What was your first experience in music?

Both my parents are musicians and so was my grandfather who was a Dixieland trombone player. He toured with territory bands and came all the way out to California to play on the piers and on Catalina Island in the 1920’s. When he got tired of the "road” he came back and became a band director.

My mom is a brass instrumentalist and was a junior high and high school band director. My dad taught jazz composition and improvisation at North Texas State University , played bassoon for the Fort Worth Symphony, and after he retired he played gigs around Dallas.

North Texas State must have been an early influence.

For sure – those guys were my first musical heroes. I’d go to all the concerts. I remember hearing Stan Kenton there, Peter Erskine was like 19 years old, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis came through a couple times. I just got sucked in.

You’ve got so much going on right now. What are some of the projects you’re working on?

This summer I worked on a couple movies. I worked on this Jarhead movie with Tom Newman.

I did a Dave Grusin movie this summer that I actually got to play piano on which was great. I played piano for Dave Grusin – that’s like, wow!

I’ve worked on commercials; I’ve been producing a bit for A&M Records – an artist named Chris Glover. I went on the Queen Mary 2 with Carly Simon to record a concert DVD. She just released a "standards” record.

I’ve been producing. I’m working on kind of a rap project that I’m trying to get off the ground – jazz, acid jazz kind of stuff.

How did you get your start in film and television?

I fell into it really early. In the mid-’80s I was playing a lot of jazz gigs – Freddie Hubbard, Sergio Mendez… and I met this one drummer who got me to play in this TV composer’s band

The composer started using me regularly on the sessions, then I got to know the music supervisor at Paramount, who learned that I can write and assigned me to write source music for Star Trek, Family Ties, Cheers, whatever shows were on. I was 23 or 24 years old. It was a great break.

And now you’re back to television on American Idol. What are some of the things you do on the show?

For the 2005 season, my role was Associate Musical Director with the focus on the female participants. I did the bulk of the arranging and helped the singers find songs, learn them, and rehearse them with the band. [laughs] Everything but the singing!

I had a dream that I was working on a show and was asked, "John, we need you to play violin.” So I played violin. Then they said, "John, we’re a contestant short. We need for you to, you know, be a contestant this week.” [laughs]

And you’ve got to get all of that done in a short amount of time.

It was basically producing 10 to 20 songs in a week…. that amount of material from Thursday to Tuesday night – it’s a pretty quick turn around.

And a lot of the work you did was completely tailored to the contestants?

It was totally custom - we’d have to hack away at the form. You had a minute and fifteen seconds or a minute thirty max to do a whole song and do it in a way that doesn’t bastardize the song at all.

People would have these epic prog-rock songs or [Meatloaf songwriter] Jim Steinman and I’d go, "Holy s*** man, you’re not even going to get to the chorus.” [laughs]

But even with that short turnaround time, the music sounds great.

Yeah, the band was killing, wasn’t it? And the guys are all reading that stuff. Basically, they had one half-hour rehearsal.

And some really talented singers, The 2005 winner, Carrie [Underwood] - she really can sing.

We were checking out some of your dates as a leader and you cover a lot of ground. You’ve got a straight-ahead trio album, a solo piano project, fusion…

Gotta keep evolving, creating, playing, having fun !

We could definitely hear the Miles influence on a track like "Less Mister Yes” from your One Live Night album. What are some of your big influences musically?

Well, Miles [Davis] for sure. I mean, I just love Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder for sure. I’ll be playing at his tribute in Dec…. and oh, I can’t believe that I played solo for Herbie at show where he received a composer’s award. I’ve been so lucky.

I love guys like them who play all kinds of music. They’re great jazz players, but they listen to all kinds of stuff. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do and that’s what I feel like I am as a jazz player that loves blues, rock, classical, pop music and embraces anything that’s just good

I always wanted to be like Quincy Jones and Herbie and guys that just play creative music. Herbie’s such a great experimentalist/inventor – that’s what I love about him and Miles and Wayne [Shorter].

You became a member of what was to become the last Miles Davis lineup – a group that featured guys like Kenny Garrett, Ricky Wellman, and Foley. How did you first get hooked up with Miles?

I was playing in a lot of bands here in LA at this place called Lake Café which was kind of like New York’s Zinc Bar of LA at that time – lots of musicians hanging out and jamming – and I met [drummer and producer] Vince Wilburn, who’s Miles’s nephew.

Vince said, "Yeah, man, I’m going to hook you up with Miles” and all this stuff and I said, "yeah, right” [laughs]. So I threw something on a cassette tape for Vince, gave it to him, and forgot about it.

Six months later, Miles called and asked me to join his band. I was totally shocked and surprised.

What did Miles expect of a keyboard player?

At that point a lot of it was all parts–based.

