. Basie nudged me and said, “You know that’s Eubie.” And I said, “Yeah, I recognize him.” And as Eubie walked past us, he pointed to Basie and said to his wife, “Here’s that kid I’ve been telling you about.” (Basie was in his late 60’s at the time.) It was so funny, it was such a historical marker for me. One of the joys of musical memories.
Shadowgraph: In terms of the kind of aesthetic impulse of say, bebop, can you describe that? And how the motives of Jazz have changed?
Grusin: Well, it’s all so subjective. When I was in high school, (I graduated in 1952), Stan Kenton had a band that was cutting edge for us because it involved all kinds of harmonic things that weren’t part of the old tradition of ragtime and traditional chord changes. And being of that age in high school, we all wanted to be in the hip group—we listened to Kenton, and Lenny Tristano, and some of the horn players. And after that, I don’t know; I guess if I were an academic, I could carve it up into these eras, but when I think about Dizzy Gillespie, he’s a banner carrier for a certain kind of bebop that came out of his era . And then Miles Davis was the next step, on that instrument. And of course, the great Clark Terry … (who just left us the other day). So without analyzing it at the time (it was just sort of in the back of our minds), we defined ourselves unconsciously by how much we knew about that period, and that knowledge became a springboard for how we moved forward. I don’t know if this is answering your question exactly, but I think that there are a lot of contemporary players (and I’m not going to get too specific about them), who’ve decided to throw away all of this stuff from the past, just to turn it around and do the “New New Thing”. And I’ve never quite been in that place. I have to somehow hold on to things that have worked before, and then develop them into something I think is new. And I don’t think anybody spends much time thinking, “I have to do something that no one has ever done before.” I don’t think that’s how it works. Evolution, not Revolution.
Shadowgraph: At the time of bebop, weren’t they thinking, we’re going to make this so complex and so radical that it hasn’t ever been done before?
Grusin: I don’t think that “complexity” was the intention. It might sound that way, but it was all based on extensions of harmonics that they never let go of. And that basis is still there. A chord can be developed to its infinite inversion, but always with the understanding that the roots are still where they were.
Shadowgraph: Is someone like Herbie Hancock trying to push past that?
Grusin: He is, but never to the extent that he lets go of the past completely. Chick Corea maybe a little more. Chick has gone his own way thru the process I’m describing, but it all still makes harmonic sense; it’s still tied to the roots of the medium.
Shadowgraph: Interesting. And just because I love piano and you play piano, I’m curious, you know Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert in 1975—it was so improvised, what was your experience with that? Bill Evans didn’t improvise, did he?
Grusin: Oh yeah. Absolutely he did.
Shadowgraph: Oh. He did? Because I think of him as such a calculated player. I love his music. I mean, I don’t know as much about Jazz as I should to be talking to you, but …
Grusin: Well, I see from your question, when you talk about improvising … what Keith did, (in the Koln Concert) was play all new music, and it was all improvisation from the very beginning. In other words, you could call it instant composition, (which is what I think improvising is anyway). But you can also improvise on known patterns, and that’s what most of us do, and certainly what Bill Evans did. He played his version of known standards, and also he wrote his own tunes, which were fantastic. But it wasn’t the same thing that Keith was trying to do, which was: no ground rules at all, just start from wherever and go. So we got to hear him actually compose on stage. That’s what it boils down to.
Shadowgraph: So improvising is really a kind of play with harmonic patterns, whereas composing is out of nowhere.
Grusin: Hopefully (laughter). Or else it’s plagiarism.
Shadowgraph: I’m still musing over (it was more in relation to a film score) the couple of notes that were the question and how the next notes become the answer. In terms of composing your own music, would there also be that question and answer?
Grusin: Yes. That motivic aspect would be the same. The only difference is in the collaborative part of it. If it has to serve a lyric … sometimes just the meter of the words tells me the rhythm of the piece. So the creative element is asking, “What are those notes?” Then I have a starting point, and if that’s working, I can figure out the next thing that makes sense. When I’m writing by myself (without any of those pre-existing conditions), I have to come up with what that initial element is—but it still has to be there for the next thing to make sense.
Shadowgraph: When you compose, are you processing your own personal emotions? Do you ever think oh, this is too emotional?
Grusin: Yeah, I don’t want people to get the idea that I’m that emotional. I think a lot of it is subconscious. If you’re having a bad day, it’s not a good time to write a happy song. People always try to define the blues, and the blues for me is a 12-bar form, with the tonic and the four chord and the five chord, and then back to the tonic. That’s the basic blues. But the esoteric part is that you’ve had to experience all this bad stuff in order to write the blues. Really? Well, I know that’s where it all started from, but it has developed into a whole genre of its own.
Shadowgraph: It’s fascinating to me that a particular tonal progression will create a fairly universal emotion. If you make the progression minor it changes the emotion.
Grusin: Absolutely. And that is the basis of how scoring works. It can, without hitting you in the head, influence how you are perceiving something. You asked about dissonance creating a particular effect. I don’t ever consciously think, “Oh this is scary, it has to be dissonant.” That having been said, it may come out that way. But that’s not the process that I engage in. I just follow what’s going on in the story. Sometimes a real sweet harmony can be scary as hell, depending on what’s happening on the screen. We’ve had seminars where they’ll take a scene from an old film like Psycho and put different music to it. And the scene will have a completely different emotional response.
Shadowgraph: I think of music as being one of the strangest, most fluid and versatile art forms. How would you talk about what music means to you, or flows through you. Music as an entity …
Grusin: I don’t want this to sound like I don’t like music, but I … I don’t listen to music recreationally very much, for example.
