Frank Macchia
Capturing The World Around Him
Artist Interview by: Susan Frances
Like the way a photographer immortalizes new discoveries and awe-inspiring images with a camera, composer/saxophonist Frank Macchia does so with his music. His repertoire is a collection of culinary delights. He designed horror story images in a theater radio format for his demo series Little Evil Things. He re-created the sounds of the Galapagos Islands on his disc The Galapagos Suite. He built folk songs influenced by traditional Americana music from the ‘60s hit show Bonanza on his sophomore album Frankie Maximum Goes Way-er Out West. He fused new wave-pop with elements of Big Band blues, classical, funk, fusion, R&B, a capella, metal-fusion, jazz ballad, polka, and vaudeville-comedy on his 1989 debut offering Introducing Frankie Maximum. His later albums produced moody pieces like for his 2006 presentation Emotions, and transposed the sounds of the earth into music form on his 2008 release Landscapes from Cacophony Records. Frank Macchia is an artist whose music seems unpredictable, but that is exactly what makes him a true artist. Each song that he composes and plays instruments for is a snapshot into a 3-dimensional visual made of flesh and bones. They represent his new discoveries whether he is composing music for a solo project or for the film and television industry. He dips his fingers into everything he finds and makes it all sound so melodic.
Macchia grasped the fundamentals of playing instruments and composing music at an early age while growing up in San Francisco, California. He recounts, “When I was in high school I got involved with a ‘casuals’ band where I had to play everything from standards and bossa nova’s to Top 40 funk. I also was involved with a funk Top-40 band where we did covers of lots of Tower of Power and Earth Wind and Fire tunes. That was great experience, transcribing all those horn lines and voicings from those great bands.”
He shares, “I also put together a kind of ‘all-star’ student big band in high school with friends from different high schools throughout the city. We'd meet once a week and work on Don Menza, Bill Holman, and Don Ellis charts. I was so young and naïve, I didn't realize how hard this music actually was to play! San Francisco also had a great summer public school music program called the Summer Music Workshop, which went on for six weeks during the summer and we played all kinds of music. [For] The last two weeks, the San Francisco Symphony came onto the school premises and gave us one-on-one instruction and put on concerts. I even composed a piece called ‘Variations on a Theme’ for a jazz quartet and 12-brass which we performed with the San Francisco Symphony's brass section. That was a true highlight for me as a 15-year old kid, to hear pro brass players play my music!”
It was the first sign indicating that Macchia enjoyed composing music for orchestras and chamber music ensembles. Prior to this experience, he was simply a studious pupil absorbing the music of his surroundings. “I grew up in San Francisco in the late 60's - born in 1958,” he reveals. “My brother Pete was seven years older than me so he was very involved in the 60's rock music scene in San Francisco. Through him, I learned about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Santana, and many great local bands and even though he wasn't a musician, he had really good taste in music! I was playing clarinet and bassoon in elementary school and I always liked horns - trumpets, saxes, trombones, etc. so he recommended that I check out the Don Ellis Orchestra. Don was merging odd metered music with electronics and jazz and I loved what I heard him doing. I started in high school composing music for jazz ensembles and got more interested in bebop and big band jazz as well as avant-garde jazz.”
Macchia responds that as for a lineage of musicians in his family, “No, not really. My Dad had played clarinet when he was a boy, but never professionally, although he listened to a lot of Pete Fountain albums. As I mentioned earlier, my brother, who has a degree in ceramics, was very interested in innovative music and art, and he gave me a lot of direction in what music to listen to.”
As for taking music lessons in school or teaching himself to be a musician, he replies, “A bit of both. I started on clarinet in 5th grade, and my Dad had me study privately with a clarinet teacher as well. We worked on basic technique and etudes and in 7th grade the band teacher needed someone to play bassoon, so I volunteered. I then took lessons from a bassoon teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. By the time I got to high school, I was playing in the all-city orchestra on bassoon, but I was somewhat bored by the classical literature and wanted to explore more styles of music. My high school band and orchestra teachers directed me towards the sax and jazz music where I found a great deal of fun could be had with improvisation and blending the rock and funk rhythms that I was listening to in popular music. Also, we had a great high school orchestra and that introduced me to music like Stravinsky’s ‘The Firebird Suite’ and ‘The Planets’ by Holst, so I really got intrigued by the orchestration and arranging of different instruments. I composed a piece for orchestra that we played at my high school graduation and I got the Mike Vax Big Band down at Union Local 6 to play some of my early big band charts as well.”
