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David Bowie went through a lot of musicians in the 1970s. It wasn’t because he particularly enjoyed firing people, but as Bowie’s music and on-stage persona morphed from Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane to the controversial Thin White Duke, his musical needs changed and he needed musicians who could change with him.
And so, when keyboardist Mike Garson auditioned for Bowie’s band in 1972, the contract was for eight weeks.
“I got the call when they did their first American tour, which was the Ziggy Stardust tour. They didn’t have a pianist,” Garson said. “I was auditioned by the lead guitarist from the Spiders From Mars, David’s band at the time — his name was Mick Ronson — and I played for about seven seconds, one of the songs of David Bowie called ‘Changes.’ He said I have the gig if I want it. That’s how it all begun.”
Eight weeks turned out to be only the beginning. Garson’s working relationship with Bowie would last through 1,000 concerts and 20 albums, across four decades.
Garson was a long-lasting partner to Bowie because of his knowledge of different types of music. He‘d graduated from Brooklyn College with a music degree in 1970, and was familiar with classical music, jazz, avant garde, rock and pop. By the time Garson was invited to that audition, he had recorded two albums with another group and made a name for himself in experimental music circles.
“From ‘72 through ‘74, which was really highlights of his life — the ‘Ziggy Stardust’ period, ‘Aladdin Sane,’ ‘Young Americans,’ ‘Diamond Dogs’ — those years, he kept changing like a chameleon, very fast, many styles. In those two years, he had five different bands,” Garson recalled, speaking by phone from his Auckland, New Zealand, hotel room. “I was the only one that remained, because I was able to change styles with him.”
One of his unforgettable Bowie moments came when they were performing at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, in the summer of 1973.
“He asked me to take a few of his songs and make a medley, and play it like an overture to the show. Just me on the piano. It was one of the things that scared the hell out of me and yet was very helpful to my career and to my morale — his trust in me.”
In the decades between Bowie’s first American concert and his last — Garson backed Bowie on both of them — Garson also had a prolific parallel career apart from Bowie. He collaborated with other groups, and wrote and recorded extensively as a solo composer.
Garson saw no point of participating in a Bowie tribute act while Bowie was alive, but things changed for him after Bowie died of liver cancer in 2016.
“I was working on a lot of my jazz music, my classical music, I also write a lot of healing music. I’ve written a symphonic healing suite (and) the use of music in healing is an area that I’m very interested in,” he said. “But because I’m the longest-standing member (of Bowie’s bands), promoters and agencies reached out to me about doing something like this.”
Ultimately, Garson took part in assembling A Bowie Celebration, featuring a group of Bowie band alumni and guests of comparable talent.
A Bowie Celebration comes to the Blue Note Hawaii on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.
A BOWIE Celebration is no tribute band, Garson said.
“What I’m doing is quite different,” he explained. “I’m using alumni musicians who worked with David Bowie in his bands as well as myself. It sounds to me when I listen to the music like what I heard in those years that I worked with Bowie.”
Joining Garson at the Blue Note are three musicians who worked with Bowie for a significant period of time — Gerry Leonard (guitar), Mark Plati (guitar/bass) and Carmine Rojas (bass).
Grammy Award-winning vocalist Corey Glover, frontman of Living Colour, will take a prominent place in this lineup. Also on stage will be two next-generation musicians: drummer Lee John, son of Earl Slick, a notable guitarist who played with Bowie, and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Joe Sumner, son of Sting.
Garson promises a mix of Bowie hits and deep cuts from Bowie’s albums.
“The two challenging things for me are what songs to do on any given night, because I’m ready to do 100 and you can only do, in a two-hour show, maybe 20. I’m always changing the set.
“When you hear Corey Glover do ‘Young Americans,’ you just won’t believe how strong he is,” Garson boasted. “Joe Sumner has a voice like his dad, Sting, and he does some versions of ‘Life on Mars’ and one of David’s last songs, ‘Lazarus,’ that are just to die for.”
Garson says there are some songs that Bowie fans can rightfully expect to hear both nights at the Blue Note — “Life on Mars,” “Changes,” “Let’s Dance,” “Ziggy Stardust,” “Rebel Rebel” and “Space Oddity.”
“We (also) have many, many deeper cuts that I also throw in, and they’re very very powerful. Sometimes I do ‘Quicksand,’ which was from an album called ‘Hunky Dory.’ Sometimes I’ll do ‘The Man Who Sold The World.’”
“I like to find some of the deeper catalog. David never sang the song ‘Lady Grinning Soul” — it’s a beautiful song from the ‘Aladdin Sane’ album. I also play ‘Aladdin Sane,’ the title track of the ‘Aladdin Sane’ album. It features a long piano solo which gave me some notoriety in 1973, so I do that in every show. And then there’s other ones I just on the spur of the moment call on the band, that just feel right at the time.”
From his long collaboration with Bowie, Garson can attest that Bowie was much more than a chameleon-like concert act.
“David had the gift of being a great performer, but he (also) wrote hundreds of songs, and nine-tenths of them are great songs,” he said. “If he had never performed, and just wrote these songs, he’d be known for them. The power of his music and his creativity and his brilliance allows someone like me to carry his music forward.”
A BOWIE CELEBRATION
Presented by Blue Note Hawaii
>> Where: Outrigger Waikiki
>> When: 6:30 and 9 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday
>> Cost: $45 to $65
>> Info: 777-4890, bluenotehawaii.com
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