Music:
Member Since: 31/12/2006
Band Website: You are here!
Band Members: Voodoo II CD:
Robert Drasnin: composer, arranger, conductor, clarinet, saxophone, flute
Bobby Shugold: Alto flute, flute
Peggy Baldwin: cello
Amy Shulman: harp
DJ Bonebrake: marimba
Billy Hulting: vibraphone
Mike Lang: piano
John Sawoski: electric keyboard
Jim Hughart: bass
Howard Greene: drums
Brad Dutz: percussion
Scott Breadman: percussion
Stephanie Bennett: vocals
Live 2007 lineup:
Robert Drasnin: composer, arranger, conductor, clarinet, saxophone, flute
Bass: Randy Wong
Vibes: Brian O'Neil
Drums: Mikey Connors
Paino: Mia Vassilev
keyboards: Helen Liu
Marimba: Gary Mayone
Cello: Elena Alamilla
Percusion: Richard Bravo
Harp: Leefai Chen
Vocals: Alice Berry
Influences: BIO:
Robert Drasnin started his career as just another kid inspired by Artie Shaw to pick up the clarinet. He and a few of his teenaged friends (including a precocious Warne Marsh) formed a band. They were too young to get drafted for service in the Second World War, and found themselves in demand. Recordings survive of the group acting as the house band on the Hoagy Carmichael Show. Drasnin went on to play alto saxophone in the bands of Tommy Dorsey, Les Brown, Alvino Rey, and Skinnay Ennis. By the fifties, he was playing alto clarinet and flute in Red Norvo's Quintet.
As he was going through the basic training in the big bands, Drasnin was also studying composition at UCLA, with Lukas Foss, and at USC, with noted film score genius Miklos Rosza. He earned his B.A. in 1949, and eventually went on to get his Master's. He joined the Army (during) World War Two at age 17, and served during the Korean War. While in the service, he played in an Army band and hosted a radio show.
Drasnin returned from the Army and went to work studying serious composition. He first started writing music for student films in 1953, and by the late fifties was working professionally in the music business - composing, playing, conducting, and even briefly working in Tops Records' warehouse. He was also a member of Lukas Foss' Improvisation Chamber Ensemble in 1960 during which the group performed in Carnegie Hall.
As Martin Denny's Exotica is sprinted up the charts in the late 1950s, every fly-by-night label was recording a Denny sound-alike. Tops A&R chief Dave Pell - who was also the photographer for all the album covers - told Drasnin to make a record in the Denny mold. The record, Voodoo, released in 1959, (later reissued as Percussion Exotique on the Mayfair label) was not a hit, but it was obviously heard somewhere, as Liberty records engaged Drasnin to help arrange Denny's Latin Village.
From 1977 through the early 1990s, Robert Drasnin was the Director of Music for CBS Entertainment. He got the job by having two pages of movie and television titles that used his music, not least of all Lost in Space, Playhouse 90 (including "Topaze," which is the episode that starred Ernie Kovacs), Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission Impossible, The Wild Wild West, Lost in Space, and The Twilight Zone. Drasnin stayed almost entirely in the worlds of film and television music until 1991 when he left CBS. He is well-known for his score for Death of a Salesman in 1966. .
He now teaches film music composition at UCLA, performs on a regular basis, and conducts. He has been an instructor in Ireland and Bulgaria, continues to travel, performing and conducting his music, as well as playing in jazz combos as they tour the states. He lives with his wife, Marlene, near Ventura, California..
An Exotica revival that began in the 1990s saw Drasnin travelling to Minneapolis in 1999 to perform the (then) 40-year -old Voodoo LP live, for the first time. The show was musically fine, but was held in a bar full of indifferent and noisy patrons who weren't interested in what was happening on stage. As the revival grew, another request for a Voodoo performance came to Drasnin, this time to perform at the Hukilau in 2005. Initially skittish due to the disappointing Minneapolis show, an explaination that the Hukilau was a festival entirely composed of Exotica fans eased Drasnin's apprehentions, and he agreed to the show. The performance was a rousing success by any measure, and inspired the composition of Voodoo 2, which was recorded in February 2007, and will be performed at the 2007 Hukilau on June 15.
-- bio by Skip Heller and James Teitelbaum
Sounds Like: Martin Denny, Les Baxter, Augie Colon, Arthur Lyman, Yma Sumac, Gene Rains, Tak Shindo... only better!
Record Label: http://www.dionysusrecords.com/
Type of Label: Indie
