The Joyful Work of Schwartzer

It came upon me slowly, like a lame virus-- the realization that “Oh! Be Joyful!” (the song) was perhaps better than the show it was made for.

In Mid-July 2005, I invited Matt Schwartzer over to my temporary apartment where the editing of the independently produced TV pilot “Oh! Be Joyful!” was nearing completion. I had told him weeks earlier that I was serious in my request to record the song “I’m afraid I’m gonna lose my edge”(which he wrote with the amazing lyricist Matt Kaplan) and that I planned to use it in the pilot. The truth was that “Edge”, despite never being recorded, had become the song in the “soundtrack” of my life. The tune had literally been used, in my head, to underscore real-time moments in my life. The opening three notes, which continue pretty much throughout the song, became a battle march for me; a sound that backed me up when life was trying to get me to calmly hand over my edge.

It was regularly performed by Schwartzer and Kaplan’s band Jonas Grumby (with wonderboy drummer Derek Landel rounding out the trio). As they became sick of playing it, it became and obsession for me to hear it. I would often demand that it be played.

When Kaplan left the band and Schwartzer changed the name and the sound of the band, “Edge” completely fell off the set list. It was only because of my loyalty to the band that they would, on occasion, perform it as alms to me.

I was in the middle of developing “Oh! Be Joyful!” when the band bestowed upon me an electrifying performance of “Edge”. It was then that I knew it absolutely needed to be in the show in some way. I realized that I was writing a show about people who were afraid they were going to lose their edge.

When Schwartzer showed up to watch the cut of “Oh! Be Joyful!” in July 2005, he didn’t know anything about the show. He only knew that I wanted to record “Edge” and maybe a rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” to act as a theme song over the opening credits. There was little or no talk of the possibility of actually recording an original theme song.

I walked him to the subway as we discussed booking studio time, an engineer, etc. Two hours later, roughly midnight, the phone rings, its Matt. “I just wrote the theme song. Do you want to hear it?” That was it. It was done.

The five-hour recording session, two days later, will remain special for me because it saw the reunion of Schwartzer (guitar, vocals), Kaplan (bass) and Landel (drums) in the studio. It was wonderful to just be there and to have ears.

They made quick work of “Edge”, but the others hadn’t even heard Schwartzer’s “Joyful” theme. They tossed it around while I ran out to get everyone some sandwiches. I returned to the sounds of beautiful musical harmony. It’s a miracle to me that humans can play an instrument at all, so you can imagine my amazement at what had happened in my short absence. Such a simple song would somehow be considered a miracle to me. (I couldn’t even get the sandwich order right.)

Matt Schwartzer has a natural way with music that I simply don’t have with the medium I work in. I am tempted to say that I envy him but I am too big a fan to really mean that. I gain too much happiness from his music to know envy. A frustratingly delightful awe is more like it.

Something to envy is his openness to suggestions in the studio. They came from the music producer Jason Spittle and the show’s producer Jonathan Roumie. And they were met with open arms. It is the sign of a secure artist when input is welcomed. The song grew and ripened in such a short time and we can reap the rewards in the one minute and fifteen second recording. Forgive me for thinking I could have learned this lesson in my production. I might then have been able to say that the show lives up to the song. It took me two years to cut the show in half. And so, as it stands, we have a 22-minute show that inspired a 1-minute miracle.

Peter Rinaldi