THE USUAL SUSPECTS

JOHN BEASLEY

PHOTO: Richard D. Schoenberg

Born in Louisiana, the cradle of jazz, Beasley started writing compositions in junior high school. At age 14, he wrote a jazz piece for the University of North Texas Jazz Band.  Jimmy Lyons, founder of the Monterey Jazz Festival, heard Beasley's piece and recommended him for a scholarship at the Stan Kenton summer jazz camp.  The Stan Kenton Orchestra performed Beasley's composition at the camp, and then added it to its repertoire that year. 

Beasley is a third generation musician.   His father is a bassoonist, pianist, and composer.   His mother is a brass instrumentalist and band conductor and orchestrator.   His grandfather was a trombonist.   Growing up around musicians, John learned how to play trumpet, oboe, drums, saxophone, and flute, mostly because of his mother's need for wind instrumentalists for her bands.  Declining an oboe scholarship from the Julliard, Beasley went on to tour and record with Miles Davis, Steely Dan, Carly Simon, Barbara Streisand, Baaba Maal, Queen Latifah, Christian McBride Presents with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Chaka Khan, James Brown, and John Pattituci to name just a few. Recognizing Beasley's talent for composing and arranging, major recording artists have added Beasley's original sound and music to their projects.  
 
At the young age of 24, Beasley started writing music for Paramount, Disney, and MGM's television shows, including "Cheers", "Family Ties", "Star Trek", and "Fame". He also wrote the Touchstone TV logo, which is still used today. His first brush with Hollywood films was as a pianist playing on film scores for film luminaries such as Thomas Newman, Dave Gruisin, Alan Silvestri, and Carmine Coppola in box office hits such as "Finding Nemo", "Erin Brockovich", "Godfather III", "A Bug's Life", and "Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me."  He composes pro bono for films and podcasts for Nobel Peace Prize winning Doctors Without Borders. Along the way, Beasley has written award winning commercials for ad agencies in the US and Germany for over 20 years. While touring with Miles Davis, Beasley was inspired to release his first of seven original recordings.  

Today, Beasley continues to work in TV, film, and commercial projects, while writing new music for recordings, producing artists, balancing his work with American Idol, and touring. He is featured as Musical Director in the popular reality show called "The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll". 

WEBSITES: www.beasleymusic.com and www.myspace.com/johnbeasleymusic

BILL CUNLIFFE

WEBSITE: www.billcunliffe.com

A clip of "El Optimista" from "Imaginacion"

RANDY KERBER

Randy Kerber is a native Southern Californian. He began studying the piano at the age of 6, and by age 18 had become proficient in many diverse musical genres. He attended CSUN, but by the age of 20 had become so entrenched in Los Angeles studio work that he cut his education loose to pursue a career as a studio musician. Since then, Kerber has been nominated for an Academy Award for his composing work in The Color Purple, and a nomination for a Grammy for his arrangement of Over the Rainbow for Barbra Streisand. He produced the debut album for the German chanteuse, Ute Lemper, as well as orchestrations for James Horner, John Powell, and Marco Beltrami on many films. He has also composed commissioned works for the New Hollywood String Quartet. In addition to his studio career, Randy Kerber is a sought-after collaborator and performs regularly at chamber music concerts in the Los Angeles area and nationally.

MIKE LANG

TOM RANIER

Tom Ranier is known primarily for his jazz piano playing but he is also a very accomplished saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. He has risen to the top of the California jazz scene and is generally regarded as one of Southern California’s top jazz improvisers. One of Tom’s trademarks is his extraordinary technical ability which, at the keyboard, is reminiscent of Oscar Peterson’s bravura and bluesiness, Chick Corea’s intricate and beautiful melodies and Bill Evan’s chordal brilliance. As a composer and arranger, Tom exhibits a broad orchestral palette and a keen sense of melody and harmony. This is clearly illustrated in his latest recording effort entitled “In The Still Of The Night” which showcases eleven of his original compositions for keyboard, saxophone, clarinet and string orchestra. As a jazz educator, he is currently involved in a New Jazz Studies Program at U.C.L.A. headed up by famous jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell. Tom’s teaching responsibilities in this program are in the areas of jazz piano and jazz theory.

RICH RUTTENBERG

WEBSITE: www.richruttenberg.com

RANDY WALDMAN

WEBSITE: www.jazzpilot.com

RECOMMENDED LISTENING: "Unreel" (Wigged Out Records)

Beginning at the age of 5 Randy's future was already set in stone. While all the other children his age were out playing baseball, running around and doing what kids do at that age, .Randy was sitting at the piano. From the minute he woke up in the morning, when he came home for lunch, and from the time he came home from school, he did nothing but sit at the piano and play. At the age of 12, Randy was hired for his 1st professional job, demonstrating pianos at a music store, and from there starting getting hired playing at partys.

After getting through 3 years of high school, Randy was already a very busy musician, playing for shows, backing up singers and all types of musical jobs. At that point he told his parents that he wanted to quit high school, because it was taking up to much time and getting in the way of his career. After much bargaining, his parent struck up a deal with Randy, his high school principle and the head of music at Northwestern University. If Northwestern would let Randy play in there collage jazz band for the next year, Randy agreed to finish high school....which was not easy, since Randy only showed up for his music classes and not much more, much to the dismay of his gym teacher, geography teacher, English teacher .....and all of the rest. Somehow with the help of his persuasive father, and an understanding High School principle, Randy received his high school diploma..never to look back. Just after finishing high school, at the age of 21, he was hired to go on tour as the pianist for Frank Sinatra. Not a bad first gig! Shortly after that Randy was hired to tour with The Letterman and that brought Randy out to the west coast, at which point he decided that this was his new home, and he was officially a Los Angeles citizen.

Within the 1st year moving to LA, Randy was hired to tour with various artists, starting with Minnie Ripperton, Lou Rawls, Paul Anka, and then George Benson.

 Randy toured with Benson for seven years as his pianist, conductor and arranger. The word started to spread about Randy in the LA studio scene, and he was beginning to get more and more calls to do session work on various records and movie soundtracks. Randy finally made the end his touring, and devote all of his time to doing sessions. What followed were ten years of non stop session work...doing records, movies, TV, jingles, song writing and arranging. Some records that Randy's talents can be heard on are: Celine Dionne, Michael Bolton, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Vanessa Williams, Patti LaBelle, Michael Jackson, and many others. some motion picture soundtracks that he is performing on are: Forrest Gump, Roger Rabbit, Hoffa, Back to the Future, Bodyguard, Father of the Bride, Beetlejuice, etc. In this time, Randy was nominated for "Best Vocal Arrangement for a song that he co-wrote for the Manhattan Transfer. He also co-arranged (and performed) on the hit song "Somewhere" for Barbra Streisand, which won a grammy award for best arrangement. Randy was also voted Most Valuable player during this time, and was nominated Most valuable player three other times, by NARAS.

Lately, Randy has been wearing the producer hat, having produced Bobby Caldwell, Patti LaBelle, Kenny G, The Stylistics, Mary Wilson, etc., and he has done numerous orchestra arrangements for the team Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis, for Nancy Wilson, Gladys Knight, and others.