The bare-bones ain't-no-frills yet version of...

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I believe the year was 1992. At that time I was working with the Los Angeles Composers Guild as a pianist and conductor. The Guild was started in 1991 by composer and entrepreneur, Gloria Ching, and was a composer consortium that sponsored monthly recording sessions for composers to make low-cost orchestral demo tapes with a first-string studio orchestra. In 1992, LACG was in its early stages and we had everything from neophyte composers whose music preparation looked like ancient Greek to seasoned pros like Les Baxter whose music prep sometimes looked like modern Greek.

Les was scoring a "student" film for someone working in the graduate program at the UCLA Film School. I assume that the filmmaker, whose name I cannot recall, had heard of Les and had somehow managed to corral him into scoring the film, probably by picking up the recording costs. At that time, I had never heard of Les Baxter although I was probably familiar with some of his better-known music by way of media osmosis. He arrived on the podium at Ground Control Studios in Burbank on that Sunday morning looking a little like a sophisticated and less near-sighted replica of Mr. Magoo. Someone had done his music prep using a computer notation program and there were many errors which infuriated Les. The feature cue had a piano solo with a vaguely sketched hand-written chart that in some places simply said(in Les's handwriting) "play pretty chords". It was strikingly similar to Unchained Melody and this was indeed one of Les's ways of recycling his best material to serve the moment. I remember his conducting being efficient and detached, much like Boulez since he didn't use a baton. Yet he had a warmth about his style that showed the depth of a veteran whose heart and ears were still very much in contact with the muses.

As I mentioned earlier I probably knew some of his more famous music but was unfamiliar with the man and his legacy.

At first glance Les was more like a Prussian General than the gentle pussycat that was beneath the surface. This was probably due in part to years of working with producers and film industry power- mongers who could easily destroy a composer's score with the bat of an eyelash. Les always knew what he wanted but was not always a world-class diplomat in getting the final results. I did manage to earn his respect and admiration early on when he heard me sailing through the Prelude to Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin at our first LACG session. He was a card-carrying Francophile and would purr on command at the sound of anything by Ravel or Debussy. These two composers were obviously a strong influence on his music if not for their exoticism than for their lush harmony and sumptuous orchestration. Les himself would even play snippets of the opening of Ravel's Jeux d'eau but would stop at once when he reached the second page or so.

As I got to know Les better over the next few years he always treated me with great respect and admiration even though in public he would sometimes condescend as if I were simply another talented protege or at times even his personal valet. He knew, however, that if I were doing his music prep or was in charge of putting the library together for a session, there would be absolutely no mistakes.

Les was the consummate iconoclast and as a result hated authority with a passion. I think this probably had something to do with his great talent being overlooked while other lesser composers were getting the big feature films. I remember him arguing adamantly with a director and eventually getting his way with a certain cue. He would also often speak of the days when he was at the top of his film composing career and had a big house in Bel Air complete with chef and chauffeur. In a sense he was still living that dream during his last years in Palm Springs although at that point most of his money had dried up.

Well, my friend, remember that since you're living in Central Ohio there are many things out here that never make it over the Sierra Madres let alone the Rockies or Mississippi River. No offense -- I lived in Northeastern Ohio for the first twenty-one years of my life which is perhaps why I hadn't heard of Les Baxter until 1992. Les lacked a publicist so unless you were watching late night cable this film would have been easy to miss.

Lightening In A Bottle was produced in 1993 by Matovich Productions and eventually aired a couple of times on Lifetime. Mitch Matovich was a producer/entrepreneur who had worked for many years at NASA as an engineer. After leaving NASA Mitch started his own production company up in Valencia(just north of LA) and in collaboration with his wife Patte Dee were producing "family-oriented" movies. Patte had been a professional costume designer in the industry for many years and knew Les from previous projects. Lightening In A Bottle starred Linda Carter, Dee Wallace Stone, Mark Kove, and Matt McCoy and was the story of a drunk driver(Linda Carter) who kills three people in a car accident, mistakenly escapes prosecution, and then spends most of the movie gathering her recollections of what really happened on the night of the accident. Linda Carter sang the end title song, Somehow I'll Go On, which featured Plas Johnson(of Pink Panther fame) on Tenor Sax. This film was sort of like Les Baxter as Norma Desmond, a once famous veteran returning to score a film after living in semi-retirement.

The score to Lightening In A Bottle is simply gorgeous and while the handful of music cues are spread sparsely throughout the film, Les managed to unify the entire score beautifully by using the head(five notes of a descending scale) of the theme song as a filmic leitmotiv throughout. The orchestration was simple but lush and used only strings, harp, piano, drum set, and tenor sax(used only in the end title theme). There were also two other songs in the film, both of which were Country Western type tunes with words and music by Les Baxter(A Country Mile from a Broken Heart and Lightening In A Bottle).

