In July 2011 Garson released an album of piano arrangements of David Bowie songs, called The Bowie Variations for piano, produced by ‘Prof’ Johnson and featuring Garson’s own computer-generated artwork on the cover. Jérôme Soligny explains that he had been urging Garson for years to embark on such a project, but that there had always been the feeling that to interpret these much-loved songs without vocals would be a tricky challenge, especially in terms of instrumentation and production. Soligny advised Garson simply to go ahead and do it himself, just with piano. This is how the album proceeded; though in some cases the simplicity ended there, as the reinterpretation Garson chose to create for songs like ‘Let’s Dance’ was quite complex and layered, so that the song arrives incognito to be rediscovered. It was fitting that the pianist most associated with David Bowie’s canon of works should finally be heard exploring and experimenting with those themes himself alone, in a way which comes across also at times as both relaxed and playful. Interestingly, only one of the tracks – a medley of three songs – features material for which Garson played on the original recorded version. Above all he remains respectful of Bowie and his work, and the only track which is not a Bowie cover is entitled ‘Tribute to David’.
Perhaps surprisingly, two albums hardly covered by these instrumental reworkings are 1977’s Low and Heroes from Bowie’s ‘Berlin’ trilogy, despite their several instrumental pieces combining Eno’s beautiful textures with Visconti’s impeccable production, both of which framed some of Bowie’s most enduring masterpieces of contemplation and foreboding. On his Variations Garson creates a richly textured and rhythmic solo piano version of the title track of Heroes, but otherwise focuses his instrumental renditions on other Bowie vocals rather than the ‘Berlin’ instrumentals.
The first reworking of the Berlin instrumental pieces fell initially to Philip Glass, with his Symphony No. 1 ‘Low’ in 1992 and his 1996 Symphony No. 4 ‘Heroes’. In 2014 Dylan Howe’s Subterranean album breathed a new kind of life into these remarkably resilient themes from those Bowie albums, with a jazz sensibility propelled by Howe’s own superb drumming and production skills of great finesse. Meanwhile, Jérôme Soligny has since been encouraging Garson to proceed with a further project of recording solo piano interpretations of songs by the Beatles, for which Garson has already sent him several tracks.
In November 2014 David Bowie released his major retrospective, Nothing has changed – The Very Best of Bowie, with some new songs alongside over fifty earlier recordings. Inevitably, Garson’s piano features on several tracks, including one of his personal favourites ‘Shadow Man’, as re-recorded in 2001 with a beautiful piano part. This had previously only been available on the limited edition bonus disc for Heathen and as a B-side of the ‘Everyone Says Hi’ 2002 single release.
For inspiration, like many in that part of the world, Garson sometimes chooses to drive up the coast and contemplate the peace and beauty of the sea in a particular quiet corner of Malibu amongst the rocks and huge seabirds. Indeed, some of our interviews were conducted there. He explains, however, towards the end of my work on this book, that he has gradually become aware that although he is happy to have a lot of apparent ‘down-time’ in the balance of his life, even then he always finds himself cogitating, contemplating or meditating on the goals he is pursuing the rest of the time.
Sometimes he spends time developing his graphic art, which he has been producing for several years now to some acclaim, in the form of computer-generated images, recast and processed in a way which strongly bears the stamp of his personality. In 2004 he enjoyed a well-received first showing of his art works at Portland’s Brian Marki gallery. Garson was there on a piano and anyone who bought a piece of the artwork had a piece of music composed for them on the spot, to accompany the artwork. There is the possibility in future of exploring further the interface between musical and visual creation, with perhaps digital canvases inspired by or even generated by some of the sound compositions too.
Meanwhile, he continues to be sought out by rock bands across the world who want him to adorn and embellish their recordings with some of his unique pianistic sparkle. One such band contacted him around the time of my first visit and were very excited with the results, as he fulfilled their brief with ease in one take and emailed the finished product to them without even being sure which continent they were in, only that it must be another time zone as their messages tended to come at three o’clock in the morning to LA. The piano part he records is completed during my week with him, and the results are astounding. It is proof, if any more were needed, that the genius of Garson’s work on Aladdin Sane was far from a one-off. This work, being for a band of much lesser profile than Bowie, therefore may not get to be heard as much, and yet it shows just the same powerful combination of deep emotional feeling and technical virtuosity, leaving the listener breathless, inspired and uplifted.
Garson joined Free Flight, with flautist Jim Walker, in 1982, and they still perform together today. The Free Flight sound is beautiful and very much in contrast once again with all of Garson’s other projects. In 1989 Garson recorded an instrumental cover version (produced by Stanley Clarke and remixed by Gene Leone) of Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the Mirror’, having always greatly admired Jackson’s mastery of the pop music genre in his work with Quincy Jones. More recent years have also seen him recording and performing live with artists and groups as diverse as The Polyphonic Spree, New Jersey mathcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan (on their 2010 album, Option Paralysis), Aviv Geffen, St. Vincent and Adam Lambert.
