STARMAN 1972-1973 STARMAN 1972-1973

sit perfectly in the live shows – and truly come into their own when it came time to record Bowie’s next “It’s like being in album. Garson quickly became a mercurial bridge between each a factory – I would new phase in Bowie’s career, eventually playing on many of his albums, like to take including Diamond Dogs and Young Americans, before returning for later things easier” works such as Outside and Heathen. When Bowie corralled a group of New – David Bowie York jazz musicians to help give H its edge, he was tapping into a long- standing belief that jazz music, naturally a vehicle for personal expression, also helped him push boundaries. While in New York, Bowie checked out the action at the Mercer Arts Center, a multi-roomed arts “supermarket” opened by air-conditioning magnate Sy Kaback in a section of the decaying old University Hotel between Broadway and Mercer Street. Here, New York Dolls reigned over a bright new scene which embraced outsider acts such as transsexual tornado Wayne County, whom Bowie signed to MainMan, and electronic proto-punk duo Suicide. It was hailed as the city’s most happening scene since Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable events, and Bowie took many notes. voice explorations and strangely seductive account at Manny’s Music Store and the Chicago and moving to New York in 1946, label. Though many greeted Bowie as rock’s mix of avant-jazz experiments and bared-soul Record Plant studio set up, and a stipend where he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Max The US tour was a joy. Bowie new messiah, he was all but unknown outpourings of Annette Peacock’s I’m The of $300 a week. I installed AstroTurf and Roach and major fan Charlie Parker, the loved the long drives by bus, taking in to the Midwest masses. He was, however, One album. Now seen as one of the most a sauna and made a sanctuary, while Tony latter had taught out of his house in Jamaica, panoramic scenery and place names already on safer ground in LA, where scenester fearless but overlooked pioneers of boundary- said ‘No’ to what would have been Queens, and counted the likes of Lee immortalised in song. On the drive between DJ Rodney Bingenheimer stoked a buzz pushing music, by the time Peacock was significant opportunities and told me he Konitz, Wayne Marsh, Dave Liebman, Cleveland and Memphis, he started jamming through radio and English Disco, his Sunset 19 she had married Albert Ayler’s bassist wished to erase my jazz image and promote Philip Glass and Suicide dynamo Martin on I’m A Man, heisted from Bo Diddley Strip nightclub, ensuring that glittering Gary Peacock, collaborated with Paul Bley me as a torch singer.” Rev among his students. When Tristano by Muddy Waters and subsequently covered hordes of under-age fans descended on Santa on the prototype Moog, hung with LSD After Bowie and entourage had settled died, in 1978, he had long been celebrated by The Yardbirds. Bowie riffed lyrics inspired Monica Civic Auditorium on both 20 and guru Timothy Leary, and been turned into at New York’s Plaza Hotel, he phoned as an innovator who provided the link by Iggy Pop, and a chorus that merged the 21 October. a hologram for a Salvador Dalí Broadway Annette and said he needed a favour. “When between bebop and modern jazz, from free name of French novelist Jean Genet with Holed up in the Beverly Hills Hotel, show. She became one of Bowie’s obsessions my daughter and I arrived, we found Ziggy improvisation to studio overdubbing. Even Eddie Cochran’s Jeanie Jeanie Jeanie. Bowie the MainMan entourage enjoyed a week of and a target of his affections after being holding court with a coterie of journalists,” for the jazz world, Lennie was something later said he wrote The Jean Genie while excess, prompting Bowie to write Cracked enticed into the MainMan fold – in part she recalls. “The dialogue went, ‘I love The of an outsider, and probably his own worst chilling out with Warhol associate Cyrinda Actor, which would appear on Aladdin thanks to her pianist, Mike Garson, who had Plaza, but why am I here?’ ‘I like your enemy. Refusing to milk commercial trends, Foxe, who briefly worked for MainMan. Sane. He also spent three days at Western also caught Bowie’s attention. keyboard player, and he hasn’t responded he instead opened his piano school, where When the band entered RCA studios on Studios, mixing Raw Power, the first “After I’m The One was released, Al to my messages. Would you speak to him?’ pupils could learn about left-handed bass 6 October, the track took just two takes to fruits of the Columbia deal that Kooper wanted to produce my next album I called Mike and conveyed David’s interest. patterns, chords and improvisation. capture and provided the follow-up to John, Defries had sealed for The Stooges. and had arranged a meeting with Clive Davis ‘Who is he, what’s the music like?’ I assured “Lennie was quite the taskmaster,” I’m Only Dancing, the first post-Ziggy single, Iggy Pop had been a prime at CBS, which I didn’t show for, because Mike about the musical content. ‘What’s the Garson recalled. “I had to memorise 3,000 released the previous month. When The Jean but ultimately untameable catch I wasn’t able to cancel my appearance at pay?’ ‘David, what will you pay?’ ‘What does left-hand chord voicings the first year, then Genie emerged, in late November, it reached for Bowie, who’d brought him a European festival,” recalls Annette. “So Al he want?’ ‘How much do you want, Mike?’ play all kinds of scales with bizarre fingering No 2 in the charts. on to the MainMan roster. went on my behalf. After the festival, I called There was silence on the line and in the room to strengthen weaker digits. The lesson was On 28 September, Ziggy took New York After turning down Bowie’s Al to find out how the meeting went. He told as we waited for Mike to respond – ‘800 10 minutes, and I travelled four hours every when he played Carnegie Hall. MainMan’s initial offer to produce me Clive was in the UK at the CBS Music dollars a week,’ a great deal of money then. Sunday for this discipline, which went on for UK staff gathered at Defries’ London HQ what would become Raw Convention, and wished to meet me there. ‘He wants 800 a week.’ ‘Tell him he’s got it.’ three years. Lennie never once played for me. to hear the reviews at a shindig which doubled Power, Iggy had deftly So I went, and it was there that Tony Defries David didn’t steal Mike from me. I wasn’t I later saw him live many times at the Half as Ian Hunter’s wedding reception, greeting twisted his solo deal into presented himself to me and said, ‘David has touring my album and didn’t record another Note, with Lee Konitz and Wayne Marsh. every report as if they were NASA’s mission a Stooges reactivation, flying in new writing many ideas, so I respond only to those he for six years. I procured Garson for Bowie.” He was phenomenal, with a whole other control receiving news of the Moon landing. partner and guitarist James Williamson, repeatedly mentions. David has repeatedly Garson was a New Yorker who had approach to jazz and improvisation. He still Defries used the buzz from the New York followed by Asheton brothers Ron and mentioned you.’ He handed me his card and graduated from Brooklyn College with hasn’t received proper recognition, like show to add further bookings to the US Scott, who provided bass and drums, said, ‘Call if you need anything!’ The card a degree in music, and recorded two albums Monk, Ellington or Bill Evans have, when jaunt, sending the Bowie bus to Boston, respectively. This may have ensured that said ‘MainMan’. It was too cold in New York with country-jazz-rock outfit Brethren, but he might have been the most creative of all Chicago, Detroit, St Louis and Kansas City the resultant album avoided the rather that year to not have sufficient heat for my his unique jazz-tinged style was born from of them. To top it off, he was blind!” – the latter two dates notable for their empty dry, compacted sound of the Bowie-helmed daughter and me in our SoHo loft, so I called studying with piano iconoclasts such as Miles Turning up for his Spiders audition, a few seats and stunned audiences. These gigs were Lou Reed and Mott records, but it also and said, ‘I don’t know about you, but it’s Davis collaborator Bill Evans, Thelonious bars of Changes were all it took to clinch the performed within the space of a month, hampered The Stooges’ career, as they cold where I am.’ ‘How much do you need?’ Monk arranger Hall Overton, and blind deal. Now Garson’s quicksilver avant-garde which meant long drives, many inactive days, seemed to hit a downward spiral at odds was his response. The rent was paid, a charge bebop legend Lennie Tristano. Born in flurries and Weimar cabaret swagger would and further outlays of cash from his record with Bowie’s upward trajectory. 38 39