Mike Garson and Earl Slick, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London, 8 September 2003 ([email protected])
With Gwen Stefani in Belgium, 2002 (Garson Family Archive)
Playing in Paris with Raphaël Haroche, 2007 (Alex Boyd)
At Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London, 8 September 2003 ([email protected])
‘Focus’, 2009 (Fernando Aceves)
With grandson Max, playing congas at world premiere of Garson’s Symphonic Suite for Healing, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Orange County, California, USA, 1 March 2014 (Barry Bittman)
Leading his own orchestra, March 2014 (Barry Bittman)
Rehearsing with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, 2009 (Tourbuslive.com)
On stage with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails at Wave Goodbye tour, final farewell show, 10 September 2009 at the Wiltern Theater, Los Angeles (Tourbuslive.com)
With Herbie Hancock at NAMM show, 2011 (Garson Family Archive)
Mike Garson, David Bowie (Garson Family Archive)
The Garson family, 2014. Back row, from left: Susan, Peter, Jennifer, Jeremy, Mike, Heather, Mark. Front row, from left: Maya, Hannah, Max, Jacob, Maegan (Garson Family Archive)
Orchestra and choir, Symphonic Suite for Healing, 1 March 2014 (Barry Bittman)
‘A tear of joy at performance of Symphonic Suite for Healing’ (Barry Bittman)
At party to celebrate finishing recording Young Americans, Sigma Sound Studios, Philadelphia, 1974. From left: Mike Garson, David Bowie, Luther Vandross and (seated) Tony Visconti (Dagmar)
From left: Mark Plati, Gail Ann Dorsey (behind), Mike Garson (‘hours…’ tour, 1999) (Plati Archive)
From left: David Bowie, Mike Garson, Mark Plati, Gail Ann Dorsey, Sterling Campbell (‘hours…’ tour, 1999) (Plati Archive)
Mark Plati, Mike Garson, David Bowie at BBC Radio Theatre, June 2000 ([email protected])
With David Bowie at sound check for BBC TV’s Parkinson, September 2000 ([email protected])
Appendix 1
Watch that man: Garson’s playing on nineteen Bowie albums – selected highlights
‘I always tell people that Bowie is the best producer I ever met, because he lets me do my thing… He would play me something and the music sort of told me what to do. He’s never been one that micro-managed me, which is why I always thought he was my best producer.’
‘With Bowie I know exactly how far I can go with my jazz and my classical, my harmonies, my pop and my avant-garde. I know what he doesn’t like and what he likes, so I play within that window.
He’s wonderful to work for, just wonderful… It’s his musicality, he’s dead serious about his music.’
‘I sometimes play in the way I think David would play piano
if he were the pianist…’
– Mike Garson on playing for David Bowie
Santa Monica ’72 (recorded 1972, released 1994, 2008)
Garson: ‘I was new to the band. I remember Paul McCartney being in the audience. I remember playing “Changes” and “Life on Mars?” and that was kind of special.’
Aladdin Sane (1973)
‘Watch That Man’
Garson’s playing on the opening track of his first Bowie album was a dynamic debut combining Jerry Lee Lewis-style rock and roll, bluesy boogie-woogie riffs and percussive eighth-note octave chords. In the breakdown towards the end, the half-spoken lyrics ‘watch that man!’ are responded to with classic rock licks as crisp and striking as those of any rock pianist playing in the world in 1973.
Garson: ‘I really hadn’t had an opportunity to play something like that, except on that day. I certainly knew that this song wasn’t really featuring me, but I still wanted to be a band member and feel included in the group. I don’t really think I got any direction on that. I really think I just heard it and it seemed the appropriate thing to play: what would Nicky Hopkins, or a rock player who knew little about classical or jazz, play? A Rolling Stones type of vibe.’
