Hammer Time: Talking Vice with the Legendary Composer - Page 6

Plus I had offers to do other things. I wanted to sort of branch out and do more features, and whatever.

And they came back and offered me...a lot of money. And as Marlon Brando once said, I didn't have the moral fortitude to turn it down [chuckle]. And that's what happens in TV land: If they want you, they'll get you.

So I stayed for a fourth year. Actually, in the fourth year, I collaborated with John Peterson in the middle of the season, where he took over a little while. He took over for a while, but most of it was using my already established thematic material. But I did the beginning of the season, and then I did some of the ending [ratings] sweeps episodes.

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.

Article Author: Ed Driscoll

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