Bowie's Piano Man - The Biography of Mike Garson

  THE LIFE OF

  MIKE GARSON

  CLIFFORD SLAPPER

  First published in 2014 by Fantom Films

  fantomfilms.co.uk

  Copyright © Clifford Slapper 2014

  Clifford Slapper has asserted his moral right to be identified

  as the author of this work in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Hardback edition ISBN: 978-1-78196-131-5

  Typeset by Phil Reynolds Media Services, Leamington Spa

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Jacket and title design by Robert Hammond

  Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in this regard and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

  Contents

  From Wembley to Bell Canyon, the long way: how this book came to be written

  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

  Photographs

  Appendix 1

  Appendix 2

  Appendix 3

  Appendix 4

  Acknowledgements

  Select bibliography

  From Wembley to Bell Canyon, the long way: how this book came to be written

  MIKE GARSON, BORN IN BROOKLYN, New York in 1945, is one of the world’s greatest pianists. He is best known for his work with David Bowie from 1972 onwards. Bowie has had several major long-term accomplices in the creative whirlwind he has unleashed on the world since the late 1960s: Mick Ronson, Tony Visconti, Earl Slick, Brian Eno, Carlos Alomar and others. But in terms of time span (1972 until 2006) and frequency of collaboration, Garson in fact ranks as the one person with whom Bowie has chosen to work more times, over more years, than anyone else. He has been on more Bowie albums than any other musician.

  In addition, the range of other artists with whom Garson has worked is also extraordinary, and this is before we even come to consider his own work in jazz and his prolific composing output, including classical pieces now running into the thousands. Some of those other artists he has worked with, in no particular order, have included: The Polyphonic Spree, Aviv Geffen, Lulu, Luther Vandross, Freddie Hubbard, Stan Getz, Stanley Clarke, Elvin Jones, Mel Tormé, Nancy Wilson, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Seal, Gwen Stefani, Martha Reeves, St. Vincent, Free Flight, Billy Corgan, Jeff Beck, Natalie Imbruglia, Adam Lambert and The Dillinger Escape Plan.

  A number of key turning points in Garson’s career came about as a result of apparently random chances or freak coincidences putting opportunities his way. On closer inspection, however, we see that this was also due in large measure to his being receptive and open-minded enough both to spot the chances when they came, and to be ready and willing to run with them. This book came about through a similar combination of fortuitous circumstance and open minds.

  I had, like thousands of others, emailed Garson years earlier about his stunning piano solo on the title track of David Bowie’s 1973 Aladdin Sane album. Then, in 2006, I worked as a pianist myself with Bowie on Extras, Ricky Gervais’ HBO/BBC television comedy show, written by Gervais with Stephen Merchant and produced by Charlie Hanson, in which Bowie sang the ‘Pug Nosed Face’ song to Ricky Gervais’ character, Andy Millman. So that when I contacted Garson again in 2008 about visiting him in LA for some piano lessons, we had then both worked with Bowie, and Garson was amused to discover that his visitor from London turned out to be the very pianist he had heard and apparently much enjoyed on the TV show.

  That our piano sessions also unfolded into a discussion of history, philosophy, musicology and specifically Garson’s own life history, was not so unusual for him. When teaching, his aim is always to inspire his students to ‘become whatever they want to become’ and to discover what they can in themselves. Through the discipline of his almost meditative approach to the keyboard, wider horizons are opened up. My own initial meetings with him were no exception. Fascinated by his tales and insights I simply asked whether anyone had yet written his biography. His reply was that they had not, but that he thought that I would be the ideal person to do so, as a fellow pianist with shared sensibilities and experiences. We soon agreed that I would write the first ever biography of this remarkable man, with his full and close co-operation. The more I found out about him, the more determined I became to produce a biography which might allow others to discover and find inspiration in his prodigious achievements.

  On various visits to LA from London I accumulated over twenty-five hours of digital audio recordings of interviews and candid conversations between us, which explored both his life and also some key themes which are central to his values and interests. These recordings cover a fascinating range of subjects and are dense with material – as a New Yorker and a Londoner we both tend to speak quite quickly compared with, for example, the Californians amongst whom Garson now resides.1

  From the start, Garson and I found a lot of striking similarities in our experiences and perceptions as working pianists, and decided to allow the book to evolve as a dialogue between two pianists, revealing his life through the kaleidoscopic lens of these shared passions and concerns. In addition, I then interviewed a number of other people who have worked with him, including musicians like Bowie bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and guitarists Earl Slick, Gerry Leonard and Reeves Gabrels; his Free Flight collaborator Jim Walker; childhood friend and jazz saxophonist Dave Liebman; Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and various of his family and friends.

