I always feel a Dave Grusin vibe when I play the music of Marc Shaiman. Not in any outright 'steal' way. Just the overall sound and style is comparable. Very tuneful. Very melodic, piano based writing/scoring. This is no different. It's quite short (about 23 minutes of score) but very lovely. Delicate and heartfelt. The disc is rounded out with some piano renditions of previous Shaiman themes and songs*. And the booklet has an almost novel length autobiography by Richard Kraft about meeting and working with Shaiman over the years**, in addition to a nice note from Shaiman himself.
*There's a version of his wonderful theme from THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT which now makes it sound like a Christmas hymn. I like it.
**Be sure to bring along a magnifying glass, cos it's 9 pages of text with the smallest print the human eye has ever detected.
It's Yo Birthday!!! It's Yo Birthday!!! Totally unbeknownst to me as I played some Marc Shaiman scores yesterday, I noticed that he's 62 today. So, Happy Birthday Mr Shaiman. Thanks for all the fun music I've enjoyed by you over the years.
