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While Yamaha artist Mike Garson has remained one of music’s multi-faceted composers and performers, he is probably best known as the keyboard player for rock legend David Bowie.
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No stranger to road life, Garson has worked with Bowie since 1972’s Spiders of Mars, recently completing a 15-month world tour to promote the singer’s latest release, Reality. More than 100 shows garnered favorable reviews and sales.
On this outing, Garson’s onstage rig included a Yamaha Disklavier® GranTouch™ DGT2A.
“I like to think of myself as an improvising pianist more than anything,” he says. “I’ve been a Disklavier fan for years, and as a songwriter, it literally changed my way of working and writing. I have a DCFIIISPRO at home, which is fine for recording and playing back real-time performances, but not practical for touring.”
“The GranTouch adapted very easily to the road. The Graded Hammer Action feels and responds like an acoustic piano, and the sound is quite realistic. It was also a practical alternative to carrying a large grand piano from venue to venue, which I’m sure the crews appreciated. As anyone who has toured knows, things get knocked around in trucks, cargo planes and during load-ins and load-outs. My gear was dropped multiple times, but still worked great.”
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The New York City native studied with Leonard Eisner of Juilliard and graduated from Brooklyn College, honing his skills as a sideman for Mel Tormé and Thad Jones, while studying with Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans and Lennie Tristano.
In addition to contributions on more than ten Bowie albums, Garson has been featured on the Smashing Pumpkins’ Ex Machina, Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile, Seal’s Human Being, No Doubt’s Return of Saturn, plus television and film soundtracks, and solo albums The Oxnard Sessions, Vol.1, Serendipity, A Gershwin Fantasia and The Mystery Man. He approaches improvisation as a unique composition method, developed under his NOW! MUSIC brand. He has also been a strong supporter of the Yamaha Junior Original Composers (JOC) program, having worked with several of the young performers and acting as emcee at the JOC Winter NAMM 2002 concert.
“There are very few pianists who understand the movement and free thinking necessary to hurl themselves into experimental or traditional areas of music at the same time,” says Bowie in a recent interview in Keyboard magazine. “Mike does so with enthusiasm.”
To learn more about Mike Garson, visit his web site at www.mikegarson.com.