  One key recurring theme was the breaking down of boundaries between musical genres. As a teenager Garson had been determined to conquer the mysteries of jazz using his classical background, since people had said it was not possible. I approached him with a similar challenge, as I was anxious to play jazz too, having come from more of a pop background, and had also been told by jazz musicians that what I played was ‘not jazz’, even when I thought it was. On hearing me play, which he described as rock with jazz stylings, he simply questioned the need to prove anything to anyone. He had himself embarked on a long and tangential route away from the simplicity of his first compositions in his early teens, in his determination to master the complexities of jazz, but came to realise, through that process, that the greatest beauty in song writing and composing lies in simplicity of structure. He had also been told that he did not have the ‘feel’ or the timing to play jazz – and yet became a master of the genre.

  Today, however, he is more concerned to teach his students to master their own creativity than to navigate the obstacle courses set up by all the little orthodoxies. Garson’s career, as will be seen in what follows, has been an object lesson in breaking down these artificial barriers between classical, jazz and pop, and rejecting the practice of exclusion. As in other areas of life, there are m
usical genres (particularly in the jazz establishment) which set up esoteric codes for the sake of excluding those who stand outside, non-members of the club, who are assumed to be incapable of understanding its arcane language. But musical creativity does not sit happily alongside the proud protectionism of closed groups or artistic sects and élites.

  During our very first meeting Garson decried the pompous arrogance of performers who are precious about what they do. He contemplated the virtue of creative spontaneity with characteristically amusing directness, in his strong Brooklyn accent which has survived many years in the warm valleys and hills of California. His impressionistic sketch of prehistory may use broad strokes, but is intended as an admonition to those for whom music is a ‘business’:

  I hate it. Do you know, the funny thing is, if you think about it, at eleven, twelve at night, they gather around and a lot of these tribes, there was a prayer to their gods. So, they played the flute, or sang… they just did it, it went out into the ether, they didn’t try to get a record contract the next day with that hit that they wrote. They never even thought of that paradigm or model, they just thought this is our way of thanking God. This is what we do. And, now it’s like we have to tape things, to hear them over and over… but people should know there is still improvised music, and there is the kind of stuff that I do… I try to capture it so people can feel that¸ but I’m moving on to the next piece – I’m already out of the music from last night, out of the music from last week. Certainly, out of the music I did with David in the seventies or in the nineties or 2000, looking for the next thing. If the next thing doesn’t come, meaning I don’t hear it in my head, maybe I’m moving into another field for a minute, maybe I do some more artwork, computer artwork, or maybe I teach for a few years, or maybe I’m only being a grandfather and a husband and a father. Or, maybe, I do nothing, or maybe I just compose… or decompose.

  My visit to LA to conduct these interviews with Garson was the latest in a series of occasional periods there, each of which had been enchanting in different ways. I had first been in LA in the late 1980s and on my first visit to Venice Beach had come across a pianist busking on a real upright piano. I wondered what would happen to the piano when he finished for the day. At the end of his set he stood up and pushed his piano before him, disappearing into the sunset, the piano set on a wooden raft with wheels.

  In 2009, I had got hopelessly lost on my first visit to Garson’s home in Bell Canyon, near Calabasas, having got half way to San Diego (going south out of LA rather than north), when the driver finally got his bearings and turned around. But my journey that day was only the final hour or two of a much longer journey which for me had culminated in that meeting.

  At the age of six my parents had bought me a toy piano. I was never away from it for long, so the following year they decided to send me for piano lessons. They found a teacher by the implausible name of Miss Beryl Silley, who taught from a run-down maisonette in Wembley, North London. My grandmother took me there for a half-hour lesson each week whilst my parents were at work. It was a slightly grim experience. On arrival in the hallway there was a huge poster of Margaret Thatcher facing the door. By the baby grand piano was a very vocal parrot, and whilst I played Chopin each week she would surreptitiously nibble shortbread biscuits whilst brewing her tea, ready for after I had left.

  Against the background of such an introduction to the world of music, the arrival of Aladdin Sane was the 1970s equivalent of joining the first passenger jet into space. As I ran home after school one summer’s day in 1973 and anxiously put that RCA orange-labelled 12-inch vinyl LP on to the turntable, a whole new world was about to open. As the needle made contact with the spiral groove rotating at 33⅓ times per minute, and the familiar analogue scratch whispered out of my parents’ Dansette record-player (from which we had by then removed the thin, black wooden legs and had it sitting on the floor), the two opening chords of ‘Watch That Man’, G and C, were an apt fanfare for the start of my adolescence. Mike Garson’s piano playing washed beautifully all over this album of ten songs, and I was lost in it. Lost on the way to Bell Canyon.

