The Sounds of Burt Bacharach, a musical spectacular by Chris Dean
As a session musician Chris has
received acclaim from many of the music industry’s top performers.
He has recorded with Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Nelson Riddle,
George Shearing, Bob Farnon, Angela Morley, Henry Mancini, Michel
Legrand, Barbara Streisand, Natalie Cole, Liza Minelli, Mel Torme
and Shirley Bassey. Film work for Composers such as Jerry Goldsmith
and John Williams has included the soundtracks for the films
Superman, Out of Africa, Basic Instinct, Never Say Never Again, The
Living Daylights and Batman to name but a few. He has also played
with Orchestras such as the LSO and RPO and performed on Pop Albums
for the likes of Eric Clapton, Westlife, Wet Wet Wet and Queen as
well as being featured in TV shows such as The Benny Hill Show,
Stars in Their Eyes and several Royal Variety Shows.
Digger talked to Chris, the
Musical Director of the famous Syd Lawrence Orchestra, who is
currently touring the UK with a Burt Bacharach Spectacular.
Digger: What was the inspiration for the Bacharach show?
Chris: Funnily enough, an album of his music was bought for me and
it reminded me how much I enjoyed his music. I’d worked with
Bacharach in the 90s, and actually in the late 70s, and I’d always
enjoyed his music. But I’d kind of forgotten about it because I
was involved in other things. And when I started listening to the
album I just found that I really did enjoy it and I said to Angie
“There’s a show here. I don't think anyone else is doing it.
Let’s do it and let’s do it properly."
Digger: Do you have to get special permissions to play the songs?
Chris: No, you don't have to get permissions to do other
people’s material. You just make sure that you fill in PRS forms.
Digger: What was the album that inspired you?
Chris: It was just a big compilation of all of the Burt Bacharach
tunes.
Digger: Yes, I’ve got a double CD of his work and there’s
obviously something that makes a tune a Bacharach tune and yet
there’s a diversity there.
Chris: Yes, he comes from a different angle to most pop writers
– the first thing is that he’s clever and you don’t get your
normal three chord trick and the normal shape to a song. They
surprise you, which is rather nice.
Digger: How hard is it to reproduce such an authentic Bacharach
sound?
Chris: Not madly hard. I got the best writer around, Trevor Brown,
who did the most beautiful arrangements. And what we did, because
obviously we’re doing it with a slightly smaller band, so we
adapted it and kept the core things together like the use of the
trumpet and flugel horn. So we got really good players and a great
trombone player. Then we made sure we got the right guitar sound and
the keyboard added depth and you can have lots of different sounds
with that. So Trevor worked on those arrangements. Having four
vocalists we’ve kept the vocal sound as authentic as possible.
Digger: That’s quite a strength actually having the four vocalists
because I’ve been to shows where they struggle to get the variety
but you had an abundance of riches there.
Chris: The skill is in the arranging which is why I got Trevor to
do it because he’s been a top TV arranger for many years. I knew
that when he was going to come up with the ideas it was going to be
perfect.
Digger: The standard of musicianship and vocals is high in the show.
How did you choose the musicians and singers, how much rehearsal has
there been and are you keeping the same ensemble for all venues?
Chris: Yes, we are keeping the same ensemble for all venues apart
from the M.D. Trevor who lives in Madeira so he will be doing some
and Richard Weedon, who is our second keyboard player and who is
very talented, moves up. And we keep the same vocalists – there
was a lot of vocal rehearsal beforehand as obviously everything has
to be learnt from memory.
Digger: It was funny because when I was in the audience I noticed
that several people of a certain age were saying things like “Ooh,
this one’s my favourite” and “I like this one” and humming
and tapping along. It’s all a part of our consciousness isn’t
it, this soundtrack?
Chris: Yes, it is.
Digger: Like when you received that album and said “Wow, I’d
forgotten how much I liked all of these songs.”
Chris: That’s right, because you’d be surprised just how much
Bacharach is played in general life. You go into a restaurant and
there’s a Bacharach tune. You can go into a launderette, not that
I have done recently, and there’s always a Bacharach tune.
Digger: That’s handy that if you fancy a bit of Bacharach you can
just pop into a launderette!
Chris: Exactly.
Digger: Why is retro perennially so popular?