‘Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)’
Much has been written about Garson’s solo on this track. His performance on the whole song is remarkable, however, from the delicate arpeggios of the opening verses to the distinctive ending, slightly reminiscent of Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces. With its quotations from Rhapsody in Blue, Tequila and On Broadway, this was a spontaneous master performance which perfectly embodies many of the ideas we have explored in these pages – building on well-studied inputs to generate something new; composing by improvising; capturing the moment. The solo was recorded in one take. His timing throughout the song was superb, sometimes lingering behind the beat and responding to or even imitating the vocals, at other times matching the beat with bullet precision. His splintered-glass stylings were enhanced by Ken Scott’s expert engineering of a condensed and brittle sound, with a sonorous reverb, from the Bechstein grand piano at Trident Studios on St. Anne’s Court in London’s Soho. Garson also used a great range of dynamics, from the ghostly softness of touch in the opening bars to the much more strident percussive stabs in the solo. He recorded his part for this song as an overdub, whereas for most of the other tracks he played with the band. He says now that one of his wishes on the title track was to employ an avant-garde or ‘outside’ way of playing, whilst ‘making it more spirited, less dark… I wanted audiences to sort of love it and be able to embrace it, and yet still have that chilling effect.’
‘Time’
Garson: ‘First of all, the tune is phenomenal. It was one or two takes and I felt it required the old stride style of piano, but I took it left-field… it was just the sensibility David was looking for. The piano itself sounded great because Ken Scott made it sound like these old-fashioned rinky-tink bar-room pianos.’
The style combined those elements of stride with a taste of Weimar and the theatrical music written by Kurt Weill for Brecht. There were fantasy flourishes of faded grandeur and mid-twentieth century, mid-European decadence, with a touch of the circus or fairground. This recording is also one of the best examples of dazzling interaction between Garson’s piano playing and the extremely expressive and wildly melodious guitar work of Mick Ronson, with its classical influence. Some have heard strains of Beethoven’s Ninth in the riffs Ronson launches later in the song.
‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’
Garson: ‘This was pure jovial… like, David was doing a Rolling Stones song – what can I do here that’s going to be so outrageous, and just take it off the map, go left-field with it, and yet still keep that excitement? The intro had to not be too long, just a brief avant-garde moment then into the piece, it was a one-take thing for me, and a total joy, just a pleasure to play.’
‘Lady Grinning Soul’
Garson: ‘I just pulled out all the knowledge I had about Franz Liszt, Chopin and this romantic way of playing, mixed with a tinge of something Spanish, which Mick Ronson picked up. I was using some Spanish little fills, scales that were a little Spanish in sound. Again, it was one of those one-take magic things, and it’s one of my favourite tracks of all time of David’s.’
David Bowie has said that the opening piano perfectly recreated ‘a nineteenth-century music hall “exotic” number. I can see now the “poses plastiques” as if through a smoke-filled bar. Fans, castanets and lots of Spanish black lace…’70
Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture (recorded 1973, released 1983)
‘Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud’ – live
Some beautiful piano work on this live version of a Bowie song from the Space Oddity album which predated Garson’s arrival in the band.
Pin Ups (1973)
‘See Emily Play’
See page 84 for some discussion of this recording.
Garson: ‘What a great track. The first time I heard our recording properly was after Syd Barrett passed away in 2006… I knew when to keep it simple and when to really get out there and stretch it, and I think that helped to inspire the strings and the Bac
h ending… it was just a very special track.’
‘Where Have All the Good Times Gone’
Rapid repeated chords on the piano achieve a great percussive effect. Garson recalls that they ran the piano through a Leslie amp for some of the songs on the album.
Diamond Dogs (1974)
‘Sweet Thing’ / ‘Candidate’ / ‘Sweet Thing (Reprise)’
Garson: ‘I think I was in the zone for this… it was pretty magical. I don’t recall the Diamond Dogs process, as much as David just played me songs and I figured out the chords and I did my thing. He truly trusted my instincts.’