We were playing stuff from Tutu, Amandla, and You’re Under Arrest. It was structured, but when it got time for Miles or somebody else to solo, that’s when we would relax and we had these open vamps.

So my role was to play the part and then I got to comp. Even the comping would start off the same and build. By that point Miles’s music was pretty structured.

He was way into Prince at that time – it ended up being a structured R&B gig except for the blowing [improvising]. And he would always stand in front of Ricky Wellman, the drummer, and tell him when to come up and when to come down and kind of direct the momentum.

Miles himself even had a keyboard at that time, didn’t he?

He had an Oberheim OBX or something like that and would play these crazy, clustery out-there chords and build the tension! Some buzzy, sawtooth patch…[laughs]

Speaking of Miles, on your album One Live Night you’ve re-imagined "Paraphernalia,” a Wayne Shorter composition that was originally recorded by Miles’ great quintet with Herbie, Wayne, Tony Williams, and Ron Carter.

In the case of that tune, the drummer was playing pads and triggering samples, and I was triggering samples, so it wasn’t quite as static.

What I’m trying to do is use samples and stuff like that – electronica, and jazz, but we’re kind of stuck with playing to loops now, playing to a click and all that.

What I’d really like to do is use [Ableton] Live and make it much more organic – maybe hire a DJ, and the DJ can react to the band and the band to the DJ so it’s not so static.

And you used iZotope’s Ozone plug-in when you mastered that session?

I used one of the [Ozone] mastering patches on the bass guitar throughout the whole record because I had two bassists. That album was recorded live at the Baked Potato. It’s a small stage. We’re all crammed in there and we had bass and drums bleeding nearly everywhere in the mix. A lot of the tunes had the 808 kicks in them too, so there was all this bottom.

I used Ozone on the electric bass a lot – there was an [Ozone present] when the bass was doing lead that made him stick out more and cleaned up.

Did you also use Ozone live on that date or just in the mastering?

All those effects on the album were done after the fact – opening up the bass and big reverb splashes…I used a Kaoss Pad on the drum a lot.

When you were mastering One Live Night, did you find yourself using Ozone to get back to the sound of the original room or to create a new sound?

I was trying to make a new sound. I wanted to make an improvised record and have it sound like a rap record in a way – big, boomy kicks - sonically, more electronic. On some of those tunes you’ll hear effects fading in and out of the drums - that’s just me improvising on a Chaos Pad. It’s like an improvised overdub.

Are the other players in your band surprised when they hear the final recording?

I think so! I didn’t really cut anybody up or change much – I just kind of added sonic palettes to it.

But it seems like that’s happening a lot more and more - people are chopping everything up these days.

I’m in the studio a fair amount with this one producer. I’m in there with [former Frank Zappa drummer] Vinnie [Colauita] and we’re doing these tracks. The drums sound great and the first thing they do after we cut the track is chop up the drums!

In addition to all of the playing and writing you’re doing, it sounds like you’ve been taking a more active hand in the producing and engineering side of things.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of producing in the last 4 or 5 years. I have an engineer but I also [work with] Pro Tools a fair amount. What I like about Ozone is that I can set the palette in a way. I’ll have an idea during the mix and say, "let’s try this effect on that” or let’s re-cut this a bit. It’s kind of like an endless process, mastering. It’s never over until it’s over.

I’ll get a balance and tweak the way I hear it, and then I’ll have an engineer come in and help me out and doctor it up at the end. I don’t want to spend all my time redrawing fades and that kind of stuff.

You’ve got to have both – you’ve got to get in there on the computer and dig in, but then you also have to step back. That’s what’s good about having a second [person] – you’re not looking at the screen – you’re actually listening. You can see the big picture better.

What other iZotope plug-ins have you found useful?

Trash is really deep. You wouldn’t think you could change sound so much with a program like that, but you really can. I’ve been using it in sessions – I’ll put an analog patch though it. I’ll just throw anything on it and just see what it does. I’ll put it on drums too.

You can just put a straight sine wave through it and get some really different stuff. I’ve put my Rhodes through it -- it sounds Trash-y! [laughs] You put more distortion just on the top frequencies, you can really get around it and spike it out in different ways. I’d be interested to see what it would sound like on an acoustic piano. Or room sounds.

Glad you like it!  Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, John, and good luck on your upcoming tour.

Update for 2006!

John adds that in 2006, he's busy producing three very talented singers, finishing a rap-remix project, some commercial/film work, and preparing for the spring launch of his new CD release "One Live Night", which is available through iTunes, CDBaby.com and his website. In March, John returns to American Idol as Head Arranger. And stay tuned for more updates!

To learn more about John Beasley and his latest album, visit www.beasleymusic.com.

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One Live Night

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