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http://guitarinternational.com/wpmu/2009/10/31/17146/

Guitar International
October 31, 2009

Dr. Richard Niles Interview

By: Dr Matthew Warnock

Described as “one of the most versatile men in modern music” by Sound on
Sound Magazine, Dr. Richard Niles has built a strong career as a performer,
recording artist, producer, songwriter, composer and arranger, author and
educator. His widespread interests have allowed him to work with artists from
many different genres of music, including Paul McCartney, Ray Charles,
TinaTurner, Tears for Fears and Kylie Minogue. As well as being highly
involved in the rock, pop and RnB world, Niles has maintained a parallel
career in jazz, having worked alongside world-class jazz musicians such as
Gary Husband, Michel Legrand, Jane Monheit and through his most recent work
as an author, Pat Metheny.

Niles’ latest book, The Pat Metheny Interviews, finds the author focusing on
Metheny the artist, the creative genius who has penned and recorded one of
the music worlds most prolific catalogues. The book explores the musical
concepts that Metheny uses in his writing and performing, and more
importantly, how he developed those concepts and achieves the lofty goals
that he set out for himself as an artist. Accompanied by musical examples,
transcribed by the author, the book goes beyond the usual biographical and
guitar specific material that is normally found in a Metheny interview. It is
a chance for musicians and non-musicians alike to learn more about the
artistic process that fuels this legendary guitarist, composer and
bandleader.

[snip to]

Matt: Your thesis work for your PhD dealt with arrangers within the popular
music idiom. Do you see popular music becoming more accepted as a legitimate
subject in the world of higher education?

Richard: Duke Ellington famously said that he didn’t distinguish between
genres; “There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.” In my opinion,
“good” music is music that is passionate and innovative. Pop has advanced the
development of music every bit as much as jazz and in terms of production
(which after all is only a form of arranging) pop has gone way beyond.

The compositional contributions of arrangers such as Jesse Stone, Jack
Nitzsche, Jeremy Lubbock, Jimmy Haskell and Arif Mardin should be studied. My
next book, based on my thesis, is called The Invisible Artist. Does the
general public know those names? Just as Miles Davis would have been a far
lesser artist without the collaboration of Gil Evans, The Beatles would have
been far less effective without George Martin.

George Martin was never credited on any Beatles record as the arranger. He is
not even credited in the great book The Beatles Complete Scores. Neither are
the arrangers who transcribed the book. And does the public even know that
Richard Carpenter, Barry Manilow and Brian Wilson did their own arrangements?
My crusade is to make the contributions of these great artists more visible.

As such, you mentioned education, I am frankly shocked at the fact that last
year USC created the first, and only, popular music program in an American
university. There are great private colleges like Berklee and the Musician’s
Institute. More importantly, where is the ‘music appreciation’ class in high
schools.

I have degree music students who are almost entirely unaware of the music of
Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Bob Dylan or Aretha Franklin. Commenting on the
dearth (or death) of music education in schools, the great composer David
Chesky says, “We get the culture we create.” We owe it to our culture to
enrich it with the contributions of the past, without which we cannot move
forward. Pop without a past merely reinvents the wheel which creates the TV
promoted, dumbed-down culture we now suffer.

[snip]
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