I remember getting a call from Les in February of 1993 summoning me to a recording studio in Hollywood to play for "a singer" who was doing the end title for the film. Gloria Ching was slated to be the Music Supervisor for the project and I would eventually be brought in to help with orchestration, music prep and to play piano on the session. I arrived at the studio which turned out to be total dump. Les was late as usual and was accompanied by Mitch Matovich who was dressed in one of those black film industry baseball jackets, jeans and black Florsheim zip-up boots. Les was cordial but aloof and handed me a lead sheet written in purple bic pen on xeroxed Passantino manuscript paper. I went into the studio only to find a piece-of-junk parlor grand that needed tuning and dismal lighting that must have been leftover from one of those Vincent Price movies that Les had scored. Eventually the "singer" showed up and without introducing herself we began rehearsing. I didn't recognize her at first but she looked strikingly familiar with deep dark eyes, dark hair and a knock-out body. We laid down several tracks and as she became more comfortable with the song we went to multi-track so that the piano could be separated out and her voice part put on top of the string bed which would be recorded later on at Capitol.

At the end of the session I stupidly asked the singer, "So, do you do mostly studio work , jingles, or what?" "No," she responded curtly, "I'm an actress." After she left the studio with Mitch and Les for lunch(I wasn't invited) it hit me over the head like a lead balloon that the "singer" was in fact Linda Carter of Wonder Woman fame. I was very embarrassed to say the least.

The orchestral session took place later that winter at Capitol -- the original Capitol near Hollywood and Vine where Sinatra, Nat King Cole and numerous other greats had recorded. Les had done a good deal of recording there as well in the sixties so in a sense this was like Norma Desmond returning to the sound stage at Paramount in Sunset Boulevard. The session went right ahead with great efficiency and Les conducted with elegance and authority. At one point he felt compelled to stop the players and walk over to the piano to "demonstrate" how I should voice a certain chord(Db13#11). I surrendered my piano stool to him and he proceeded to play the same exact voicing and descending series of chords that I had just played in the previous take. The players were amused but I was gracious enough to recognize that this moment was nothing more than a spoiled child looking for attention. Plas Johnson arrived fashionably late which meant that the entire orchestra was sitting there for at least forty-five minutes while the meter ticked. Linda Carter's vocal was sent to the players headsets along with my original "dummy" piano track and we all somehow managed to play in sync while Les conducted. This, of course, was backwards from the way it is normally done where the orchestral song bed is laid down first and the vocalist recording on top of it in a subsequent take. We all felt as did Les that the session was a huge success even though the film has never made it past a few airings on cable TV.

A while after the Capitol session Les invited Gloria Ching and me out to his place in Palm Springs on several occasions. The first was during Easter of 1994 which was before Les had his stroke. He had moved there from his place in Newport Beach and had one of those ranch/desert style places with three bedrooms, a pool, and a beautiful garden. I remember that Les loved flowers and had the interior decorated with lots of imitation Rococo art and soft colors. He had an antique baby grand piano that was hopelessly out of tune. As usual I played Ravel and Debussy which pleased him to no end.

It must have been about 105 degrees outside and as we sat around the pool it seemed like the obvious impulse to jump in the water and cool off. Gloria Ching was quite exotic looking to say the least and somewhat eccentric in her own wonderful way. I think that subliminally she reminded Les of Yma Sumac, with whom he had worked on many projects as a composer/arranger. Since Gloria didn't know how to swim and thus hadn't brought a bathing suit Les blurted out, "It's O.K. honey. You can just take off your clothes and skinny-dip if you want." Gloria, of course, modestly declined but Les was obviously buoyed by the thought.

As I mentioned earlier, Les's money was beginning to dry up at this point so whenever we went out for dinner, usually to some expensive French restaurant, Gloria and I usually ended up picking up the tab. I remember when we took the tram near Palm Springs up to the top of Mt. San Jacinto and how he managed skirt paying for his own ticket but still managed to get the senior discount. Les always liked a good deal, especially if it meant "my treat, you pay." Nonetheless, he was a most gracious host in his own home and I have nothing but the fondest memories of our weekends in Palm Springs.

At least once a year Gloria Ching and the Los Angeles Composers Guild would produce a concert at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as part of the "Sundays At Four" series. These events were co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and were broadcast live from the Leo S. Bing Theater at 4:00 each Sunday on KUSC, FM, LA's main classical radio station. The LACG concerts always had at least a forty-piece orchestra and featured LACG members as well as one or two "celebrity" composers. The concert on July 24, 1994 had some heavy hitters, among them David Benoit, Bruce Broughton, and of course Les Baxter. I'm sure that Les felt that he was the only real celebrity on the program, a point which no one disputed since he alone had been invited to participate free of charge. I was involved as both a pianist and conductor and also ended up serving as Les's personal "valet"(at least from his point of view) since he had to rent a tux and couldn't seem to carry it and all of his parts by himself. The concert was standing room only and he conducted two of his works on the second half of the program to great ovations.

