Don Grusin
Piano in Venice
\"Piano in Venice\" is a mix between jazz piano and world beats.
Piano in Venice
I moved to Venice last August 2007 to compose and record a piano album using
the many loops and samples that I’ve collected over the past few years as my
accompanying rhythm track partner. The electronica you’ll hear are grooves
from every musical genre, guitar licks, voices, dancers, people clapping and
singing, birds, animals, traditional percussion instruments from everywhere
in the world. One of my favorite samples is the Paolo Soleri bell which was
the doorbell of my recording studio-livingroom in the little house I rented
on Crestmoore Place near the French Market. You’ll hear the Soleri bell on
tk 11, san juan av.
My inspiration for melodies, moods, grooves came from throughout that
beautiful ocean community... the beach, the carnival boardwalk atmosphere,
the best air in LA, the hang with the people in local bars and restaurants and coffee
shops, the neighborhood birds, dogs and cats, and in particular the contrasting personalities of the
local streets for which I named the tracks.
Here are some word-pictures of the songs:
1.) rose & main. This main intersection divides Ocean Park on the north from Venice to the south. It opens with a Grusin-recognizable melody, offering a quiet and sublime feeling which in the early daylight hours define the rose & main intersection. And then that corner really starts to roar in the late-morning near Barbra Streisand’s ballet puppet and the Firehouse, the folks heading to and from Gold’s Gym.... this frenetic energy continues with people heading to the beach just 2 blocks to the west and it goes on until late at night...the chorus sections shout out that late night energy...
2.) washington way is a street that I rode almost every morning on the way to the beach, had some friends living on the block across from a black church with great music coming from it on Sundays, even some weekdays. A laidback and sort of island of collective peace and so I invented the DG version of reggae with the double-time shakers and cymbals directing traffic...great sunsets on that street with Venice Library just at the west end.
3.) abbot kinney blvd is the main avenue for stores, restaurants, pizza (best in LA at Abbots Pizza) and the 3/4 hump in rhythm track that I played way the traffic moves from north to south in the am, and opposite in the pm. The track has a kind of 3D acoustic sense like the street itself, stringing along with locals and tourists eyeing each other. It sits just next to residential long-time Venusians, new Asian kids on the block selling shoes and tea,...this song is an honorific gesture to Mr Abbot Kinney, the masterfully intelligent conservationist-developer of Venice in the last century.
4.) pacific av opens with a melodic theme that I thought I’d stolen from my brother Dave, but he said no...a slow thematic melody with a Nigerian Udu and vibra-slap, with dumbek drums (also known as a Darbuka Drum played by my good friend Rony Barrak from Beruit) saying hello from time to time...This narrow long street stretches from Marina Del Rey north to Ocean Park, the Venice boardwalk paralleling along a block to the west on the beach.
5.) electric av is my version of the sound of the action just behind the main street in Venice, with parking lots, garbage cans, the working world of both the comfortable and the homeless, pushing their carts through the back streets, some playing music, always on the lookout for handouts, or something left behind some of the stores and restaurants...dogs, some orphans on the loose hang out in the alleys off electric av, lots of crows, a subcultural venue for action for all these characters.
6.) california ct was the street where I chose to characterize the houses and narrow tree-lined walkways with the left hand melody sort of arguing with the right hand chords in a kind of George Shearing simplicity which I always admired.
7.) amoroso pl reminds me of a kind of Brasilian neighborhood, little houses, all canted unevenly along the street with tropical plants everywhere along side the big trees, palms, california pepper trees with the concrete sidewalks bulging from the roots of old diciduous trees and lights in all the windows at night creating a super-comfortable living space right in the midst of the dominating urban energy of Los Angeles.
8.) lincoln blvd is a driving nightmare particularly at rush hour, better in late night, but the daytime is a sort of an unzoned street with all kinds of multi-ethnic stores, markets, bike shops, check-cashing corners... so I wanted to emulate the mood and ryhthm with a constant pulse of my left hand which just chugs along like the bumber-to-bumber traffic.
9.) ozone ct Some years ago I had friends living on this intense slice of a block stretching from Pacific to the boardwalk, ending in the Jewish center’s parking lot. Incredible sunsets one sees from this prized neighborhood, now not so gang-ish which is true of all of Venice. So when I ride along the beach on the bike path and look over at Ozone nothing but good memories float in...and so the rhythm and bell confirms that pleasant feeling.
10.) speedway is the busy alleyway that goes from Ballona Creek on the south to Navy street on the north just before Ocean Park...this whole neighborhood was the site of Pacific Ocean Park which any old military guy will tell you about when they were on leave from the service, from WWII to Viet Nam...doing their R&r up from Pendleton and other bases. I wanted the action of this alley to be represented by a Brasilian Condomble (actually from the Yoruba of Ghana) which is a kind of precursor of the backbeat in modern music. When you drive or ride bikes or walk down this Speedway alley you’ll get the flavor of Venice in all its parts, some seamly, some gentle, some sad but always ALIVE...and so the solos keep finding new life over the throbbing rhythm track of the piano and the percussion.
11.) san juan av is the first attempt trying out my piano in the great sounding room, and because the Soleri bell was my doorbell, I wanted the sounds both to have some interplay....a sad and introspective melody which I played only once, like a solo with no other inspiration but from the bell and the imagined number of social circumstances it has witnessed. From the strollers down the street in front, to the dwellers in the house before me. The street San Juan is where we want to live in 2009 and so this is a bit of prayer as well as homage to the life-giving atmosphere of recording nearby on Crestmoore Pl.
12.) venice blvd pulses like the spirit of locals and tourists who move along the famous street for which the great beach community is named...folks walking their dogs, going to farmer’s market on Friday mornings. This simple major to minor melody personifies the feeling I have when I’m driving, walking or riding along the blvd, the main artery to the freeways, the Westside, Hollywood, and eventually east to downtown Los Angeles. There used be a rail line in the old days that went along the blvd, all the way from downtown to the beach, that property is now developed for housing, parking lots, parks.
13.) oakwood av is the place where moms and dads tell their kids to be careful...police have told me it’s not as bad as a few years ago when gangs pretty much ruled the blocks streaming into Oakwood, and there was (is) a gang which used the name...but now it’s pretty cleaned up, although the homeless still find alleys to sleep in and garbage to recycle parallel to Lincoln Blvd. I wrote this simple ‘three-blind-mice’ kind of melody to keep remembering the transformation of the street from a tough place to a warm and beautiful cross-section of my adopted town, Venice.
World: Afro-Brazilian