  1 - Hammersmith, 1973

  ‘It is pointless to talk about his ability as a pianist. He is exceptional. However, there are very, very few musicians, let alone pianists, who naturally understand the movement and free thinking necessary to hurl themselves into experimental or traditional areas of music, sometimes, ironically, at the same time. Mike does this with such enthusiasm that it makes my heart glad just to be in the same room with him.’2 – David Bowie on Mike Garson

  BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, ONE HOT AUTUMN NIGHT in 1972. A struggling young jazz musician had just completed another small club gig in his home town. He returned to his wife and baby in their cramped apartment with just a few dollars’ payment for having worked his usual magic up and down the black and white keys of the piano all night.

  He was frustrated. The rewards were disproportionate to the effort and creativity he devoted to it. The five dollars in his pocket was not enough to feed three people until the next gig. There was only one way to play a show: he had to throw his all into it. Whilst playing, he did not care about what he was paid because his was a labour of love. But how could he provide for his family this way? So this time, Mike Garson entered the apartment and announced to his wife, Susan, that he had to find something else to do, something bigger and more lucrative. Of course, he had to continue playing: by now it was second nature to him. But he had to find some way to raise the stakes and the scale of his work. That night they slept fitfully as this grim reality descended on the Garson household.

  Cut to the Hammersmith Odeon, one of London’s largest music venues, less than a year later. David Bowie is performing his last ever concert as his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. The devoted crowd of nearly four thousand fans are wild with excitement. As they wait impatiently for Bowie to come on to the stage, they are introduced to an unscheduled support act. A lone pianist, who will be playing later that night with Bowie and the full band, will appear first. This pianist will not simply keep them entertained with some solo piano, which would be challenging enough, but will play some instrumental piano versions of the very songs which Bowie will later be performing in his set. Mike Garson, for it was he, more than rose to the challenge, and was cheered and applauded as he played his instrumental renditions of songs such as ‘Life on Mars?’ which have since become widely loved classics of modern song.

  The story of how Mike Garson made the transition from New York jazz pianist to international touring keyboardist with Bowie and, later, with rock bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins, is an important piece of modern music history. For this is also the story of how musical boundaries are broken down and how new genres emerge from the flux. In this respect, Garson has been an archetype of the trend towards more fluidity in the creative arts, as he developed virtuoso skills in the broadest possible range of fields, from classical and jazz, through avant-garde, to rock and pop, and then continued to cross-fertilise and wander across these genres, led only by his passion for the music itself. His fascinating career, to date already spanning six decades, is a condensed distillation of many key trends of the era.

  His triumphant 1973 solo spot on stage for David Bowie in West London came just a few years after Garson had first been called on to a much smaller stage, at Greenwich Village’s Pookie’s Pub, by Elvin Jones, renowned drummer with John Coltrane, to replace a pianist who had fallen off the stage, drunk. Garson worked hard at his craft throughout his teens and early twenties and after that debut with Elvin Jones had become part of the New York jazz scene. But the work that he has done with Bowie since 1972 began with another extraordinary piece of timing.

  In September 1972, Garson was playing in a jazz club on Sixty-Ninth Street and Broadway, in New York. It had been his routine for several years, since his army days, to practise for eight hours each day, often followed by several hours of playing a gig. The night on which our story begins, he fou
nd himself in a seriously talented line-up. The sax was played by Dave Liebman, a childhood friend of Garson’s, who later played for Miles Davis. The bass player was a phenomenal jazz musician called Steve Swallow. The drummer was Pete La Roca, who was superb but later got fed up with gigging, drove a taxi for several years, then became a lawyer. He returned to playing in his seventies but died in 2012 from lung cancer.

  This was not a ‘club date’ (as it is called in New York – or a ‘casual’ in LA), put together for a party or event. This was a true jazz gig. The band contained some of the most virtuoso jazz players around at that time, and yet there was just a handful of paying customers in the room that night. Jazz fans then could be cruel and fickle, failing to support live music beyond the scope of a few big names like Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis or John Coltrane. Even at 1972 prices, those few dollars would not go far. He told his wife that this could not go on; he had had enough of the frustrations of the jazz scene. He said to her that night, ‘I think I want to go out and tour with some big rock band, play to larger audiences…’

  The following day, in a beautifully felicitous piece of synchronicity, Garson was telephoned with no less than three separate job offers within twenty-four hours. One call was from Woody Herman, who led a famous jazz ‘big band’ in America at the time. The job would involve touring constantly, playing seven nights a week, virtually living on the bus or staying in cheap motels on the road for little pay. The second offer was from the trumpet player from the Woody Herman band, Bill Chase, who had established his own band. Chase was subsequently killed in an accident on the way to a gig at a county fair, along with several other musicians.

  Then there was a call from a certain Tony Defries, with an intriguing offer. It was indeed a rock tour, just as Garson had announced he had wished for, the night before. He had heard of neither manager Tony Defries nor his artist, David Bowie. Bowie was already huge in Britain and on the verge of breaking America, but his name would certainly not have been common currency in the jazz community.