With his feet firmly planted in playing instruments and composing music, Macchia’s next step was to attend college. He chose Boston’s Berklee College of Music to add to his music education. “I loved my years at Berklee!” he shouts enthusiastically. “I went there right out of high school at the tender age of 17, and the first year alone opened a universe to me about harmony, arranging and music in general. I was very busy in the four years there, and put on a concert of my own music every semester, starting with a big band and ending up with a National Endowment Grant for a 90-minute continuous work for a large jazz ensemble with augmented rhythm section and percussion.”
He muses, “I also ended up teaching there for a year as soon as I graduated, but I felt I needed to get out into the ‘real world,’ so I moved back to the Bay Area and started playing gigs and working with my own band doing crazy fusion music. While at Berklee, I was very lucky to study sax with Joe Viola and arranging with Herb Pomeroy and Phil Wilson. These teachers were tremendous and really helped me forge my musical identity. I also got to play in Herb and Phil's big bands, along with some amazing players like Eric Marienthal, Ralph Moore, Tim Horner, Tommy Campbell, Eric Gunnison and Eric Daniels. I also played with some guys who are really becoming legendary players today such as Wayne Krantz, Steve Hunt, Kevin Eubanks, and Marvin Smitty Smith.”
He reflects, “It was an amazing time as fusion music was at it's zenith in those years – 1976 to 1980, and we were all checking out Weather Report, the Brecker Brothers, Chick Corea, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and trying our hand at this new fusion music.”
These music influences inspired Macchia to make his first solo album Introducing Frankie Maximum released in 1989. “Well that album was the first CD project I had ever done.” He recalls, “Making a CD in 1989 was big deal, and I wanted this CD to showcase all the styles of music that I was interested in so it was, in a sense, more of a demo of my composition in various styles.” He lists them as “Big Band blues, classical, new wave, funk, fusion, R&B, a capella, metal-fusion, jazz ballad, polka, and comedy were all styles involved with that CD and I had a lot of fun creating that album.”
For his second album, Frankie Maximum Goes Way-er Out West, he remarks, “Believe it or not I was home one day and turned on the TV and started watching an old Bonanza rerun. In the episode, there was a cowboy who started singing ‘Red River Valley’ and I thought, ‘Wow, what a great melody. Y'know, it'd be interesting to take a bunch of old cowboy songs and do all new treatments of these classic American songs.’ so I did. I researched a bunch of old traditional cowboy songs from ‘Home On The Range’ to ‘Poor, Lonesome Cowboy’ and threw in a couple of hoedown numbers like ‘Chicken Reel’ and ‘Turkey In The Straw.’ I tried to get a new hit on all these songs using humor and styles ranging from second-line New Orleans grooves to samba and hip-hop. A lot of people have told me that they find this album very fun to listen to, as I really tried to inject a lot of humor into it.”
It is well known that humor masks sadness and where do most people go to indulge in feelings of happiness? Hollywood, of course, and Frank Macchia, and his wife Tracy, packed their bags and moved to Los Angeles where Macchia found work composing music for the film and television industry of Hollywood’s underground. He explains, “I moved to Los Angeles in 1992 because my then girlfriend, and now wife, had decided to move there to pursue acting and writing work. I also was looking at my future in San Francisco and saw that I was primarily making my living as a freelance woodwind player and not really getting to utilize my skills as a composer and orchestrator. So, I made the move to Los Angeles and within a year started working as an arranger doing play-ons for the Tonight Show and started working as an orchestrator for several top notch film composers.”
