Bowie's Piano Man : The Life of Mike Garson (9781617137372) by Slapper Clifford

Author:Slapper, Clifford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corp
Published: 2018-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

If you’ve practiced your whole life, it’s quite a gift and an honor if you can then sit down with all those languages of music . . . and use all that, express how you feel in the moment, using laws of music, rhythm, melody, and harmony . . . When you’re in a relationship with another person you can always say, I feel tired today, I feel sick, I feel in love with you, I feel disgusted with you . . . you’re expressing how you feel and then the conversation might go from there. But with music, people have a gig, they have to prepare these things. Someone wants this, someone wants that, so you don’t always have that opportunity. So I’m trying to create that opportunity by saying, ‘Okay, this is what I’m feeling this minute.’

In 2004, Garson was on the panel of judges for the Yamaha Young Performing Artist Award and selected the brilliant young composer-pianist Becker KB as that year’s winner in the piano category. They did not meet at that point, but Becker explored the full range of Garson’s work (including his work with Bowie and other artists outside of classical music) in the following years, finding a great affinity with Garson’s whole approach to music. In 2011 he contacted Garson, and they have remained in close contact since, with Becker recording a number of Garson’s compositions, and an album of these is planned for the near future. From their first meeting, Becker tells me, it was apparent that Garson was a ‘man of substance’ who combined ‘great knowledge and experience’ with humility and generosity, who was a natural teacher as well as constantly inquiring and seeking to learn as well as teach.

Those first impressions have been confirmed with time. He jokes that, given the genuinely guru-like wisdom he felt was being imparted by his mentor, it seemed apt that on first visiting him he discovered that the home from which Garson was sending such valued advice is situated ‘at the top of a mountain’—or at least halfway up. In the intervening years, Becker’s own accomplishments have also been exceptional, and he has generously provided much further insight into Garson’s music, and especially the way in which his ‘Now’ music works. Becker has the highly developed technical virtuosity as well as the emotional understanding and versatility to do justice to Garson’s compositions. Several of these recordings can be heard online and have been very well received, especially his interpretation of Garson’s Ballade in G-Sharp Minor, which has proved of particular fascination to other concert pianists.6

On hearing in 2011 Becker’s own compositions made during the previous seven years, Garson said something that has powerfully inspired Becker in his work ever since. He noted that Becker was in the first stage of his development as a composer, suggesting, ‘Something tells me I can push you to and through the next stage because I’ve not only been there but I understand your creativity and how to go deeper with you .

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