Don Sebesky, noted music composer and arranger, has signed with Mess Hall for exclusive representation to score commercials. In addition to spotwork, Sebeskys experience includes arranging music for Broadway musicals and contemporary performers such as Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow, and guitarist/vocalist John Pizzarelli. Sebeskys fortes in both arranging and composing encompass genres such as jazz and swing.
Andy Messenger, executive producer at Mess Hall, said the pairing was designed to continue a fruitful creative collaboration in which then freelancer Sebesky worked on such Mess Hall-produced spots as Nikes Were Ballplayers, for Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, and Paddleball, an AT&T spot out of McCann-Erickson, New York.
Were Ballplayers featured a Broadway-style ensemble number, while Paddleball sported a swing-influenced score. Messenger noted that Sebesky literally wrote the book on contemporary arranging, referring to Sebeskys book The Contemporary Arranger, published by Alfred Pub-lishing Co. Messenger and Sebesky met in the mid A80s when Messenger took Contemporary Arrangers Workshop, a class which Sebesky taught in New York. Im really a fan of Dons to begin with, Messenger said. Id like more people to know about him and Id like to be able to surround Don with the support that will allow him to spend his time writing music.
Sebesky agreed that Mess Hall would enable him to concentrate on penning music. Its very difficult for me to spread myself thin or to keep picking up the pencil and putting it down. Once I pick it up, I dont like to put it down until the writing is done, he said. [The collaboration with Mess Hall] takes a burden off my shoulders of having to address the extra-musical needs of any project. And I can just pick up my pencil and know that when I walk into the studio, everything else is taken care of.
Under his newly struck exclusive deal with Mess Hall, Sebesky recently completed music arrangements for Swept Away, a spot for Gevalia Coffee through Foote, Cone & Belding, New York. He describes that work as kind of delicate and kind of bluesy but somewhere in that Gershwin-esque period.
Sebesky lived through the Gershwin-esque period and was a member of 1940s bands such as Maynard Fergusons big band and the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Sebesky has seen swing come and go, and with the current craze for the genre, he may well find himself busy scoring swing spots. Sebesky was ahead of the curve in 1995, when he scored eight spots for Alaska Airlines through Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. The spots featured Sebesky in swing-mode extraordinaire. In two of the spots, Diner and Visiting Mom, swing is used to hearken back to the old world values the carrier wanted to evoke. Sebesky found great irony knowing that his 11-year-old daughter now listens to the music which he arranged (and played) over 30 years ago.
A future collaboration with Pizzarelli will be an album of swing music which Sebesky will arrange. For John Pizzarelli Meets The Beatles, a 1998 RCA Victor release, Sebesky arranged songs by the fab four.
Sebesky has an impressive 20 Grammy nominations under his belt. Though he has yet to win the award, Sebesky has a chance to bring one home at this years ceremony, since he is nominated in the best arranging category for I Remember Bill-A Tribute to Bill Evans, also released by RCA Victor.
Sebesky describes the art of arranging as one branch of the compositional family tree. If you gave 10 practitioners the task of arranging Happy Birthday, Sebesky explained, the result would be 10 equally valid versions. The stamp of the arranger is the sound that he or she chooses to use to make a point, he said. Its very much like composing, but its the organization of sound colors rather than melody notes.