He cites, “Most film composers can do their own orchestrations, but the time schedule is so tight on films they usually need to bring in someone like me to flesh out the sequenced music [that] they created on their computer and notate it for orchestra. From doing orchestrations, I was lucky from time to time to get my own composing jobs for a film or TV show, or to assist a composer by ‘ghost-writing’ cues for a film when time was of the essence.” He notes, “This is something that happens on a project by project basis.”
He demonstrates that “some directors give you free reign to create whatever you think will work. Others can have a very specific type of music or style they want. Others that will have ‘temped’ the film with other music.” He clarifies, “Temp means temporary music that is from other films or even classical or rock music. They want you to re-create what they have temped the film with musically. Those are my least favorite types of projects as who wants to semi-duplicate someone else's creative work! You generally get anywhere from a few weeks to a few days to see the film and compose the music for the film.”
Working with the film and television industry sparked Macchia to create the Little Evil Things series. He outlines, “Little Evil Things began as a demo CD idea that I thought of when I was beginning to get work as a film composer. A lot of producers ask for a demo reel of films that you have worked on as a composer. The problem for me was that I didn't care for many of the early films I worked on, as they were low budget, badly acted or badly films projects.”
He intones, “That's what you do when you generally get started as a film composer, so that's just the way it is. However, I knew that if a director or producer saw this terrible film they would probably get a negative vibe even if the music had been composed by God, because of the bad production qualities of the film. So I decided that instead of a demo video reel, I'd do a demo audio reel but include stories acted out by actors. I had always been a fan of horror and thought of the old Inner Sanctum and Lights Out shows that early radio theatre did, so I co-wrote with my wife Tracy a series of short horror stories and then recorded the actors performing the story. Then, I timed and composed a continuous music soundtrack to coincide with the storyline and boom - Little Evil Things started. I got a few gigs after doing the first one on some low budget horror films.
He elates, “I loved writing music for horror, because I'm definitely a fan of dissonance in music, and as you know, horror is a perfect genre for dissonance! We just had so much fun doing it that we ended up putting out five volumes of this series, until I reached the point of feeling I had said all I could within the horror genre!”
A trip with his wife Tracy to the Galapagos Islands inspired Macchia to make his solo album The Galapagos Suite. “Tracy and I had just learned that she was pregnant and we knew that our love for wild vacations was coming to an end, for awhile, so we planned a big trip to the Galapagos Islands, which we both had wanted to see for years. As a forethought, I decided to bring a journal and write down my experiences day by day with the thought in the back of my mind that I might be able to compose something about this magical place. At the end of the trip, I realized that I had very detailed notes about each of the islands [that] we visited, and I had very clear impressions of the different vibes I got from each island. There also always seemed to be a specific animal on each island that dominated the island, so when we got home, I spent some time sketching ideas for this suite.”
He observes, “Tower Island was dominated by birds and, as it's name implied, it was a tower so as we sailed toward it, you just watched thousands of birds flying and ‘dancing’ around the island. So that's what I tried to portray was this mountain of an island with birds streaming to and fro. I took that same approach with the other islands and a particular animal that represented it, such as the Marine Iguanas of Fernandina or the Great Tortoises of Santa Cruz Island.”
The experience also gave Macchia a chance to closely examine the correlation between music made by animals and melodies made by humans, which he affirms such similarities exist with an emphatic, “Of course, at least in my mind! What I really did with all my Animals songs was picture the animal in my mind and think of a specific groove and tempo that the animal seemed to represent, and then toy with what instrumentation would achieve that animals' sound in music terms. For example, on Mo' Animals, I have the song ‘Pigs,’ which I use a lumbering swing/hip-hop kind of groove to portray the movement of the pigs rollicking in the mud, and then use the bass trombone with harmon mute and a contrabass clarinet to state the melody, or sound of the pigs. You get the idea.”
