A Conversation with David Benoit – HuffPost 7.20.12

Mike Ragogna: David, I have been a fan of yours since Freedom At Midnight, I’ve seen you wallop the heck out of a piano live, and you have a new album, Conversation. Can you tell us about it?

David Benoit: Well, sometimes when you start an album, that idea doesn’t evolve until you get all of the materials together; you just start writing. I had a piece called, “Conversation,” which was a part of a larger piece called “The Suite For Two Trios,” which was a piece commissioned by the Laguna Arts Council. The concept, which I found interesting, was the contrast between the classical piano trio and a jazz piano trio competing with each other. “Conversation” was the last movement of that piece. One day, I was talking to my wife, and she thought it’d be a great idea to put that song on the record. I had already written a lot of other songs. I decided to go for it and do something a little different. The record started to evolve and it seemed like several different conversations were going on. I was working with old friends like David Pack and some new musicians I hadn’t met before. More and more, the album started to feel like a series of conversations. That’s really how it developed.

MR: You also worked with musicians like Jeff Golub, Tim Weisberg, and classical pianist Robert Theis.

DB: Yeah. This is the first project that I’ve worked on where I wasn’t playing the piano the whole time. I thought it was kind of fun to have a gold-medal winning pianist on the album. The fact that he’s a friend of mine made it even cooler. I’m really happy to have him on the record.

MR: One of my favorite conversations on this album is between you and Jeff in “Diary Of A Wimpy Kid.” Can you tell us about that song?

DB: That was something that I haven’t explored too much. I thought to myself, “It’s a kid’s song, and kids listen to rock ‘n’ roll.” I demo everything in my studio, as a lot of musicians do, before I actually record it. I strapped on a guitar and laid some stuff down, but in the end, I couldn’t really imagine it being me that played it. I knew I needed someone who could bring it all the way home. So I thought of Jeff, and my manager also represents him. He was having a very difficult year because of his vision going. That had little to do with the songs, so much as the fact that he was already on my mind because of that. So, he came in and did it and killed it. He did a really amazing solo.

MR: There’s also another guest in that song, and I believe is very closely related to you.

DB: Oh, yes! (laughs) That’s my daughter, June. She’s 11 years old, and I slipped her into that one little verse because it’d be great to have her make her debut. Plus, the song seemed appropriate. She worked really hard on it. The engineer, Clark Germain, came with his ProTools and we did that in my living room.

MR: Let’s talk about “Kei’s Song Redux.” Can you tell us what made you include a reworking of one of your classics?

DB: That song has been in my repertoire for so long that it’s kind of become a standard for me. After 27 years of marriage, it was kind of our theme song. I wrote it right after we got married in 1985. I thought it was worth revisiting, and just to give it a slightly fresh approach, we added a few orchestral sections and a modulation. Subtle things. It wasn’t like we put the whole thing on synthesizer and made it all electronic and weird. We pretty much just did the same thing we did before, we just put it in a slightly new place. I’m glad we were able to do that.

MR: There’s also a track called “Q’s Motif,” which I’m guessing was a little tip of the hat to Quincy Jones.

DB: Yes. He actually wrote a piece that starts out with that same motif. That’s the reason the song has its name, and I figured he wouldn’t mind if I added a little bit to it. But once the song actually gets started, it’s a completely different song. I wrote that to pay tribute to him because I’m a really big fan.

MR: You set the mold with contemporary or “smooth” jazz pianists, particularly with some of your early projects like Freedom At Midnight. I remember the title track, “Freedom At Midnight,” got so much airplay at the time.

DB: Yeah. I remember that. (laughs)

MR: Well, can you tell us about your creative process when you’re writing? How does the muse hit you, and what do you do when inspiration strikes?

DB: Now, it’s very disciplined. It didn’t used to be that way. There’s so much going on between the symphony and my radio show and my family. I really have to be very disciplined now about when I’m going to write. Typically, I enjoy starting to write in the morning around 9:00 or 10:00. I just earmark some time and either sit down at the Steinway and carve something out acoustically, or I’ll sit in my home studio and start playing with grooves and ideas. Usually after an hour or two, I have something, even if it’s very rough. That’s usually how I do it. It’s also usually for a project. I very rarely write randomly anymore. So basically, when they said they wanted to do an album this time around, I knew it was time to get up and go. (laughs)

MR: It’s great that you’re able to do that because so many artists don’t have the ability to write in a disciplined way.

DB: I’ve found that you really just have to be disciplined about when you write. Ironically, I feel like the creative process really does kick in when you have a deadline. Cole Porter once said that his best inspiration was a call from a producer. (laughs) It’s really true. I love pressure. I need it. If I don’t have pressure, I’d probably just sit around watching Judge Judy all day long. (laughs)

MR: (laughs) Now, you’ve also film scored for The Stars Fell On Henrietta, the Clint Eastwood film. What was it like working with both Clint and the film’s star, Robert Duvall?

DB: I met Robert, but I didn’t really get to know him. But I did get to know Clint. What an amazing man. Everything you could imagine about Clint Eastwood is absolutely true. I will say this–he doesn’t come off as a tough and scary dude, he comes off as a real gentleman. He’s very soft spoken, but he’s also very…Clint Eastwood, for lack of a better term. When he walks in the room, he has such a presence, and he looks fabulous. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him. Some stars, I suppose they’re retouched in images when you see them, but Clint is Clint. He called me last year and asked me if I could do the music for a documentary about David Brubeck, and I said yes. So, I went down to his studio on the Warner Brothers lot and met all the crew on The Stars Fell On Henrietta. It’s quite a shame that that movie didn’t do too well; my career in film scoring didn’t go quite the way I’d hoped. But his long time editor Joel Cox, and many of the other crewmembers, remembered me. It was a lot of fun. Clint is as nice as he could be. It was really a great experience.