For The Polyphonic Spree’s 2007 album The Fragile Army, recording of his piano parts was done in the opposite way from that he experienced on most of the David Bowie and other albums. He tends to be asked to play after most of the song has been put together, so that the piano track is being added to the vocals and other instruments. With The Polyphonic Spree, however, the piano, bass and drums were recorded during the first week after which everything else was added to this foundation.
Also in 2007 he played in Paris with French singer Raphaël Haroche for his live acoustic album Une Nuit Au Châtelet, which was partly a tribute to French singers like Serge Gainsbourg and Gérard Manset. Haroche had occasionally played support for Bowie in the past and had various hit albums in France from 2003, some featuring Garson on piano, as well as others from Bowie’s bands such as Carlos Alomar, Gail Ann Dorsey, Zachary Alford and some production and string arrangements by Tony Visconti.
Annie Clark, also known by her stage name of St. Vincent, had been in The Polyphonic Spree when Garson played with them, and called on him for some input on her subsequent solo material. He recorded two songs with her, ‘Your Lips are Red’ and ‘All My Stars Aligned’ for her debut solo album of 2007, Marry Me. The latter song has beautiful, high piano cascades which seem to just spill out of her voice, and the combined effect is intensely moving. The album also has an instrumental written and played by Garson called ‘We Put a Pearl in the Ground’. She shares Garson’s view about the need to unlearn in order to create. Having attended the Berklee College of Music for three years before dropping out, she has since said:
I think that with music school and art school, or school in any form, there has to be some system of grading and measurement. The things they can teach you are quantifiable. While all that is good and has its place, at some point you have to learn all you can and then forget everything that you learned in order to actually start making music.68
When Adam Lambert came second on American Idol in 2009, Garson had noted the power and quality of his voice and even recalls commenting to his wife, Susan, ‘I could see myself playing for this guy!’ In another strange piece of synchronicity, within a few weeks Garson had a call from a producer asking him to play for Lambert’s performance of his hit, ‘For Your Entertainment’, at the American Music Awards of 2009. Lambert’s spectacular appearance on the show was later included in Billboard’s list of ‘Top Ten American Music Awards Moments’ through
their forty-year history in November 2012, and Garson’s distinctive piano style could be heard opening and closing the song.
Immediately after his success on American Idol Lambert signed to RCA and enjoyed huge and rapid success. His debut album For Your Entertainment was released in November 2009 and sold 198,000 copies in the US in its first week. Simon Fuller (creator of the Idol franchise) described Lambert as ‘like Marc Bolan meets Bowie, with a touch of Freddie Mercury and the sexiness of Prince’.69 To prepare for the American Music Awards appearance, Lambert came to Garson’s studio in Bell Canyon. He wanted Garson to appear on the show with him but Garson was unable to do so as he had a jazz concert to perform that night, so they recorded his playing in advance for use on the night. Garson says that Lambert loved what he recorded for him that day, and he was interested to find that Lambert ‘turned out to be a big Bowie fan’. In 2012 Lambert started performing with Queen, first in Russia and Ukraine and then London, and in the US the following year. His second album Trespassing went straight to number 1 on the USA Billboard albums chart on its release in May 2012. He has also collaborated with Nile Rodgers, with whom David Bowie had worked in the past, so that Garson’s work with him on that key show of 2009 holds some significant resonances.
In 2011 Garson performed a joint recital with Romanian virtuoso jazz pianist Marian Petruscu in Los Angeles, including a dazzling duet on a Disney medley of familiar melodies. In 2014, he recorded an album in the style of, and as a homage to, the piano of Thelonious Monk and this was being prepared for release at the time of writing. These multiple creative projects continue in profusion for Garson, who maintains a remarkably full work schedule.
During 2014 he was also recording with singer Jilann O’Neill for a forthcoming album, including some avant-garde torch song adaptations in French and some covers from the 1970s, as well as original material. She says that he has become a mentor to her over the period of their recordings together, and that ‘I have probably spent more time with Mike discussing the creative process and its connection to the spiritual journey than we’ve spent actually recording or playing. It is an exercise in listening when I work with him, in which the intuitive voice plays a big role.’ They worked an intense schedule of recording over a period of months, with production from Michael Farrell, who has also worked with Macy Gray, Morrissey and Alanis Morissette. Jilann O’Neill says of working with Garson that ‘he is not caught in the past, in what was, in recreating or even in the future of what should be created. He is in the moment, listening carefully for the whisper of the music that wants his attention now.’
When I asked him to look back on his life so far, Garson said that he sees his first six decades as ‘just an apprenticeship’, and that ‘now the real work begins’. He has been on a mission for some years to show, by example, three things: that being a musician can be combined with living healthily and respectfully, without the dependencies with which it has so often been associated; that music can itself be a healing force in all kinds of ways; and that true education simply means helping one another to find our true voice and vocation (musical or otherwise), even if that proves to lie in unexpected directions. Whilst hoping that the story of his life might bring some pleasure and insight to readers, his overriding wish is to encourage people more actively to ‘take a few things from this book that ring true for them, and use that in their lives to bring joy to themselves and others’.
