Select bibliography
Summary of books referred to
Ansdell, Gary: How Music Helps in Music Therapy and Everyday Life, Ashgate, 2014
Cann, Kevin: David Bowie: Any Day Now, The London Years: 1947-1974, Adelita, 2010
Congreve, William: The Mourning Bride, 1697
Corinthians 1, 13:4-8
Eno, Brian: A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary, Faber and Faber, 1996
Ericsson, K. Anders with Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich and Robert R. Hoffman (eds.): Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Cambridge University Press, 2006
Ferand, Ernst: Die Improvisation in der Musik, 1938
Ferand, Ernst (ed.): Improvisation in Nine Centuries of Western Music: An Anthology, 1961
Gladwell, Malcolm: Outliers: The Story of Success, Little, Brown and Company, 2008
Hooker, Lynn M.: Redefining Hungarian Music from Liszt to Bartók, Oxford University Press, 2013
Kandinsky, Wassily: Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Dover Publications, 2000 (first published 1911)
Kureishi, Hanif: The Buddha of Suburbia, Faber and Faber, 1990
Landesman, Jay: Tales of a Cultural Conduit, Tiger of the Stripe, 2006
MacDonald, Raymond with Gunter Kreutz and Laura Mitchell (eds.): Music, Health, And Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, 2012
Orwell, George: 1984, London, 1949
Pegg, Nicholas: The Complete David Bowie, Titan Books, 2011
Rock, Mick with David Bowie: Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust, Genesis Publications, 2002
Rubinstein, Arthur: My Many Years, Alfred A. Knopf, 1980
Rubinstein, Arthur: My Young Years, Jonathan Cape, 1973
Schuller, Gunther: Musings: The Musical Words of Gunther Schuller, Oxford University Press, 1986
Shakespeare, William: The Comedy of Errors (c. 1594)
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet (c. 1599-1602)
Soligny, Jérôme: David Bowie, 10/18, 2002
Yoshihara, Mari: Musicians From a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music, Temple University Press, 2007
Some recommended online resources
Mike Garson website:
www.mikegarson.com
David Bowie official site:
www.davidbowie.com
Kris Becker plays Mike Garson’s ‘Now’ Music:
www.soundcloud.com/krisbeckermikegarson
Pushing Ahead of the Dame:
bowiesongs.wordpress.com
bowiesongs.tumblr.com
Hans Morgenstern’s Independent Ethos blog: has an archived series of interviews with Mike Garson.
www.indieethos.wordpress.com
Notes
1 We are indebted to Julian Vein, who was responsible for the difficult task of transcribing these many hours of rapid dialogue between us, despite the difficulties posed by the fact that our enthusiasm often led to us both speaking at once.
2 Scott R. Benarde, Stars of David: Rock ’n’ Roll’s Jewish Stories, Brandeis University Press, 2003.
3 David Bowie told the story in his own words in 2002: ‘It was during our first few days in New York that musician and writer Annette Peacock introduced me to Mike Garson. Always a gentle soul, he fitted into our band remarkably well considering his background was in the more “outside” fringe of jazz. Ronson and I first had him play for us in one of the RCA recording studios. He rattled through an extraordinary reading of “Changes”, putting in the kind of flourishes that only Mike can, and we were convinced he was our man.’ Mick Rock, David Bowie, Moonage Daydream. The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust, Genesis Publications, 2002.
4 Alternative Press, San Francisco, October 1999
5 See, for example: K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich and Robert R. Hoffman (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Cambridge University Press, 2006
6 New Musical Express, 6 July 1973, quoted in Kevin Cann, David Bowie, Any Day Now: The London Years: 1947-1974, Adelita, 2010, which provides a superbly detailed diary of this whole period for Bowie.
7 Or perhaps the recording, originally on an old cassette tape, is running slow and making it sound lower. This is likely as his version of ‘Ziggy Stardust’ here also appears to be lowered a semi-tone, in F-sharp rather than G.