MR: You also provided the score for the Sally Fields film, The Christmas Tree, which received Best Film Score of 1996 by Film Score Magazine.

DB: Yes. That was really quite a surprise, especially when you think about all the veterans who had been doing this for so long. It was such an honor. That’s one of my favorite scores; I love it. And Sally was a dream to work with. I just did a score recently for a documentary that won The Royal Canadian Documentary Film Award, and I was really excited about that. The director for that project was just a gem. I’ve worked with some directors that were really tough, but Sally was just great.

MR: You mentioned that you are also a part of this new David Brubeck documentary.

DB: I was, yes. And there are some really nice scenes in the film. They interview me extensively. One of my favorite parts is when he starts “Strange Meadow Lark,” then they cut away to me playing it at the moment he stops. I was blown away. It’s nice to be thought of in the company of Dave, even though I’ve known him quite a long time and been to his home in Connecticut. He’s a great man.

MR: To me, your style seems one step removed from two of my favorite pianists, Dave Brubeck and Vince Guaraldi.

DB: (laughs) You know, it’s funny you should mention that because I’ve been in a couple of Vince Guaraldi documentaries as well. There’s actually a new book coming out about his life and I’m in that. They are even doing a book signing at the Charles Schultz Museum in November, and I’ll be there giving a special performance of Vince’s music. So, I’m very connected with him even though I never got the chance to meet him.

MR: Though you seem to be his heir.

DB: Yeah, kind of. I mean, there are some other really great players that play and are close to Vince’s music. One of the ones who comes to mind is George Winston who made an album of Vince’s songs.

MR: Right, although you did too, sir. Dave, as I mentioned earlier, I am a fan of yours, and caught a performance a few years back you were literally banging that piano. The performance had a lot of passion, and I thought to myself, “David’s got to be the best piano player that I’ve ever seen live.”

DB: Well, thank you very much. That reminds me of a story actually. I get really wound up and emotional when I play the piano, especially in a really great format; I almost can’t control myself. I remember being at the retirement party for the president of Steinway, and someone told a story about the great pianist Vladimir Horowitz. Someone told him that he really bangs on the piano, and that they thought that the Steinway he was playing was going to fall apart. He turned to them and said, “Look, we don’t make cream puffs around here.” (laughs) So with a Steinway, my feeling is that they were made for all of that – they want to be played that way. What I miss with a lot of young players is that they have the technique, but they’re not making love to the instrument. They’re not making that emotional connection with their instrument, and that’s what I love to establish. So, that’s a very nice compliment, I appreciate that.

MR: Of course. Do you think you’ll do any more projects with Mr. Russ Freeman?

DB: I don’t know. I keep thinking to myself that I’ve got to call Russ. I haven’t spoken to him in so long, and I think of him a lot. We always have a great time together, and we think the same as well. People ask me that a lot, and every ten years, we do a record together, so in a few years, we’re probably about due.

MR: Dave, what advice do you have for new artists?

DB: Get out of the business; be a doctor. (laughs) I think the best advice I could give is to make sure that your definition of success involves opportunity meeting preparation. Just make sure that you’re prepared for if and when you do get that call. Preparation means practicing, of course, and looking for every opportunity to play. You have to live it and breathe it because it’s too hard, and there are far too many people who want to get into the business. In my case, it was playing the piano incessantly when I first started. It wasn’t practicing, necessarily, but I played all the time. (laughs) So, I think the best advice is just to play as much as you can, be prepared, and don’t have a safety net. If this is what you’re going to do, do it. I saw some religious show, and I’m not religious at all, but sometimes, I watch some of these televangelists because they are pretty dynamic. I think it was Joel Osteen that was talking about knocking on doors when people keep telling you no, but you have to keep knocking until someone says yes. I thought that was pretty cool. Hang in there!

MR: Before we wrap up, I also wanted to chat briefly about another one of my favorite albums of yours, the Orchestral Stories album.

DB: Wow, I didn’t think a soul in the world had that album. (laughs)

MR: (laughs) I love that album. One of my favorite songs included on that album was “9-11.” That was a beautiful tribute.

DB: Thank you. That’s actually an interesting story. After Larry Rosen and Dave Grusin left GRP, everything changed. They had a gentleman named Ron Goldstein take over. That song was originally on the Right Here, Right Now album because that was right around when it happened. I was heartbroken. Then, when we came up with the idea for Orchestral Stories, we decided to just put it on that album because we had already recorded it. It fit there much better, truthfully, and to Andi Howard’s credit, she was very open to letting us do that album, because it’s very rare that you have a chance to do something that different. So, I give her some credit for that.

MR: Great orchestrations as well.

DB: And now, the gentleman that orchestrated it, Jean-Pascal Beintus, is a very famous orchestrator for a well-known French film composer.

MR: Any parting words of wisdom?

DB: I’m just thrilled to have a long career in jazz. It’s one thing to get to the top, but it’s another thing entirely to stay there. Not that I think I’ve ever really been at the top, but I’ve had a nice steady career and I’ve been able to reinvent myself and try new things. I think that I feel most fortunate that I keep getting to do what I love.

MR: Do you have any tours coming up?

DB: Well, as you many already know, I have joined the Dave Koz Christmas tour. I do that every few years, so I decided it was time to jump on that bandwagon again.

MR: Dave, thank you so much for spending time with us. This was really a pleasure.

DB: Thanks so much for having me, Mike.

Transcribed by Kyle Pongan