John Beasley (musician)
Encyclopedia
John Beasley is an American composer, pianist, producer, and arranger who has recorded and performed with musicians such as Miles Davis
, Steely Dan
, Chaka Kahn, James Brown
, Spice Girls
, Dianne Reeves
, Ry Cooder
, Chick Corea
and Sérgio Mendes
, Freddie Hubbard
, John Patitucci
, Queen Latifah
, and Ivan Lins
.
, Beasley is third generation musician who was raised in a house filled with music. His grandfather, Rule Oliver, played trombone
in territory bands and was a junior high school band director for 50 years in Arkansas
. His mother, Lida Beasley, is a brass instrumentalist. For most of her career, she taught music at various public schools and colleges, along with being band director and conducting operas.
Growing up around musicians, Beasley learned how to play trumpet
, oboe
, drum
s, saxophone
, and flute
, mostly because of his mother's need for wind instrumentalists for her bands. His father, Rule Curtis Beasley (b. 1931), is a pianist and bassoonist, who played with the Fort Worth Symphony. Rule Beasley also was a professor of music composition at University of North Texas College of Music
and at Santa Monica College
, where he taught many musicians performing today.
Beasley created a drum set with garbage can lids and kitchen pots and pans when he was around two years old. His grandfather started bringing him drum parts, which he put together, and had a drum set from age four to high school. Beasley began piano lessons at age seven and stopped taking formal lessons when he started high school. In six grade, he had private lessons with a university oboe teacher which lasted three years. He taught himself to play the sax, flute, and trumpet and began playing for the John Adams Junior School and Santa Monica College orchestras that his mother led. He was also in the state choir but quit because he got bored.
Beasley started writing music in junior high school. After his father bought him a Bobby Timmons
record, he wanted to play jazz. In Grade 7, he formed a jazz band with high school-aged friends. Always mesmerized by inner melodies and day dreaming, on family camping trips he packed his score pad to compose and arrange.
As soon as he graduated from high school, he started 'gigging'; playing in bars when he was too young to get entry as a customer. Fearless about learning and performing, in just a few years he was touring around the U.S. and internationally with Sérgio Mendes
and Freddie Hubbard
.
, founder of the Monterey Jazz Festival
, heard Beasley's piece and recommended him for a scholarship at the Stan Kenton
summer jazz camp. The Stan Kenton
Orchestra performed Beasley's composition at the camp, and then added it to its repertoire that year.
Declining an oboe scholarship from the Juilliard
, Beasley went on to tour and record with Miles Davis
, Steely Dan
, Carly Simon
, Barbra Streisand
, Baaba Maal
, Queen Latifah
, Christian McBride
and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Chaka Khan
, James Brown
, and John Pattituci to name a few. Recognizing Beasley's talent for composing and arranging, major recording artists have added Beasley's original sound and music to their projects.
At 24, Beasley started writing music for Paramount
, Disney, and MGMs television shows, including Cheers
, Family Ties
, Star Trek
, and Fame
. He also wrote the Touchstone TV logo, which is still used today. His first brush with Hollywood films was as a pianist playing on film scores for film luminaries such as Thomas Newman
, Dave Grusin
, Alan Silvestri
, and Carmine Coppola
in box office hits such as WALL-E
", "Finding Nemo
, Erin Brockovich
, The Godfather III, A Bug's Life
, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
. He composes pro bono
for films and podcasts for Nobel Peace Prize
winning Doctors Without Borders. Along the way, Beasley has written award winning commercials for ad agencies in the US and Germany for over 20 years. While touring with Miles Davis, Beasley was inspired to release his first of seven solo recordings.
Today, Beasley, continues to juggle his studio work on hit reality/game shows such as American Idol
, Pussycat Dolls Present:, America's Got Talent
, and Singing Bee, along with touring as Musical Director for Queen Latifah, conducting workshops, playing on TV/Films, producing other artists, and writing new music.
His eighth album, Letter to Herbie, a tribute to 2008 Grammy winner, Herbie Hancock
, featuring Christian McBride
, Jeff "Tain" Watts, and Roy Hargrove
was released in April 2008 and has already topped the Jazz Music Charts. In 2009, he released Positootly!.
In 2010 he appeared in a Web-TV simulcast.
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Steely Dan
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
, Chaka Kahn, James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, Spice Girls
Spice Girls
The Spice Girls were a British pop girl group formed in 1994. The group consisted of Victoria Beckham , Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Halliwell. They were signed to Virgin Records and released their debut single, "Wannabe" in 1996, which hit number-one in more than 30...
, Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves
Dianne Reeves is an American jazz singer. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado.-Early life:Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan to a very musical family. Her father, who died when she was two years old, was also a singer. Her mother, Vada Swanson, played trumpet. A cousin, George Duke, is a...
, Ry Cooder
Ry Cooder
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
and Sérgio Mendes
Sergio Mendes
Sérgio Santos Mendes is a Brazilian musician. He has released over thirty-five albums, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk....
, Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
, John Patitucci
John Patitucci
John Patitucci is an American Grammy-winning jazz double bass and jazz fusion electric bass player.-Biography:Patitucci is of Italian descent and was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he began playing the electric bass at age ten, composing and performing at age 12, as well as the acoustic bass at...
, Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens , better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy...
, and Ivan Lins
Ivan Lins
Ivan Guimarães Lins is a Latin Grammy winning Brazilian musician. He has been an active performer and songwriter of Brazilian popular music and jazz for over 30 years. His first hit, Madalena, was recorded by Elis Regina in 1970. Beyond his own performance of his compositions, Simone is his most...
.
Origins
Born in Shreveport, LouisianaShreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
, Beasley is third generation musician who was raised in a house filled with music. His grandfather, Rule Oliver, played trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
in territory bands and was a junior high school band director for 50 years in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
. His mother, Lida Beasley, is a brass instrumentalist. For most of her career, she taught music at various public schools and colleges, along with being band director and conducting operas.
Growing up around musicians, Beasley learned how to play trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
, drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s, saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, and flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, mostly because of his mother's need for wind instrumentalists for her bands. His father, Rule Curtis Beasley (b. 1931), is a pianist and bassoonist, who played with the Fort Worth Symphony. Rule Beasley also was a professor of music composition at University of North Texas College of Music
University of North Texas College of Music
The University of North Texas College of Music, based in Denton, is a comprehensive music school with the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music, and the oldest in the world offering a degree in jazz studies...
and at Santa Monica College
Santa Monica College
Santa Monica College is a two-year, public, junior college located in Santa Monica, California.Santa Monica College was first opened in 1929 as Santa Monica Junior College. Current enrollment is over 30,000 students in more than 90 fields of study...
, where he taught many musicians performing today.
Beasley created a drum set with garbage can lids and kitchen pots and pans when he was around two years old. His grandfather started bringing him drum parts, which he put together, and had a drum set from age four to high school. Beasley began piano lessons at age seven and stopped taking formal lessons when he started high school. In six grade, he had private lessons with a university oboe teacher which lasted three years. He taught himself to play the sax, flute, and trumpet and began playing for the John Adams Junior School and Santa Monica College orchestras that his mother led. He was also in the state choir but quit because he got bored.
Beasley started writing music in junior high school. After his father bought him a Bobby Timmons
Bobby Timmons
Robert Henry "Bobby" Timmons was an African American jazz pianist and composer.He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is best known for his role as sideman in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and the composition of "Moanin'", "Dat Dere", and "This Here", each of which are typical of his...
record, he wanted to play jazz. In Grade 7, he formed a jazz band with high school-aged friends. Always mesmerized by inner melodies and day dreaming, on family camping trips he packed his score pad to compose and arrange.
As soon as he graduated from high school, he started 'gigging'; playing in bars when he was too young to get entry as a customer. Fearless about learning and performing, in just a few years he was touring around the U.S. and internationally with Sérgio Mendes
Sergio Mendes
Sérgio Santos Mendes is a Brazilian musician. He has released over thirty-five albums, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk....
and Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
.
Career
At age 14, Beasley wrote a jazz piece for the University of North Texas Jazz Band. Jimmy LyonsJimmy Lyons
Jimmy Lyons was an alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit.-Biography:...
, founder of the Monterey Jazz Festival
Monterey Jazz Festival
The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the longest consecutively running jazz festivals. It debuted on October 3, 1958 and was founded by San Francisco jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons.-History:...
, heard Beasley's piece and recommended him for a scholarship at the Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
summer jazz camp. The Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
Orchestra performed Beasley's composition at the camp, and then added it to its repertoire that year.
Declining an oboe scholarship from the Juilliard
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
, Beasley went on to tour and record with Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Steely Dan
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...
, Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Baaba Maal
Baaba Maal
Baaba Maal is a Senegalese singer and guitarist born in Podor, on the Senegal River. In addition to acoustic guitar, he also plays percussion. He has released several albums, both for independent and major labels. In July 2003, he was made a UNDP Youth Emissary.-Biography:Born 12 November 1953...
, Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah
Dana Elaine Owens , better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American singer, rapper, and actress. Her work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy...
, Christian McBride
Christian McBride
Christian McBride is an American jazz bassist. His father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists who served as McBride's early mentors...
and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan
Chaka Khan , frequently known as the Queen of Funk, is a 10-time Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter who gained fame in the 1970s as the frontwoman and focal point of the funk band Rufus. While still a member of the group in 1978, Khan embarked on a successful solo career...
, James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, and John Pattituci to name a few. Recognizing Beasley's talent for composing and arranging, major recording artists have added Beasley's original sound and music to their projects.
At 24, Beasley started writing music for Paramount
Paramount Television
Paramount Television was an American television production/distribution company that was active from January 1, 1968 to August 27, 2006.Its successor is CBS Television Studios, formerly CBS Paramount Television...
, Disney, and MGMs television shows, including Cheers
Cheers
Cheers is an American situation comedy television series that ran for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993. It was produced by Charles/Burrows/Charles Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television for NBC, and was created by the team of James Burrows, Glen Charles, and Les Charles...
, Family Ties
Family Ties
Family Ties is an American sitcom that aired on NBC for seven seasons, from 1982 to 1989. The sitcom reflected the move in the United States from the cultural liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservatism of the 1980s. This was particularly expressed through the relationship between young...
, Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, and Fame
Fame (1982 TV series)
Fame is an American television series originally produced between 1982 and 1987. The show was based on the 1980 motion picture of the same name. Using a mixture of drama and music, it followed the lives of the students and faculty at the New York City High School for the Performing Arts. Although...
. He also wrote the Touchstone TV logo, which is still used today. His first brush with Hollywood films was as a pianist playing on film scores for film luminaries such as Thomas Newman
Thomas Newman
Thomas Montgomery Newman is an American composer and conductor, best known for his many film scores. He is one of the more respected and recognized composers for modern film and has scored over fifty feature films in a career which spans nearly three decades.Newman has received a total of ten...
, Dave Grusin
Dave Grusin
David Grusin is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys...
, Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestri
Alan Anthony Silvestri is an American film composer and conductor.-Career:Silvestri is best known for his collaborations with director Robert Zemeckis, having scored Romancing the Stone , the Back to the Future trilogy , Who Framed Roger Rabbit , Death Becomes Her , Forrest Gump , Contact ,...
, and Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola was an American composer, flautist, editor, musical director, and songwriter. Coppola was a composer and conductor who contributed to many of the musical scores in The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Godfather Part III, and Apocalypse Now directed by his son Francis Ford...
in box office hits such as WALL-E
WALL-E
WALL-E, promoted with an interpunct as WALL•E, is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future...
", "Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
, Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich (film)
Erin Brockovich is a 2000 biographical film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film is a dramatization of the story of Erin Brockovich, played by Julia Roberts, who fought against the US West Coast energy corporation Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Roberts won the Academy Award, Golden Globe,...
, The Godfather III, A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life
A Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, released in 1999, is the second film in the Austin Powers series that began with 1997's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and continued with Austin Powers in Goldmember. The film was directed by Jay Roach, co-written by Mike Myers and screenwriter...
. He composes pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
for films and podcasts for Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winning Doctors Without Borders. Along the way, Beasley has written award winning commercials for ad agencies in the US and Germany for over 20 years. While touring with Miles Davis, Beasley was inspired to release his first of seven solo recordings.
Today, Beasley, continues to juggle his studio work on hit reality/game shows such as American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
, Pussycat Dolls Present:, America's Got Talent
America's Got Talent
America's Got Talent is an American reality television series on the NBC television network, and part of the global British Got Talent franchise. It is a talent show that features singers, dancers, magicians, comedians, and other performers of all ages competing for the advertised top prize of...
, and Singing Bee, along with touring as Musical Director for Queen Latifah, conducting workshops, playing on TV/Films, producing other artists, and writing new music.
His eighth album, Letter to Herbie, a tribute to 2008 Grammy winner, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, featuring Christian McBride
Christian McBride
Christian McBride is an American jazz bassist. His father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists who served as McBride's early mentors...
, Jeff "Tain" Watts, and Roy Hargrove
Roy Hargrove
Roy Anthony Hargrove is an American jazz trumpeter. He won worldwide notice after winning two Grammy Awards for differing types of music, in 1997, and in 2002...
was released in April 2008 and has already topped the Jazz Music Charts. In 2009, he released Positootly!.
In 2010 he appeared in a Web-TV simulcast.