Moving from the themes of animal sounds to themes that represent the music made by the earth would appear on his solo effort Emotions, particularly in the song “Prayer For Earth.” He discloses, “This was the one track on Emotions that did not use the Prague Orchestra and I played bass flute on with Tracy doing a multi-tracked vocal choir. The piece came to me, as I wanted to express my hope and deep desire that we, as living creatures on this planet, can come together and live in peace and keep our planet alive. I get very concerned over the lack of conscience many of our ‘leaders’ seem to have in regards to understanding that we are all part of the Earth and we have to nurture and take care of it just as we hopefully do for ourselves. I'm not an overly religious person, but I believe we have to get in touch with our spiritual selves and help each other and the planet. This song is simply a melodic ode to that hope and prayer.”
He explored earthbound tones on his recent album Landscapes with such tracks as “Deep River” and “Forest Twilight” which Macchia expresses, “I simply wanted to get in touch with the spiritual side of how music touches us and also depict a place or feeling. With ‘Deep River,’ which is a very old spiritual, the melody just seemed to cry out to me. With ‘Forest Twilight,’ I wanted to get the feeling of being in a forest as evening descends and you begin to hear the night creatures come out as a cool evening breeze flows throughout.”
He ponders about knowing when a song is finished and ready to be cut for an album by commenting, “That's a tough one! I guess one thing I do is play my final mixes for a variety of friends who I trust and get their advice as to if the piece seems finished or if it needs more mixing work. Other than that, I just reach a point where I say that that's as good as I'm going to get it!”
He tells how technology has changed music over the years and affected his songwriting. “I think technology has been a fantastic aid for me to create and complete my music,” he addresses. “The problem I find with many people and technology is they get more hypnotized by the technology itself instead of using it as a means to create their music. I've met way too many talented musicians who are spending their time playing with a reverb sound instead of using that reverb in a piece of music that they create. I always go back to The Beatles and the Sgt. Pepper’s album. It was made on incredibly simple technology, but the ideas and sounds they created were revolutionary and it still holds up to this day!”
The equipment, which he uses in the recording studio, best suits him. “I use and love the old Selmer Mark 6 saxes, and with recording gear I'm faithful to my MOTU Digital Performer sequencer program, which I've used since 1986. I also love these great Lawson tube microphones which are wonderful sounding.”
A greater challenge for Macchia has been being able to re-create his songs for a live show. He targets, “Well, as far as the Animals CD, we haven't tried to re-create those pieces live yet! It would be difficult because of the amount of instruments and overdubs. At one point, we were talking about doing a live show and I estimated I needed at least 20 musicians to pull it off. However, if a concert jazz festival promoter out there would like to see that music done live, I'm ready to talk.” he pledges. “The Emotions and Landscapes music would be very easy to re-create as it is all composed and copied for orchestra with me on saxophone. I'm currently working on putting on some concerts of this material with existing orchestras.”
He says about the cities and countries that he would like to play, “Anywhere and everywhere!” Though he asserts that there are many musicians whom he would like to perform with on stage and exclaims, “Wow, there's so many! Just offhand, I guess I'd say Pat Metheny. I really love his music, his playing and his whole concept of music. He just keeps getting better and better and I really admire him.”
Frank Macchia mentions that he has found the Internet to be user friendly and has aided him in bringing his music to people whom otherwise would not know about him. “I LOVE the Internet,” he shouts. “I think it has really equaled the field in a lot of ways. No longer do eclectic artists have to just give up their dream of getting their music out to the world. There's also tons of people out there looking for new interesting music that isn't spoon fed to them by the giant corporate music conglomerate and I think they appreciate being able to find more and more creative artists via the internet. I know I'm thrilled with some of the great talent I've found on the Internet.”
Frank Macchia is all about making new discoveries and transposing those visuals into music form. His creativity is sparked by the world around him and he works at capturing those experiences and images in his compositions. Whether he is re-enacting animal movements, human emotions or specific lifestyles and cultures, Frank Macchia studies his subject thoroughly and makes himself one with his subject. He sees humankind as having connections to all things organic whether they are evil or good by nature. In his vision, all living orgasms are associated to each other and those beliefs come through in his music for Landscapes.
For more information: www.frankmacchia.net
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