Snap Judgment LIVE on TV and Radio this week

On Friday and Saturday, June 3 and 4, Snap Judgment LIVE gave two sold-out performances at the theater at the Oakland Museum of California. This is the third Snap Judgment LIVE -- local storytellers/poets telling their tales, accompanied by my compositions, as performed by me and the genius musical mind-readers David Brandt (percussion) and Tim Frick (bass, and arch-top guitar), and DJ.

There was less than a week to compose music, work with the storytellers, and make it all happen. They kept adding stories, and we wound up with an hour and 20 minute show.

Somehow it all came together. The stories were phenomenal, moving, upsetting, and hilarious. Host/storyteller Glynn Washington programmed the stories perfectly, so that it gets heavier in the middle and by the end everyone is ready for the catharsis of humor.

Like life itself, there's a ethereal quality to a live performance like this. You meet strangers, and by living with and scoring their stories, a week later, you feel that you know them. This time we had the pleasure of working with Joshua Walters, Joyce Lee and Jamie DeWolf for the second time, so we shared a short-hand that shows.

You share the connection of climbing on a stage with limited rehearsal, and using every bit of creativity and professionalism you have to make the performance work. The audience was laughing, crying, laughing again. Both nights there were standing ovations. The band walked out of there in a daze, and sat on Broadway in Downtown Oakland eating food from a street truck. Did that happen?

Well, it DID happen and the radio show that airs on NPR this week, and the TV show above (unexpurgated, folks) is the proof. I feel privileged to work with these amazing storytellers and poets, and the whole Snap Judgment team.

You can watch the TV show in HD here, or listen to the radio show here, or check out the Podcast on iTunes.

Tracy released....as webisodes

You can now watch the movie "Tracy" as webisodes! Dan will be posting a new webisode each week right here. The first two webisodes are posted now. This was my first score for a feature film....and now it's my first score for a webisode! Gosh, I like to write that word, webisode. Don't miss the next....webisode!

Update: Tracy will screen at Comic Con in July! And Congrats to Director Dan Scanlon, who is directing the sequel to Monsters Inc!

"Tracy" Soundtrack Update

Last year Dan Scanlon released "Tracy" with a premiere at Pixar. Dan and I had been working on it for about 4 years. Since then it's been doing the film festival circuit. Hopefully it will be available on DVD soon; it's a hilarious and surprisingly touching film. Dan found some spare time from his Pixar day job to do artwork for the soundtrack album. We'll print a very limited number of these CDs, so please contact me if you'd like a copy. Here's the album art (Thanks Dan!)

Snap Judgment LIVE returns...

Snap Judgment, the NPR weekly radio show hosted by Glynn Washington, went on the air in June. The response has been great, with Ira Glass calling it the best new thing he's heard on NPR, and over 15,000 Facebook fans to date.

The first TV show, with me acting as musical director/composer, that we shot at SF's Brava Theater back in June, aired nationally last week. (Facebook users: check out the titles featuring stop motion animation and my theme song here.) The radio version aired on NPR in August; you can hear it here.

In September we took this episode 1 live show on the road, flying to Denver for the annual Public Radio Program Directors Conference. On the 38th floor of the Hilton, we performed for an enthusiastic group of NPR folk. Glynn, Joshua Walters, Joyce Lee, Jamie DeWolf and the band roamed the streets of Denver at night, in search of schnitzel & waffles, pickles and beer...and we were not disappointed. (If there is a recording of our funk beat to Glynn chanting "IRA GLASS! IRA GLASS!" I would like to hear it.)

Just last Friday, the Snap returned to the BRAVA THEATER to film not one, but two additional TV shows -- "Animal Tales" and "True Confessions." Whereas the first episode mined local talent exclusively, this time the locals were joined by a group of storytellers who flew up from L.A.

Once again, I had one hour with each of the nine storytellers to pitch them my score ideas, and collaborate with them. This is such an intense and enjoyable process. I've listened to their stories, composed 2 or 3 themes, and then get to meet the storytellers for the first time, pitch them my musical interpretation of their pieces. I have an amazingly sensitive group including Dave Brandt -- percussionist extraordinaire -- and Tim Frick, bassist -- both of whom I sometimes think are reading my mind. We were also joined by DJ Deeandroid on the turntable, who fit right in.

Some amazing things happened during these sessions. Tabitha Christopher, who hails from St. Thomas has a great story about her pet goat Big Jim. Without giving too much away, I asked her if there was some sound or song that she heard in St. Thomas growing up that meant it was meal time.... and she broke out in this traditional song about meal time! Too good to be true. Dave Brandt busted an energetic souka beat, I adapted the melody on guitar and we had a tune that invoked the setting of the piece and reflected Tabitha's energetic delivery. A great moment.