8 With the lyric ‘He played it left hand, But made it too far, Became the special man, Then we were Ziggy’s band’, the group would play D7 / G / Em / A / C, whereas Garson here played D sus / G major 7, C7 / Bm7, E7-9 / Am7, D sus.
9 I recounted to Garson an ironic point of comparison with my own experience here. When Jarvis Cocker curated the week-long Meltdown Festival at London’s South Bank in 2007, he booked me to play piano each night as a support act to that day’s headline performance. My natural inclination was to furnish just such a prelude or foretaste. As the fans were waiting in excited apprehension of their band taking the main stage night by night at Meltdown that year, they heard instrumental hints from the piano of what was to come. This resulted in the slightly surreal experience of playing songs by Motorhead or Iggy Pop on a grand piano at the Royal Festival Hall to their fans, to which the response was also warm.
10 The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare
11 David Bowie and the Story of Ziggy Stardust, BBC4 TV, 22 June 2012
12 See Appendix 2, ‘Forensics’ for analysis of Garson’s playing on this Mick Ronson recording
13 Garson used a Yamaha Disklavier, a modern version of the ‘player-piano’, to generate and record (with microphones) a performance on a real piano action which was identical to his own playing on the keyboard back in New York.
14 This concerns the different systems by which the sounds played by the notes on an instrument such as a piano will be precisely designated. The frequency and therefore pitch of each of the notes on the keyboard is not necessarily arranged in exactly even steps from one note or semi-tone to another.
15 It is worth noting that when great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins broke his addiction to heroin he feared it might affect his playing adversely, but he in fact then went on to far greater success.
16 ‘At the Marquee’, Music Scene, 27 January 1974.
17 Shown, for example, in David Bowie – Five Years, BBC TV, first broadcast 25 May 2013.
18 At Henry Fonda Theatre, Los Angeles, 8 September 2009
19 Coincidentally, I also played for Jackie Mason at a run of London shows in the mid-1990s.
20 See Chapter 14, ‘Music has charms to sooth a savage breast…’, for discussion of music as therapy.
21 Garson often refers to this cable company metaphor for connecting to the ineffable flow of musical inspiration. Jay Landesman coined a similar phrase for his efforts to advance cultural expression in St Louis in the Southern States in the 1950s and beyond: the ‘cultural conduit’. Landesman and I ended up producing and promoting a series of live music nights together in 2006 which we subtitled with that phrase. Landesman called his biographical memoir Tales of a Cultural Conduit. The inspiration of Garson’s ‘cable company’ is his way of joining the stream of cultural creativity.
22 Coincidentally, during work on this book I played piano on a Marc Almond EP which was also worked on by Tony Visconti, who wrote online: ‘I really loved your piano. Reminded me of Nicky Hopkins and Leon Russell.’ (The EP was Tasmanian Tiger, Marc Almond, Cherry Red Records, February 2014.)
23 See Mari Yoshihara, Musicians From a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music, Temple University Press, 2007.
24 Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years, Jonathan Cape, 1973 and My Many Years, Alfred A. Knopf, 1980.
25 Gunther Schuller, Musings: The Musical Words of Gunther Schuller, Oxford University Press, 1986.
26 The world’s largest trade-only event for the music products industry, held annually in Anaheim, California.
27 This idea is further explored in Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success, Litt
le, Brown and Company, 2008.
28 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
29 David Bowie, liner notes, The Buddha of Suburbia, 1993.
30 Jérôme Soligny, David Bowie, 10/18, 2002.
31 www.indieethos.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/from-the-archives-mike-garson-on-working-with-david-bowie-the-later-years-part-2/ (these online interviews include some good links to Garson playing and demonstrating points)
32 Q Magazine, February 1997.
33 David Bowie, liner notes, The Buddha of Suburbia, 1993 (these appear only on the UK release, not the US version issued in 1995)
34 As above.
35 www.bowiesongs.wordpress.com
36 For the most detailed and reliable account of David Bowie’s production history, see Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, Titan Books, 2011
37 www.bowiesongs.tumblr.com
38 Brian Eno, A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary, Faber and Faber, 1996,
39 In 1971 Garson had been pianist and musical director for a Martha Reeves and the Vandellas concert at Madison Square Garden.
