Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Steven Van Zandt, perhaps best known for his work with Bruce Springsteen, starred in the Netflix series Lilyhammer. Two new volumes compile the music he composed for the series.
(Photo: Björn Olsson)Musician and actor Steven Van Zandt added scoring to his expansive resume several years ago while starring as a relocated New York gangster in the series Lilyhammer, which aired on Netflix from 2012 to 2014.
Van Zandt’s musical work on the series has been compiled on a pair of Lilyhammer: The Score discs—Volume 1: Jazz and Volume 2: Folk, Rock, Rio, Bits And Pieces. The E-Street Band guitarist, radio impresario and garage-rock enthusiast set about putting together a band suited to summon music tailored to the show and his own character, Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano. And on the recommendation of drummer Max Weinberg, pianist and bandleader Lee Musiker came aboard to help Van Zandt in fully realizing his goals.
Bassist Per Mathisen contributes to a tune and Michael Leonhart crops up on trumpet a bit later on the first disc—just two of dozens who contributed to the recordings, which took place in New York and Norway, where the show’s set. A Frank Sinatra song, “I’m A Fool To Want You,” gets slotted into the batch of Van Zandt originals that swing and reference an era before bebop rearranged the jazz ecosystem.
“I figured I’ve got some of the most talented musicians in New York City, so why waste them on 15-second cues,” Van Zandt said in a press release.“We decided to have some fun. I’d meet Lee about an hour before the session and give him the top line melodies, basic chord changes and structure and talk about the overall mood of the piece. I wanted to try something different and get the musicians’ creative input and let these guys who were used to always reading their parts express themselves for a change. We would basically arrange it on the spot. I’d suggest a harmony, Lee would suggest an idea and the musicians would begin to orchestrate themselves. It was wild and extremely fruitful. After the success of the first session, I knew we had a legitimate jazz album in addition to an incredible score.”
The second disc—crammed with 36 cuts—comes off as genre agnostic, veering from the acoustic guitar strum of “Revelation” that could have accompanied John Wayne on a ride across a desert to “Lillehammer Mouring,” a somber tune that insinuates a Norwegian folk feel into its short runtime.
“I’m really proud of Lilyhammer and the music I created for it,” Van Zandt said. “This was especially rewarding because it gave me the chance to finally do a score completely. This was a full commitment, I loved doing it and experimenting with sound and putting it to pictures and seeing what effect it has.”
In addition to the pair of discs, Van Zandt’s band, Little Steven and The Disciples Of Soul, recently released Summer Of Sorcery (Wicked Cool). The group has several Stateside concerts scheduled before heading to Europe in August and returning for a fuller U.S. tour beginning in September. Each show will be proceeded by a teacher’s development workshop, demonstrating how to incorporate Van Zandt’s TeachRock music education curriculum into the classroom.
For a complete list of shows, visit his website. DB
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
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