Erol Dolen's story evolved in a fascinating way. I felt it was a serious piece, and had composed a somber, longing theme. To contrast, I had also written a Fellini-esque accordian piece for a scene in a Russian brothel. Erol and Glynn edited the piece and the end result was, I think, very powerful.

Katherine McEwan hails from England, and she had a great piece about how Americans assume she grew up on the set of Sense & Sensibility, when her town in Northern England looked more like The Wire.... I had a blast with this one, marrying a Baroque Harsichord line with a hip-hop beat. It flowed smoothly and the results were great.

Scott Kravitz has a piece about how he stole his pet Dog from a homeless teenage girl. The tone of the piece is very understated and clever, but there is heart to it, too. I took a cue from a line in the piece that referenced Phillip Glass and the soundtrack from "Garden State" -- the line was cut, but the music evolved from those two touchstones. This piece really came alive on stage; the audience responded to it, and the music added some subtle emotion to Scott's understated but effective delivery.

Joyce Lee, poet and storyteller extraordinaire adapted her stranger than fiction piece about a perfect boyfriend who turned out to be too good to be true. This was the second time working with Joyce, and this time I was glad the music really complemented her piece -- including some hilarious James Brown hits and Sam Cooke/Al Green R&B stylings.

There were great pieces too from Kate Ascot-Evans, Anneke Jong & Thayer Walker, and of course Mr. Glynn Washington. We had performed Glynn's "Dancing While Black" in Denver, and it had killed there, but on Friday night it was even better, captured for posterity by the cameras. Glynn tells his stories differently every single time. I love it. It's collective improvisation, the spirit of Jazz, and it keeps you on your toes. You've got to keep your ears and eyes open, and follow his feet.

Can't wait till these two episodes air, I feel like we're evolving the medium of live storytelling with live music each show we do.

Snap Judgement LIVE!

A few weeks ago, I was at my son's baseball game in Albany, having just finished Toy Story 3 and half-wondering what I was going to do with myself, suddenly finding myself in possession of some extra time. As if on cue, the phone rang.

It was my friend Glynn Washington. Glynn has a weekly radio show on NPR called "Snap Judgement," which starts in July and is definitely worth checking out. Glynn asked if I'd consider being the musical director for a TV Pilot they were filming in 4 weeks. It would involve "scoring" stories for six slam storytellers, and performing this music live on stage. The show would be filmed for airing on Public Television in the Fall. The musical style was hip-hop.

I called my trusty friends Dave Brandt (The Echo Falls), and Tim Frick (The Fingers). We added Ben Bercasio, aka DJ Smoov Groovs, who works on the radio show with Glynn. I immersed myself in a great hip-hop Pandora station Glynn sent me, and the stories themselves.

I did some sketches in Reason, and purchased a new keyboard that allowed me to trigger loops, solo and mix tracks, and switch sounds without touching my computer. The new group- gathered in our rehearsal space in Oakland to test out some grooves....

At the next session, the storytellers joined us. This was a really talented group of storytellers and performers. Each was eager to collaborate and integrate music into his story. It was a really fun process; we had 1-2 hours with each storyteller, so we worked fast.

The theme song I composed wound up being the main hip-hop track in the show. Other styles that emerged included: acoustic blues slide guitar, Afrobeat, Black church organ music, Indian-infused trip hop, 70s funk.

A little more than a week later we were onstage at the Brava Theater for two days of shooting. The show was sold out, filled with friends, family and fans.

The best way to see what happened will be to watch the show when it airs on Public Television in the Fall. In the meantime, here are some photos from the show.

UPDATE: The radio version has aired nationally on NPR. You can listen to it here.

Onstage with Jamie De Wolf. This one came together really fast, I was really pleased with it.

Backstage before the show. Apparently folks were shorter back in the day when this was a Vaudeville Theater, because the ceilings are pretty low back there.

Critical Acclaim for The Echo Falls

The Echo Falls debut was officially released on 11.17.09. The critical response has been overwhelmingly positive, very gratifying.  

Click here to read reviews from the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED Radio, East Bay Express, The Big Takeover, Electronic Musician, Examiner, Metromix, and many more.

Click here to purchase the CD....or search "The Echo Falls" on iTunes. 

Click here to join our Facebook group, and hear about upcoming shows and news. 

Thanks for your support!

The Echo Falls featured on NPR

The Echo Falls and Alex Mandel's scoring were featured this morning on San Francisco's NPR - KQED radio!

Listen to the review here.

Host Cy Musiker and San Francisco Chronicle Executive Datebook editor David Wiegand look ahead at the hottest tickets and most spectacular shows this coming week in Northern California.