Chris: Because it generally inspires memories of when you were
having a good time in your youth or early thirties. You always tend
to look back and think those were the good days. A lot of the time
they weren’t particularly good days. I mean, for example, a lot of
the Glen Miller stuff came out in some of the most shocking days you
could have gone through – the Blitz and things like that, yet they
look back on it as “Oh, we were all together and we did this and
did that.”
Digger: And we could leave our front door unlocked.
Chris: I doubt if you really wanted to leave your door open.
Digger: How would you describe Bacharach as a songwriter and what
are your personal favourites of his compositions?
Chris: I love a song that he wrote called One Less Bell To
Answer. There’s another one called Making Love. They’re
generally the more obscure ones because you hear the other ones a
lot. And then something will come where he completely surprises you.
I like the way you’ll be listening to a very simple set of two
8-Bar phrases and then the tune just disappears into a whole lot of
different keys and just meanders around and then comes back. It’s
just very clever stuff and well thought out. As a result of that I
enjoy most of the tunes anyway. I like Promises Promises and
that’s another clever one that I enjoy.
Digger:
Yes, you’ve got the key and tempo changes that he’s famous for
and the extremes that other writers wouldn’t dare do.
Chris: A House Is Not A Home has also been taken on by the jazz
fraternity as well. Generally when a song’s serious you get all
the jazz musicians wanting to play it too. Bill Evans – I had
this recording of his playing A House Is Not A Home and it’s just
so beautiful it has stayed with me.
Digger: Is there any possibility we'll see the show at bigger venues
with a bigger cast?
Chris: I don’t know what is going to happen to the show.
We’re doing this test tour which is twenty dates. We’ve done
nine so far. It’s all set-up for a larger cast and I’ve got it
arranged that I can add anything upto twenty strings and some
woodwinds, so it’s all there ready for a larger cast depending on
how the actual show is doing. Now, I won’t go any larger than four
singers because that works perfectly.
Digger: Yes, it does.
Chris: But to add strings would give it a very lush feeling.
Digger: Is the current climate effecting the business?
Chris: The current climate is effecting every business and it’s
a case of just keeping your head down and driving through it. I
don’t think anyone is escaping this apart from if you’re an
engineer and you rebuild engines then you might be experiencing
better things at the moment as people aren’t buying new cars but
getting them fixed. There’s always a spin-off somewhere.
Digger: People seem to be spending more at the supermarkets.
Chris: Yes, so they say. People still like to be entertained and
they like to go out but I think they have to be more selective about
what they do. There’s a lot of stuff out there and you’ll
probably find there’s less people to go round.
Digger: There are some unusual time signatures and tempo changes on
Bacharach's work. How challenging are these?
Chris: They're very challenging for the rhythm section and they
took a lot of getting together. They can still catch you out so
it’s definitely an eyes down every night.
Digger: What happens if a mistake is made – you just soldier on?
Chris: Solider on and try not to draw any attention to it.
Digger: Do you have any other retro-themed shows in the pipeline or
in your head?
Chris: No, not at the moment. Obviously I run the Syd Lawrence
Orchestra which is very retro and I do a lot of shows with them. And
I’ve got Big Band Leaders and the Great American Songbook and all
those kinds of retro things but I’m going to stick with this for a while and see how this goes. I always think if I want to do
something then I’ll do it whether it's successful or not – it
will be great musically and I’ll make sure it’s right musically.
Whether it appeals to an audience, it would be nice if it does but if
it doesn’t then you put it away on the shelf for when it’s
needed again and get on with something else. Bacharach was something
I really wanted to have a go at. The other sixties things, such as
Buddy Holly or Elvis Presley shows don’t appeal to me. There’s
not enough music in those kinds of things, for me.
Digger: With your show, I don’t know how many songs it must have
been that were played, maybe fifty, but there were still quite a few
that I could think of that were really well known that weren’t
performed. You just run out of time.
Chris: Yes, we put some of them into medleys to give the thing
some flow, but there was Trains and Boats and Planes and Message To
Michael. I could just reel them off the ones that we couldn’t do.
Because we just couldn’t physically fit them in within the time.
Digger: Well, it’s a great show which I thoroughly enjoyed. And
thanks for that Chris and good luck with the remaining eleven and
with your future plans.
Chris:
Thanks David.
For
more information go to:
The
Sounds of Burt Bacharach, a musical spectacular by Chris Dean.
Upcoming Gigs: http://www.paulripleymusic.co.uk/Gigs.html
Chris
Dean's Syd Lawrence Orchestra