Back in London after completing my visits to Garson’s home in Ventura County, California and returning to my own home in London’s Fitzrovia, I experienced one final odd coincidence, another example of the synchronicity with which this story began, which seems to complete my journey. On the original 1971 recording of the song ‘Life on Mars?’ for David Bowie’s Hunky Dory album, the piano was played by Rick Wakeman. The following year Mike Garson joined Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour in the US and learned to play the piano part for that song, which he would then play with Bowie so many times right up to 2005. In 2010 the ringtone on my mobile phone consisted of the opening bars of ‘Life on Mars?’ with its unmistakable piano introduction being played by Wakeman nearly forty years before. As I walked past the Charlotte Street hotel near my home a few days after my return, I happened to notice Rick Wakeman sitting on the terrace outside the hotel. As I walked past, my phone played its ‘Life on Mars?’ ringtone. Wakeman looked up. I answered the phone. It was Garson.
I feel grateful to have had this opportunity to explore the life and work of such an extraordinarily creative and distinctive individual. The journey has been all the more enriching for his enthusiastic participation in this process, and I am deeply indebted to Mike Garson for the almost unlimited helpful input he has made available to me throughout my work on this book. Our shared hope is that people may be inspired by the story told in these pages to overcome any obstacles in their quest for authentic expression and creativity, and also that this opens up a wider exploration of how music is created and what it can do.
Clifford Slapper
London, November 2014
Photographs
On stage playing for David Bowie, Las Vegas, USA, 30 January 2004 ([email protected])
Mike Garson’s parents, Sally and Bernard Garson, 1951 (Garson Family Archive)
Boyhood in Brooklyn, 1949 (Garson Family Archive)
With sister Barbara, 1950 (Garson Family Archive)
Fishing with Dad near Coney Island, 1953. They would leave by boat from Sheepshead Bay or from Montauk at the very end of Long Island. (Garson Family Archive)
With Susan: childhood sweethearts, in the Catskills, 1962
(Garson Family Archive)
The Impromptu Quartet at Prospect Park, 1961. From left: Mike Garson, Dave Liebman, Gary Zehner, Robert Katz (Garson Family Archive)
Elvin Jones: Garson’s favourite drummer (Vitrina De Dudas)
In the army band, stationed at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, 1966 (Garson Family Archive)
Mike and Susan Garson, wedding day, 24 March 1968 (Garson Family Archive)
At the piano with baby daughter Jennifer, 1971 (Garson Family Archive)
Brethren, 1972. From left: Rick Marotta, Mike Garson, Stu Woods, Tommy Cosgrove (Garson Family Archive)
On tour with David Bowie, 1973. From left: Ann, baby Sarah and Trevor Bolder; Geoff MacCormack; June and Woody Woodmansey (crouching); three others; Mike Garson, Mick Ronson (Garson Family Archive)
Hotel allocation list for St. Regis Hotel, Detroit, 8 October 1972 during Ziggy Stardust tour with David Bowie (Robin Mayhew)
Mike and Susan Garson on a trip to London, 1971 (Garson Family Archive)
Detail from programme for the Soul Tour, Radio City, New York, October 1974. From left: Carlos Alomar, Dennis Davis, Mike Garson, Emir Ksasan, Pablo Rosario, David Sanborn, Earl Slick (Garson Family Archive)
At recording session for Young Americans, 1974. From left: Mike Garson, Bruce Springsteen (seated), Tony Visconti (seated), one other, David Bowie (Ed Sciaky)
David Bowie and Mike Garson listening back to Diamond Dogs at Olympic Studios, London, 1973 (Kate Simon)
At the piano, 2009 (Fernando Aceves)
Mike Garson, Joe LaBarbera (drums), Jim Walker (flute) at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Orange County, California, USA, 1 March 2014 (Barry Bittman)
Mike Garson photo portrait, 1979, by Leilani Hu (Garson Family Archive)
Artwork by Mike Garson: ‘Music is the bridge between heaven and earth’, 2006 (Mike Garson)
Portrait of Mike Garson by David Bowie created during recording sessions for 1. Outside album at Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland, 1995 (Garson Family Archive)
With David Bowie at the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico City, 20 October 1997, during the Earthling world tour (Fernando Aceves)
With Billy Corgan during the Adore tour with Smashing Pumpkins, 1998 (Garson Family Archive)
On the ‘hours...’ tour with David Bowie, 1999 (Mark Plati)
David Bowie, Mike Garson Glasto
nbury, 25 June 2000 ([email protected])
With Reeves Gabrels ‘in Casablanca…’ (Garson Family Archive)
David Bowie and Mike Garson at filming of Parkinson, BBC TV, September 2000 ([email protected])
David Bowie, Gail Ann Dorsey, Mike Garson at filming of TV show in Paris, France in 2003 ([email protected])
End of show in Dublin, 2003. Left to right: Mike Garson, Earl Slick, Catherine Russell, David Bowie, Sterling Campbell, Gail Ann Dorsey, Gerry Leonard ([email protected])
David Bowie and Mike Garson in Dublin, Ireland in 2003 ([email protected])
With his wife and daughters, 2004. From left: Jennifer, Mike, Susan, Heather (Garson Family Archive)
Bowie's Piano Man - The Biography of Mike Garson Page 26