Dave Grusin’s Cruisin’ With a Hit List

Dave Grusin is on a winning streak. As a businessman, he can point to the success of GRP Records, which he owns in partnership with Larry Rosen. The label, launched in 1978, recently has had hits on one chart or another by Chick Corea (currently No. 1 in the jazz listings), Diane Schuur, Lee Ritenour, David Benoit, Special EFX, Kevin Eubanks, John Patitucci and Grusin himself.

As a musician, he reached a long-unattainable goal this year by winning his first Oscar for his original score for the movie “The Milagro Beanfield War.”

Shortly after that achievement, he returned on a note of triumph to his alma mater, the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he graduated as a music major in 1956. The victory and the visit were not directly related; this was his third annual arrival to spend a week on campus, as a participant in the 42nd annual Conference on World Affairs, a unique meeting of the minds that brings together experts from throughout world on every subject from politics and religion to civil rights and the arts.

His speaking appearances were unpaid; as he remarked during one of the panel discussions, “This is the one week out of the year when I can think of music as a cultural phenomenon rather than a business.”

During the week he discussed such topics as “The Influence of the Media on the Future,” “Commercials on TV,” “Science and Music,” and “Can Jazz Survive the Record Business?” With his younger brother Don, also a talented composer, he took part in two concerts, both mainly devoted to demonstrations of electronic music and synthesizers, a field in which both brothers have been experts since the late 1970s.

He played only two short excerpts from his winning score. When the subject was brought up, he pointed out that he was not even on hand during Oscar night to receive the award.

“I’d had four previous nominations. The first two were for ‘Heaven Can Wait’ in 1979 and ‘The Champ’ in 1980, but I didn’t attend the ceremonies. I did go when I got the nominations for ‘On Golden Pond’ in ’82 and ‘Tootsie’ in ‘83, but this year I thought I was the longest shot of the evening; I figured John Williams would win again, for ‘Accidental Tourist.’ ”

Grusin was at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., watching the show on TV, when his name was announced. “I was astonished; after all, the movie came and went last spring--time enough for people to forget. Also, there wasn’t even enough music for a sound track album; however, I’ll be including some of it in my next recording.”

The rise of GRP Records has been one of the most impressive phenomena in the record industry during the past decade. Juggling commercial and musical values, Grusin and Rosen have established it as one of the most successful of the independent labels. Yet Grusin is worried about its cash flow and fears the power of the major companies.

“I don’t know how long the independents can survive,” he said. “With the giants swallowing up smaller companies right and left, it seems as though one day there may be only two record companies left, CBS and Warner Bros.--and we’ll have to be thankful that there are two, not one.”

At one enlightening matinee during the Colorado Conference (the session was billed as “Tonal Toys: Playing in the Digital Sandbox”), Grusin stood on stage amid a ton of electronic equipment as he and Don and a gifted younger synthesizer expert, Rob Mullins, plunged a bemused audience into a complex world of Roland D-50s, Yamaha DX 7s, Korg M 1s, Kawai Q 80 Sequencers, of MIDI signals and computers through which music is assembled as much as composed.

“The synthesizers have their own special value no matter what kind of music you’re involved in,” said the senior Grusin. “If you’re at the piano composing for an orchestra, you don’t have much of an idea how your horn or string parts will sound, but with synthesizers you are brought much closer to the end result.

“That doesn’t mean that synths will ever be substituted for the traditional instruments; I don’t plan to use sampling as a way of replacing players. In fact, the synths are not designed just to simulate other instruments. We’re in an area of constant discovery; each synthesizer has its own character, its own touch sensitivity. We can use all these complex wave forms to create sounds you have never heard.”

Grusin has been a consistent state-of-the-art artist on every level. His company was among the first to place a strong emphasis on compact discs, at a time when most of his contemporaries were not ready. “Some of the majors didn’t realize that the basic CD audience consists of people who have the best possible stereo setup at home and whose tastes lean to jazz or classical music.”

He is also ready for DAT (digital audio tape), which many observers feel is the wave of the future. “They already have DATs on the market in Japan. We’re not allowed to import them, because of the fear of copying, which is easy with DATs but impossible with CDs. But the technology is great; it’s just a matter of time before DAT will become established in this country, and I don’t think there is any danger that this will invalidate CDs.”

While his partner Rosen handles much of the business end of GRP, Grusin’s other life as a screen composer (for which he generally uses orthodox orchestras rather than synthesized scores) continues apace.

“Since ‘Milagro Beanfield War’ I’ve completed two other scores. I did the sound track for ‘A Dry White Season,’ a story about a student uprising in Soweto, with Donald Sutherland, Susan Sarandon and Marlon Brando, for which we had (South African trumpeter) Hugh Masekela on the track. Then I just got through working on the ‘History of America’ series starring the Peanuts animated characters, using some of my regular associates such as my brother Don, Jerry Hey, Harvey Mason and Abe Laboriel.”

Does he sense that there may be another Oscar on the horizon for 1990?

Grusin hesitated and smiled his wry smile. “Who knows? I thought I had a really good chance with ‘On Golden Pond,’ where there was so much room for music--but that didn’t make it, and ‘Milagro’ did. So my prediction potential, you might say, is very low.”