40 Paul Gorman, ‘Journalism: Interviewing David Bowie on working with Eno + engaging with visual arts, 1995’ at www.paulgormanis.com
41 As exhibited in ‘David Bowie Is’ at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 20 May–10 August 2014
42 Brian Eno, A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary, Faber and Faber, 1996, entry for 18 June.
43 Q Magazine, February 1997.
44 Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, Titan Books, 2011.
45 Beats per minute, as indicator of tempo, especially in dance music.
46 Reality was recorded at Looking Glass Studios, New York and released 15 September 2003.
47 This same incident is recounted by Tony Visconti.
48 A Vaughan Williams symphony was also included in June 2013 as part of the soundtrack to a film shown within Jeremy Deller’s ‘English Magic’ exhibition in the British Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, which featured images from Bowie’s 1972-1973 tour.
49 ‘Addicted to Noise’, 5 September 1999.
50 Music & Letters Vol. 43, No. 2 (April, 1962), pp. 174-176 (review by ‘T.D.’)
51 The Musical Quarterly LX, No. 1, January 1974
52 Lynn M. Hooker, Redefining Hungarian Music from Liszt to Bartók, Oxford University Press, 2013.
53 www.soundcloud.com/krisbeckermikegarson. See also www.krisbeckermusic.com.
54 www.kbfrozenheat.com
55 An example of this was the 2 March 2014 review by Timothy Mangan, classical music critic for the Orange County Register, of the performance the night before of Garson’s Symphonic Suite for Healing: ‘This was not classical music (despite some claims)’.
56 This may well be the piano on which Corgan recorded ‘Annie-Dog’ on Adore.
57 Audio from the show is archived at: www.archive.org/details/tsp2000-12-02.baker.
58 Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Dover Publications, 2000 (first published 1911).
59 One other commentator recommended by Tanke on these issues is Marcel Cobussen, who teaches Music Philosophy and Sound Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands and whose research explores the relationship between improvisation and non-linear systems.
60 www.music-heals.com/video.
61 www.musicandmemory.org.
62 This common saying derives from the English poet and playwright, William Congreve, whose play of 1697, The Mourning Bride, opens with the lines: ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.’ In popular usage, ‘breast’ has been replaced by ‘beast’.
63 The Cochrane Collaboration compiles a meta-review of research into the results of medical practices, which can then be used for the commissioning of services, for example.
64 In Trends in Cognitive Sciences, April 2013, Vol. 17, No. 4
65 Raymond MacDonald, Gunter Kreutz and Laura Mitchell, eds., Music, Health, and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, 2012.
66 www.nordoff-robbins.org.uk.
67 Gary Ansdell, How Music Helps in Music Therapy and Everyday Life, Ashgate, 2014.
68 Tom Murphy, ‘Q&A with Annie Clark of St. Vincent’, Denver Westword, 12 February 2010.
69 Rolling Stone, 25 June 2009.
70 Liner notes to iSelectBowie compilation CD, 2008. Poses plastiques are near-naked tableaux vivants.
71 Brian Eno, A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary, Faber and Faber, 1996, entry for 18 June.
72 See interview by Hans Morgenstern in 2004 for Independent Ethos film and music site, www.indieethos.wordpress.com.
Table of Contents
1 - Hammersmith, 1973
2 - GI Garson
3 - Ziggy’s support act
4 - Brooklyn, 1945-1969
5 - Abstinence amongst excess
6 - Supporting their eating…
7 - Breaking down barriers
8 - From Lulu to Liberace
9 - Inside Outside and the 1990s
10 - Reality, 2003
11 - Music in the moment
12 - Nine Inch Pumpkins
13 - Teaching people to find their voice
14 - ‘Music has charms to sooth a savage breast…’
15 - From Ventura to Fitzrovia, a pilgrimage complete
Bowie's Piano Man - The Biography of Mike Garson Page 30