paul_viapiano_guitarist

music, technology & life in pasadena, california

Summer In The City

Boston has Tanglewood, Chicago has Ravinia and Los Angeles has the legendary Hollywood Bowl, summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Hollywood Bowl orchestras. A newly renovated shell and greatly improved sound system has been in place for the last few years along with new backstage areas (now with air-conditioning!) and a comfortable musician’s lounge.

A few weeks ago, the season opened with the HBO (Hollywood Bowl Orchestra) and the annual induction of famed musicians into the HB Hall of Fame. One of this year’s honorees was BB King, who is still out touring and playing over 300 concerts a year at age 80. (I get tired playing eight shows a week just staying in town.) He may be sitting down while he plays on stage these days but his energy and enthusiasm is boundless.

I was talking to drummer Brian Miller in the wings before the show when he motioned to look beside me. And there she was…Lucille! Sitting on a guitar stand waiting for her man…priceless!

The next week, Cheap Trick came to play a Beatles set that included the entire Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Evidently, this is something they’ve been doing here and there for the last few years along with an invited group of guests. This time they brought Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins and Ian Ball from Gomez, as well as Simone (Nina Simone’s daughter) and Rob Laufer. I played a little rhythm guitar on Magical Mystery Tour, lead on Strawberry Fields and electric sitar on Norwegian Wood. The Beatles’ engineer, Geoff Emerick was at the board and the original George Martin arrangements were on the music stands of the HBO. The orchestra sounded great, though I wished that CT had paid more attention to keeping good time, and it was tough to hear Blackbird (sung by Simone) played in such a high key with capos on the guitar accompaniment.

In the first week of July, the LA Phil took over and played a baseball-themed pops concert for three nights celebrating the LA Dodgers 50th anniversary and Independence Day. On the last night, after Tommy Lasorda finished his ever-expanding nightly monologue, Randy Newman was introduced as the “…Oscar Award-winning, Grammy Award-winning musician/composer whose family raised four award-winning Hollywood composers.” Randy walked out, sat at the piano and said, “Yeah, and my family raised a lot of substance abusers, too!”

I love LA…

July 21, 2008 | Link to this entry

Read It Again (and weep)

Banks are teetering, the credit crunch continues, gasoline and oil prices are at all-time highs, food prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is soaring and George Bush is clueless. His upbeat pep talk yesterday was as amazingly out of touch as was his February 2008 surprise reaction that gasoline was approaching $4 a gallon. Are you better off than you were eight years ago? How about just one year ago?

Here’s a piece I wrote in May 2007 that bears repeating:

From the archives | Why The Fed Is Wrong About Inflation

July 17, 2008 | Link to this entry

Beaming Pure Psychedelic Love

On the drive to her pre-school this morning, my nearly five year-old daughter sang along almost word for word, the lyrics to Jimi Hendrix’s Bold As Love. OK, it was John Mayer’s version, but still…

July 9, 2008 | Link to this entry

Observed

Sylvia Plachy, a photographer whom I admire, says that great photographs have ghosts in them; fleeting actions, blurs, ethereal shadows, rays of light that sometimes appear in photographs without our intentions that bring a presence and mystery to what otherwise may have been merely a good image.

In an online photography forum that I frequent, a member tossed out this question.

Asked:

Has anyone here missed something in composing a shot only to process the film, produce a print then realize an uncanny resemblance to a ghostly figure? Or religious icon?

…and answered:

No apparitions, but in 2004, I got a pair of animal crackers stuck together at the buttocks; appropriately, one was an elephant, and one was a donkey. I should have put it up on EBay.

July 8, 2008 | Link to this entry

Apologies…

…to all who have been wondering and waiting almost two months for a new posting here. My family has been weathering a serious health crisis and I’ve been spending all of my time with them. I hope to start writing again very soon, but in the meantime, you might like to peruse the archives listed at the bottom of the right-hand column.

Thanks for understanding…

June 22, 2008 | Link to this entry

Ransom

“Hello, Mr. Viapiano?”

“Yes?”

“This is Musician’s Local 47 and I’m calling today to tell you that if you don’t pay Local 7’s fee in order to resign in good standing, we’ll be forced to drop you from membership.”

So began a recent phone call from my local chapter of the musician’s union, Professional Musicians Local 47 located in Los Angeles.

It all began a few years ago when I joined another local (in addition to my LA membership), Orange County’s Local 7. You see, each city or region around the country has a local chapter that’s responsible for dealing with musicians’ issues in that area. When musicians move to a new city, they usually join the local chapter in order to derive the benefits of working there. In my case, although I had been a member of LA’s local for more than 20 years, I had an 8-week job coming up in Orange County, which meant I needed to join their chapter, too.

After that gig was over, I had no reason to continue to belong. I never work there, it’s too far to drive when I have plenty of work here in LA, and why not save the over $100 a year it costs to belong, so I didn’t pay my membership fee the next time it came due. Well, it’s not as easy as it would seem. You have to resign in writing, because if you don’t and it comes time to pay up, you’ll be expelled!

Big deal, right?

Well, it seems there’s this little by-law from musicians’ headquarters in New York (believe me, that’s a story for another day) that says no member who has been expelled can be a member anywhere else. Is there a way around this ridiculous rule? Sure, please remit the appropriate fee of $115 and you can resign in good standing.

I’m surprised the letter from the OC people didn’t come with cut-up letters from magazines and newspapers because it sure sounded like ransom to me.

So I paid up; what could I do? And get this…they send me a letter telling me they reviewed my request and payment at a board meeting, and it was passed and seconded to accept the payment and allow me to resign in good standing.

Not much to do down in Orange County, is there?

April 29, 2008 | Link to this entry

The Color Of Jazz

There’s a scene in Almost Famous in which the young hero stumbles upon his teenage sister’s record collection. It’s the 1960s and as he flips through the 12-inch square jackets, the now-iconic albums of that era flash before his eyes. There’s poignancy in his yearning to be older, a part of the generation that introduced the world to rock and roll, and the record covers are viewed and handled with a hushed reverence.

I’ve written before about what we’ve gained as music has moved into the digital realm, and also about what we’ve lost. One of the things we’ve lost is a greater connection to the artist and his complete vision, a connection facilitated in great part by the now-lost record jacket.

In 1970, Creed Taylor formed CTI Records, an independent jazz label that grew out of his work at A&M Records. Together with a roster of incredible jazz musicians he forged a new acceptance of jazz among both musicians and the general public. The attraction was visual as well, for Taylor understood that there had to be a way to make his product stand out alongside all the others in the record bin. That difference was photographer Pete Turner.

Pete Turner is responsible for more recognizable and iconic images than any other photographer working in the music business. Armed with only an album title, Turner would search his files or create anew a bold and striking image that would forever bond the music with his photo in our minds. The full-bleed 12-inch image (or larger, often wrapping around to the back cover as well) made for a stunning package, with Turner’s trademark vibrant saturated color screaming out at you.

Pete Turner: The Color of Jazz is a beautiful collection of the work he did for CTI, Impulse and Verve; almost all of this work was commissioned by Creed Taylor. The book, presented in the 12-inch square format of the originals, is printed beautifully. Each jacket is accompanied by a short description or anecdote about the making of the photograph. It was a real treat and jog to my memory to see all these wonderful photos again. As I turned each page, the sound of the music from each album came back to me as alive as the first day I heard it.

That’s a great testament to the power of imagery and its link to music in the hands of a master like Pete Turner.

April 20, 2008 | Link to this entry

about

Paul Viapiano

Paul Viapiano is a guitarist working in film, television and live performance based in sunny Pasadena, California.

You can email me here.

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