The first piece, entitled Movement, was a new piece that had a driving eighth-note rhythm throughout with parallel seventh and ninth chords that were constantly changing from bar to bar. If anything, this piece could have been Les's ascent(or descent!) to minimalism although I think he was thinking more of Honegger and Stravinsky than Steve Reich or Philip Glass and probably would have deplored any such comparison to a particular "ism". I remember distinctly that he conducted with such minute gestures in the pianissimo passages that the players were forced to follow his every nuance. By contrast, the less experienced composer/conductors relentlessly sawed the air with batons the size of riding crops. Les and I were the only ones who didn't use batons and I think the players found that this created a more intimate musical environment. I attribute my own predilection for this technique to the years that I spent observing Pierre Boulez conduct the Cleveland Orchestra while I was growing up in Ohio.

The second piece, Poem, was something from an earlier era that I think had already been "recycled" once before. The players' parts(quite yellowed from age) had at least two different titles that had been crossed out with different pens before the current title, Poem, was penned in. It had that sixties, lush pop/ballad sound that Les was so famous for. I remember how disappointed he was at the end when the entire audience was not on their feet. This he attributed to the radio announcer's request that the "audience limit their applause so as to keep the continuity of the radio program moving along." I think that he was actually quite upset and felt that his moment of glory had somehow been cut short.

After the concert Gloria and I had planned to take Les and Mitch and Patte Matovich up to Adriano's, a wonderful Italian restaurant up in Bel Air near the Mulholland summit. Les had run into an old friend from Beverly Hills and after handing me his tux announced that he had other plans. Apparently he had a pretty good offer for dinner but this didn't prevent him from asking Gloria for $20 to get enough gas so that his vintage Cadillac could make it back to Palm Springs. This, sadly, was the last time that we saw Les before he had the debilitating stroke that eventually sent him to his grave.

No, but he may have been one of the people that Les worked with out in Palm Springs.

Not that I know of, although after his stroke Gloria and I paid him a visit. I believe this was the spring of 1995. Les looked horrible. He was having to go in for kidney dialysis at least three times a week and seemed to have lost most of the razor-edged mental acuity that we were all so accustomed to. He could still get around but we were horrified at how he had deteriorated since the 1994 LACG concert. The garden and pool had become an absolute disaster and Gloria and I spent time trying to clean things up while Les sunned himself in a lawn chair. Our last meal together was at a great French restaurant called "Le Valouris". We were accompanied by a rather flamboyant older gentleman whom Les referred to as "the Count" and who was apparently from Swedish royalty. All of that aside, we gladly picked up the tab at the end of the meal as we knew this might likely be our "last supper".

During this last visit to Palm Springs I went in the garage and discovered shelf upon shelf of Les Baxter's original scores, parts and other music. This was probably his entire archive which unfortunately was left to the elements even though it had a roof overhead. That Sunday afternoon while we all sunned around the pool I took several interesting looking scores out to Les. He seemed not to remember any of the titles until I would sing to him what seemed to be the salient parts of each score. At that point, he would snap to as if he were immediately transported back in time. All of that music was deep in his heart despite his inability to read or recognize the titles.

I spoke with Les at some length about what would happen to all of this music when he passed away. He didn't seem terribly concerned especially since there was probably very little money to be made for his estate. Were I to have had stronger musicological ambitions and instincts at that time I would have certainly insisted on taking up the task of cataloging and documenting his entire body of work. I assume that at this point someone has perhaps bought up the entire catalog although I would imagine that his daughter Leslie would know for sure.

In January of 1996 Gloria received a call from Leslie telling us that Les had passed away a month earlier. We were devastated and very disappointed to have not been able to arrange for some of his music to be performed at a memorial service. We had indeed lost a great friend and artist who, if nothing else, can be remembered vividly through our own recollections and through his beautiful and prolific musical legacy.

David Goodman
Los Angeles, California
February 8, 1998

© 1998 David Goodman

David Goodman-- composer, pianist and conductor-- has composed works for orchestra, chorus, jazz ensemble, brass choir, electronic media, theater and film and has received awards from The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, the National Orchestral Association, and Who's Who in America. His Canto de esperanza has received critical acclaim throughout the United States, Europe and Latin America and is currently available on compact disc. The PBS documentary, Reina de la selva, for which he scored the music has been broadcast nationally and in Europe and received first prize at the Houston International Film Festival. In addition to his diverse activities as a composer he appears regularly in concert performances as a pianist and conductor and has worked with such artists as Quincy Jones, David Benoit, Les Baxter and Michael Kamen.

After receiving his Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College in 1975 he went on to receive his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and has taught in the music departments at Pomona College and UCLA. Since 1991 he has served as the resident conductor and pianist for the critically acclaimed Los Angeles Composers Guild and most recently scored the music for the PBS documentary Darkness Into Light. He is currently a Professor of Music Composition, Theory , and Music Technology at Santa Monica College.