Shadowgraph: You probably can’t, right?
Grusin: Well, sometimes from a time standpoint, that’s true. But instead of listening to music for pleasure … even in the car … I’ll listen to talk radio instead. So I guess I’ve somehow partitioned it off from the normal art appreciation mode.
Shadowgraph: Is that because … you’re probably hearing totally different things than I would, for example. You’re hearing the way it’s working …
Grusin: Well, if I’m a captive audience, or I’m with a group and listening (not by choice), I do find myself going into an analytical mode, as opposed to just enjoying whatever it is. And I think that’s a downside of being a professional musician.
Shadowgraph: I understand completely, because it’s very difficult for me to read most things.
Grusin: Is it?
Shadowgraph: Occasionally I can, but recreational reading is very difficult.
Grusin: Oh, wow.
Shadowgraph: Yeah. Because I immediately think, well, why did you put that word there?
Grusin: I have a good friend in Montana, author Tom McGuane. I love his writing. And he’s the same way. He says he almost can’t read anyone else. And when he finds something he can read, he calls everyone and tells them about it. (laughter) Lorrie Moore was one of the authors he “discovered.”
Shadowgraph: Lorrie Moore is very tight. She thinks about everything.
Grusin: And when we’re educated as kids in relation to the arts, we’re being taught to think analytically—like, if we’re looking at a painting, what should we be looking at? How should we critique it? Is the symmetry upsetting? You know what I mean? And I don’t think that’s how we’re supposed to be looking …
Shadowgraph: We’re supposed to be experiencing it …
Grusin: Yeah. Exactly. But there’s an esoteric area that I never got comfortable with, a sort of non-judgmental way of looking at things …
Shadowgraph: What about something more complex like Beethoven’s Late Quartets? Can you experience that?
Grusin: Yes, because we’ve grown up with that being the gold standard for that kind of music. Then what we’re left with—and I know that this is a sub-category of the other kinds of analysis—but we can ask, is this orchestra’s rendition as good as that other one?
Shadowgraph: Right! It’s the same music so …. what about someone who is mixing it up, like Glenn Gould on the Goldberg Variations?
Grusin: Killer. Just amazing. Just fantastic. But beyond what he chose to do … his whole musicality just knocks me out—his sensibility—the way he touches the piano—
Shadowgraph: Everyone has a different feel and touch, almost like a painter’s brushstroke ….
Grusin: And I have the sense that nobody will ever finally get it … the perfect way to play that instrument …. so the process is what we’re talking about.
Shadowgraph: It was great to see that concert in which you played half jazz and half classical. During the classical part, Lee Ritenour was playing guitar in a Bach concerto, and I was thinking, “Wow, I know this music, but sounds so wild and wandering and free.”
Grusin: Yes, Bach wrote that group of concerti for several combinations of keyboards. That piece was originally for two keyboards & chamber orchestra. But he wrote for up to four keyboards. (And there is a lot of Bach’s music that has been transcribed for guitar.) But this came about because Lee and I had an assignment to make a so-called “classical album.” So we started looking for material that would work. (There wasn’t a lot of music written for piano and guitar.) But there are a lot of guitarists playing Bach. It’s a great sound. In the original music from that period, we’re used to hearing the harpsichord, which is more a guitar sound than piano, if you think about it. But in this case, we had to put some stuff together for guitar and piano. I just split the original keyboard parts between the two instruments. The guitar has such a significant place in old music, particularly from Spain. But it’s funny; when we looked at Beethoven, we couldn’t find anything that sounded right for guitar. And then a whole lot of more contemporary works sounded great. We even did some Ravel and Gabriel Faure, but Beethoven, for some reason, never felt right for the instrument.
Shadowgraph: You and Lee talked about each other on stage. What has that relationship been like?
Grusin: Well, I met Lee when he was 19.
Shadowgraph: And how old were you?
Grusin: Well, I have to remember when that was …. I’m quite a bit older…by at least 15 years. So here was this kid, and he was working with Sérgio Mendes and Brasil 66. He also had a little group he played with at a club called Donte’s, in North Hollywood. And he was already teaching guitar at USC at 19. I started using him as a studio guitar player for my soundtracks. He could play anything … whatever the style was, including classical, even though he wasn’t a “classical” musician per se. He was mostly an electric guitarist. But it was so valuable to find someone like that for a scoring situation. So that’s how that started. Later, he was recording for one of the Atlantic record labels, and I did some arranging for him … and then he ended up on our label, GRP. (He stayed until we got rid of it.) So we’ve had a lot of experience in all those areas of playing together. It’s always fun to play with good players. We’re still enjoying that.
Shadowgraph: What might you say is most important for musicians?
Grusin: Mostly what matters is a mental attitude … just being free enough to play either what you are supposed to be playing at the moment, or if you want to change it, feeling free to take off and change it. That’s less to do with the physical aspect and more about how you’re feeling and how you’re doing in that moment.
Shadowgraph: An agility of mind …?
Grusin: Right, so you’re ready to go wherever you want to go.
Shadowgraph: I have a friend who is in theater and she was telling me that when you are on stage your body always has be in a neutral position, so that you can make any move, create any emotion at any moment …
Grusin: Yeah, that’s wild. I just finished reading John Cleese’s biography, So, Anyway …, and he talks about being “Python”-like … you try to prepare as much as you can, script-wise, to get ready, but sometimes what happens that really works has nothing to do with what was rehearsed. And maybe that becomes a whole new event.