ASCAP Henry Mancini Award
Honoring James Newton Howard

The Prince of Scores

We're sitting — very quietly — in the biggest control room I've ever seen, somewhere on the sprawling Sony lot in Culver City. Video monitors to the left, right and center are freeze-framed on Julia Roberts' face. Techs bustle busily while a full orchestra — complete with a harp — tunes up on the other side of the glass. The man in charge — James Newton Howard to you — sits calmly at a mixing desk the size of a patio while the video fast-forwards to Julia kissing Dermott Mulroney in an airport, then cuts quickly to a panorama of Manhattan.

"Michael, the downbeat's the same?"

"You're coming in on 28?"

"Yeah, the downbeat of the old cue, then go to 29, then at 37 cut to 38."

"Okay. Ready?"

The red light goes on, count-in bars roll past the video screen, I stop crinkling my candy wrapper, and the orchestra swells into a cheerful, sweeping sound that perfectly fits a character going off to a new adventure in the big city. Exactly 23 seconds later, it's over.

"Okay, 801 take 63. Do this cue in a key that will relate to the song." The video fast-forwards and we now see Dermott obviously getting some bad news over the phone. The cue, fittingly enough, is called "Michael's Bad News." They do a take which sounds fine to me, but not to someone else.

"We need the violins softer, then have Barbara start on the third beat half-note, and louder."

The orchestra swells into a heartbreaking sound, then fades as Julia walks out of the room and slumps against a doorway.

"Okay... lunch!"

It's all pretty impressive to watch, but for James Newton Howard, it's another day in the office. Apart from the brisk, businesslike pace to the proceedings, you'd have no idea of the intense deadline pressure that he's under: I saw a trailer for the film in question — My Best Friend's Wedding — less than a week later, and the film itself (completely and expertly scored, of course) opened within six weeks.

But then again, you can't score more than sixty films in twelve years without having your act down. James Newton Howard's wildly diverse credits include the E.R. theme, The Fugitive, Space Jam, The Prince Of Tides (including the song "Places That Belong To You," co-written with Alan and Marilyn Bergman), Grand Canyon, Pretty Woman, Wyatt Earp, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Waterworld, among some fifty-odd others. He's equally adept as a songwriter, musician, arranger and producer as well as a composer, and his four Oscar nominations — tellingly, two each for Best Original Song and Best Original Score — include his scores for The Fugitive and The Prince Of Tides, as well as his co-writing credits on "For The First Time" (from One Fine Day) and "Look What Love Has Done" (from Junior). His 1994 E.R. theme garnered him an Emmy Award (he was also nominated in 1989 for the television pilot Men), and he received a Grammy nomination in 1990 for Dying Young. At the 1997 ASCAP Film and Television Awards, he walked away with three trophies: two for "Top Box Office Films" (for his scores to Space Jam and Primal Fear), and one for "Top TV Series" (E.R.).

Howard's influence in the medium over the past few years has been massive, not least due to his ability to fuse the diverse classical and rock influences of his earlier career into the format of the score.

"I was lucky, but my background was ideally suited for [scoring]: the classical training was a good inspiration and influence, and my work in the rock n' roll idiom is really helpful in terms of blending the two, which I like to try to do as much as possible. I try to take a contemporary approach to a very traditional kind of work."

James brings a lifetime steeped in many styles of music to his current role as one of ASCAP's top performers. "My grandmother was a classical violinist, she was the concertmaster — concertmistress, whatever! — in the Pittsburgh Symphony during the 1930s and '40s. She kept a piano at her house when I was a little boy, and I started lessons when I was four. I was trained classically for a long time, but all along the way I was very interested in pop and '60s rock n' roll. I still like popular music a lot."

(Just in case you're curious, both James and his actor brother altered their names to avoid confusion with similarly-monickered actors: James added the "Newton" and his brother changed his first name from Leslie to Arliss.)

He was a Piano Performance major at the USC School of Music, and studied with Leon Fleischer and Reginald Stewart at Santa Barbara's Music Academy of the West. One of his other teachers was the legendary orchestrator Marty Paich, which began a long association between James and the Paich family: Marty would later conduct orchestras for many of James' film scores. James has also worked extensively with Marty's keyboardist/songwriter son, David (of Toto fame). Shortly after graduation, "A friend knew a rock band [Mama Lion] that was looking for a keyboard player, and was I interested in auditioning? I figured, since I was boxing groceries for a living, that I might as well give it a try. I got the job, and that was really when I became a professional."

The band didn't get far, but it was the connection that James needed. Two solid years of session work with the likes of Carly Simon, Diana Ross, Ringo Starr, Melissa Manchester and Harry Nilsson followed. In 1975 he joined the band of the biggest popular artist of the time, Elton John, beginning a relationship that recently passed the 20-year mark. "I toured with Elton in '75, '76, left the band to do more record production and songwriting of my own, then rejoined the band in 1980 for just one tour, and then came back in '86 and conducted the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for his 'Live In Australia' tour" (documented on Elton's album of the same name). James' talents feature heavily in many of Elton's biggest songs from the era, including "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word," "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," "Little Jeannie" and "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)."

He soon became one of the most in-demand musicians in the industry, collaborating as songwriter, producer, and/or arranger with Barbra Streisand, Earth Wind and Fire, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Toto, Glen Frey, Olivia Newton-John, Randy Newman, Rickie Lee Jones, Cher, and many others. His most recent credit is "Here In My Heart," co-written with Glen Ballard, on Chicago's recent Heart Of Chicago collection.

James took to film scoring comparatively late in the game, in 1985. "I had written a lot of instrumental music, but until you become a film composer, you don't know what the word 'productive' means. You work 60 or 70 hours a week to create six or seven minutes of music. It's a whole new ballgame."

He's scarcely had time to look back since, averaging six or seven scores a year on his way to becoming one of the most in-demand composers in the biz. (There are several fan web sites dedicated to James' work: check there for the latest updates!)

It seems that such an exhausting schedule would be difficult for most mortals, but James says, "Knock on wood, I've never felt dry for more than an hour or so. I've written some bad music, but it didn't seem bad at the time I was writing it! I've been lucky thus far to feel immensely interested in and inspired by the work, and the opportunity to do the work. It's very exciting, and that helps."

— Jem Aswad


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