Isham creates his unique type of cinematic experience

Friday, May 3,1996

Jazz performer to play free concert at Veterans WadsworthBy
Rodney Tanaka

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Jazz trumpeter Mark Isham owes his musical style to the
airwaves.

His parents exposed him to classical music as a child and he
learned how to play several instruments. His exposure to musical
genres expanded after building a short wave radio as a teenager. He
tuned to a local station and became hooked on its jazz program.

"The guys were swinging, swinging hard," Isham says. "It had
tremendous energy and yet there was a real sophistication about it
too. I was sold immediately."

Isham plans to swing hard on Sunday as part of the Jazz at the
Wadsworth series. He performs music from his latest album "Blue
Sun" with his quintet, a band that shares similar backgrounds.

"We all came up studying traditional jazz and became
professional musicians at the end of the end of the 60s when jazz
was becoming a crossover medium," Isham says. "Besides a similar
vocabulary and background we share a similar aesthetic, how you
would take that vocabulary and use it."

The quintet has performed together for almost four years. Their
familiarity allows them to improvise with little practice. One
piece they perform was written by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a
world-renowned Pakistani musician who contributed significantly to
the music for the film "Dead Man Walking."

"We take one of the pieces that he uses, just a six bar phrase
and that’s all that’s written out," Isham says. "Yet we’ll
improvise a whole 15 minute piece on it and I don’t have to say
much to everybody, we just sort of understand the various ways that
one would work with it."

The music Isham plays has been acclaimed by Downbeat magazine as
"cinematic … Isham is cool and concise in his approach, favoring
long tone and staying close to the melody." His association with
the cinema began 13 years ago when he contributed music to Carroll
Ballard’s film "Never Cry Wolf." The director heard Isham’s music
and felt it was appropriate for his film.

Isham continues to step away from the quintet to compose music
for films. He has worked on such motion pictures as Robert
Redford’s "A River Runs Through It" and Jodie Foster’s "Little Man
Tate," and describes both directors as "intelligent."

"They usually have something in mind and they’ve done their
homework," Isham says. "The general areas they’re looking at are
working quite well. Occasionally you come up with a great idea out
of left field also."

Isham understands that collaboration defines the medium of film
music. If the director or producer does not like the music, then
the composer must preserve the relationship by complying to their
requests. Isham says the opportunity to explore diverse forms of
music outweighs the constraints of the medium.

"It probably is the only place where instrumental music has a
real commercial life in our society," Isham says. "So for me it was
sort of a revelation to find an area to work in."

Isham connects again with director Ballard for a film soon to
complete production and set to be released in the fall. The
trumpeter will once again tune skyward for inspiration, to birds
rather than radio waves.The film tells the story of a man and his
daughter who teach a flock of geese how to migrate.

CONCERT: Mark Isham Quintet on Sun., May 5 at 7 p.m. at the
Veterans Wadsworth Theater. Admission is free. For more info, call
(310) 794-8961.

Jazz musician and composer Mark Isham