Back In the World

Ed: What did you do after leaving Miami Vice?

Jan: I did a couple of solo albums. One was called Snapshots that came out in Europe, and was just now released here in sort of a remastered version (called Snapshots 1.2). And I did an album called Escape From Television, which was some music from the show, and some music that was original. And I still played live.

Ed: You worked with Jeff Beck, right?

Jan: I worked a lot with Jeff, and played on other people's records, and I still played a lot of live, with my own band.

Ed: Was it hard to get back to playing live, after all of the soundtrack stuff?

Jan: I did some of that, but my heart really wasn't in it that much. I did some gigs, but it just was not the right the thing to do. I had pretty much gotten sick of it by the end of the '70s, and then playing again...

I really like the studio better. So the last time I really was out was in 1991, I think. I got together with the late, great Tony Williams, my very favorite drummer of all time. So we went out and did a summer tour.

That was it. Other than a few TV things, I haven't played live since.

Ed: What was it like working on the Beyond The Mind's Eye DVD?

Jan: It was again, another total left turn. It just came out of left field, and it enabled me to do something's totally different from scoring a live-action TV series. I don't know how to describe it, but there's a relationship between a beautiful electronic sound, sort of a very adventurous synthesized electronic sound, and the computer imagery, the graphics. The grain relates in a direct way, much more than let's say for writing music for human actors, you know? That connection was a revelation for me, and I really enjoyed the novelty and newness of it.

Today, the graphics have gotten much better, and I don't get that anymore-that same connection is not there. But it was that initial connection that I made when I was doing that, that really amazed me, and I really enjoyed that.

Ed: Your music for Beyond The Mind's Eye seemed to be much more harmonious and tranquil sounding than your Miami Vice material. Was that strictly to match the visuals, or was your music in general changing?

Jan: Yeah. As we grow older-and wiser--hopefully, hopefully we mellow out, and I think that's happened to me. I still like to do something very intense here and there, but for most of the time, I like the subtle stuff that's almost pretty to listen to, and a certain amount of beauty. Sound has to have some sort of a beauty for me to be able to enjoy it, and to be able to appeal to me.