The piano work on ‘Sweet Thing’ suggests a narrative subtext for the album, with its stylistic references to the theatrical form in which these songs had been conceived, the album’s genesis having been as a stage show based on Orwell’s 1984. The D chords against the C bass and the classical motifs for the minor-key turnarounds hint at musical theatre, but then the virtuoso rapid runs and the incongruous pure darkness of it all move it into less cosy territory. Garson has rarely heard these recordings since contributing to them, but hearing this now he describes the material as ‘deep and with a maturity’. At the end there is an incredible dexterity with which Garson plays the flattened fifth on a B-flat chord with his right hand whilst rolling up and down some deep bass runs with what sounds like at least three further hands. This part of the song was prefigured in an out-take or rough demo from the Pin Ups sessions in France a few months earlier, on a piece which is sometimes referred to by fans as ‘Zion’.
Garson only realised the quality he had achieved years later when guitarist Page Hamilton sang its praises during the 1999 ‘hours…’ tour and got him to listen to ‘Sweet Thing’ for the first time since recording it. He says: ‘I tend to just play these things and not judge them. It’s like throwing spaghetti on the wall – some sticks!’
‘We Are the Dead’
This starts with an eight-note syncopated two-handed descending G minor scale, taking us quickly into sombre and studied, steady chords on an electric piano. This gives way to beautifully poised gentle arpeggios in the verses, which contrast chillingly with the darkness of the lyrics. The four words of the chorus and title are a direct quotation from Orwell’s 1984 and the feel conveys that sinister atmosphere perfectly.
‘Rock ’n’ Roll with Me’
Garson: ‘Just locked-in-the-pocket, real great steady feel, held the tune together, the piano part was very solid.’ He can also be heard playing organ on this track.
David Live (1974)
As a live show from a period when Garson’s piano was at its most prominent in Bowie’s instrumentation, almost every track carries great examples of his playing, from the rapid scales and Latin fills on ‘Rebel Rebel’ and the syncopated chords of ‘Moonage Daydream’ to a sweet and sensitively poised jazz piano part on ‘All the Young Dudes’. The opening track of ‘1984’ begins with some oboe from Michael Kamen followed by Garson imitating the theme from ‘The Twilight Zone’, which also closes the song. ‘Changes’, the song on which he had auditioned for Bowie a couple of years earlier, shows how elements from his jazz background found space to shine on stage. Listening back to it in 2014, Garson says that he feels perhaps the band slightly overplayed some of the embellishments given their role as supporting Bowie’s vocal. The introduction to ‘Changes’ leads as a segue from the end of ‘Sweet Thing’ and there is a sense of confidence and command of the instrument, that he could do anything with it. There are other segues led by piano, for example from ‘Time’ to ‘The Width of a Circle’, which add to the theatricality of the show. This album was also an opportunity to hear what Garson was doing with the earlier songs from Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust which had not had his playing on the original studio recordings, indeed many of which had originally had no piano parts at all.
‘Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)’ – live
A much more Latin version, driven by Pablo Rosario’s percussion.
‘Space Oddity’ – live
(added as a bonus track on the 2005 EMI/Virgin CD release)
Atmosphere is created with some great improvised piano runs during the first part of this interpretation.
‘Time’ – live
(added as a bonus track on the 1990 CD reissue by Rykodisc/EMI)
This arrangement includes a strangely playful and quirky solo, the apparent childishness of which is belied by the virtuoso run which follows.
‘Rock and Roll Suicide’ – live
Some rapid virtuoso classical runs towards the end.
Young Americans (1975)
‘Young Americans’
Garson: ‘For the title track I pulled out those montunos, the piano ostinati repeated figure from Cuban music… it kind of generated a lot of the impetus for the song – though of course, the background vocals and the song itself was great, and David was singing beyond belief, but the piano had a nice vibe, and of course Sanborn was right there killing it, you know!’
‘Right’
Clavinet is played by Garson.
‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’
There are some chunky chords and chops in the verses, but it is the simple little runs of a few notes added in to the groove, at 3.50, imitating and echoing the vocal, which is the stroke of genius. It is so spare and effortless, yet genuinely spine-tingling, and it is the restraint in his playing which is beautiful. This ability to create simple piano lines which ‘converse’ with the vocals is a key feature of Garson’s work on such albums.
Garson: ‘So funky, it is all about Dave Sanborn’s sax… simple studio funky piano playing, locked into a groove with an amazing rhythm section and spearheaded by our boss.’
‘It’s Gonna Be Me’
Recorded 11-18 August 1974, and performed in some of the late 1974 Soul tour shows, the studio take was not released until the Ryko CD issue of Young Americans in 1991.
Garson: ‘I never heard it since I recorded this, not once, maybe not even at the recording sessions. I didn’t know I could play like that, but perhaps being with those amazing players brought it out of me.’
‘Can You Hear Me?’
Effortless, laid-back soul chords and licks adorn this exquisitely beautiful song, and the piano is always supportive and never intrusive.
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
‘Looking for Lester’
A funky groove is the platform for various solos including piano from 4.18.
Garson: ‘A tinge of the avant-garde but not my favourite performance. It felt forced.’
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
‘South Horizon’
This piano part really is a work of art in itself. As often, the genius lies in the tangential or angular way in which Garson responds to the rest of the music, instantaneously absorbing it, reflecting it back and elevating it into further dimensions. Garson rates the solo as being in the ‘top three’ that he has done on Bowie’s albums.
‘Bleed Like a Craze, Dad’
This starts with a complex flurry of wind-up music-box notes, which resolves into some single notes distantly playing mournful scales. There is a surprisingly sweet broken chord at the very end, as if from the same old music box.
1. Outside (1995)
‘The Hearts Filthy Lesson’
A few seconds in, we hear ominous rumbling runs, Lisztian octave surges, then insistent chord stabs of 4ths and percussive high-pitch jazz riffs. The genesis of this song was within the studio improvisations from these repeated piano chords, which Garson started playing and the music just grew around them.
‘A Small Plot of Land’
Rapid jazz runs and trills in a fully ‘outside’ style on the piano, with only Sterling Campbell’s drums as accompaniment for about the first 45 seconds. Discordant piano juxtaposed with unnerving synth, with Stravinskian chord ostinati. ‘As “outside” as I have ever played’, according to Garson.
‘The Motel’
Unlike the rest of the material on the
album, which was improvised, this was brought in as a song by Bowie. Garson regards it as one of the best Bowie songs and certainly one of his own best performances. There is some dazzling virtuoso piano from 3.00 to 3.46. A Gm7 flat 5th chord at 4.49 gives it a lift, with emotive piano runs set against a frenetic electronic drum beat.
‘The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (as Beauty)’
Garson: ‘There was a nice jazz vibe on this song, and another opportunity to improvise.’
‘I’m Deranged’
Middle-Eastern style vocals make for a striking combination with inventive piano solos and octaves, from 2.09 and then at intervals to the end. Garson says that he loves both the song and piano part.
‘Strangers When We Meet’
Garson says this was ‘always good on tour… a simplistic piano part but I fell in love with that piece. It’s an underrated song.’ He compares his style on this to the playing on ‘Absolute Beginners’ from Bowie at the Beeb. It first appeared on The Buddha of Suburbia in 1993, then was re-recorded in 1995 for 1. Outside with delicate and very high piano lines adding more depth and dimension.
Earthling (1997)
Garson: ‘Through all these albums I needed to soul-search and bring something fresh to each recording, never to rest on my laurels. That sometimes was difficult as there were so many songs and I was trying not to repeat myself, even though our styles are based on the vast array of licks we know, coupled with the magic of the moment. I gave much thought and practice prior to the recordings – quite a challenge, to balance the boundaries and the freedoms.’
Bowie's Piano Man - The Biography of Mike Garson Page 27