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By Dan Page
SCREENZINE.COM Music Editor
Producer/composer Andy Mitran met his new creative partner Al Jewer in an unlikely spot for serious business hook-ups, “The Bozo Show.” They met two years ago the set of “Bozo’s Super Sunday Show,” when Jewer was a featured flutist with a Native American musical act.
Concurrent with his decade-and-a-half running a commercial music business, Mitran pulled double-duty as musical director and on-screen cameo actor for Ch. 9’s various Bozo show incarnations, from a daily format to the once-a-weekend form under which the show shuttered in summer 2001.
Mitran was so impressed by Jewer’s master technique, performing with an array of over 60 vintage single-, double-, and triple chamber flutes, that he asked him to perform on some commercial compositions early last year. The collaboration continued and flourished until last fall, when Mitran asked Jewer to join the Mitran staff as a full-time staple producer and composer.
The two are just about finished collaborating on a full length indie-label instrumental jazz CD featuring Mitran on keyboards and percussion, Jewer on various flutes, former Grammy- nominee David Darling on cello, and former Joe Jackson Band member Vinnie Zummo on guitar.
“We work great together because we both have very high bars that we set in different areas,” Mitran admits. “He’s Windows and I’m Mac, but when we bounce ideas back and forth together, we really come up with our strongest work to date.”
Though the two are excited about the original music CD, they are also slammed with work in their primary focus of scoring commercials with a package of regional spots in the South and Southwest for Ford dealers through J. Walter Thompson-Houston.
For more info, check out: www.Mitran.com. Contact: Email: Andy@Mitran.com. Phone: 773/ 604-5200.
WILSON FINDS SANCTUARY. Superior Street’s estimated $100,000 investment in a music documentary made over a two-year period will be returned with a profit from its sale to a UK record label.??
London’s Sanctuary Records of London bought 77-minute “Brian Wilson on Tour” for DVD, VHS and broadcast rights for five years from Superior Street. A deluxe DVD/VHS video edition will be released March 3.?
“Brian Wilson on Tour” goes on stage as it follows the former Beach Boy on his 14-month, first solo tour throughout the U.S. and Japan. He is interviewed in-depth over the two-and-a- half years of touring.
What makes “Tour” a great collector’s item are the appearances and performances and interviews with some of rock’s greatest stars. Paul McCartney inducts Wilson into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Pete Townshend, Sheryl Crow, Neil Young and Patti Smith are interviewed, and guest vocalists Roger Daltrey, Neil Young and others perform.
For more info, check out www.Brianwilson.com. Phone, 312/640-1111.
HIGH-KEY COMPOSITION. A recent video for Underwriter’s Laboratories provided a creative treat for D?Tente Music. Composer Eric Batterman saw the 12-minute film noir-styled video for UL as the perfect opportunity for him to create an homage to the late black-and-white, private dick flick composer Adolf Deutsch (“Maltease Falcon”).
The informational video entitled “Are You Alarmed?” produced by John Friedman Productions, also gave Batterman a great platform to showcase the abilities of his Gigastudio set-up in manipulating original orchestral sounds in new and dramatic interpolations.
For more info, check out (soon): www.DetenteMusic.com (the future online home of the studio. Contact: Email: Detente@telocity.com. Phone: 312/644-6637.
ANNIVERSARY SONG. Chez Groove’s David Steele and his brother, freelance writer John Steele, are behind the music on Red Lobster’s 35th Anniversary radio campaign (Euro RSCG Tatham), playing through mid-February.
The assignment was to render the familiar “Red Lobster for the seafood lover in you” theme as barbershop doo-wop, while injecting key phrases such as “35 years,” “popcorn shrimp” and “all you can eat” into the lyrics.?Versions were so well received that two of the three were tapped for air.?
Staci Miller produced for the agency; final mix by Mike McDonald of Euro’s Image One Studios.??
Noted. Recent Mosaic music projects: Music/sound design for a Chicago Bulls TV promotion package for WGN direct, which featured record scratching by noted DJ Old Man Malcolm . . . At Deaf Dog: a TV six-pack for State Farm and a single radio ad for Michelob, both from DDB.
