Phillip Johnston: The plight of the 'Unknown' composer
by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Aug. 19, 1999) -- The apocryphal-sounding legend behind Todd Browning's freakish, 1927 silent film, "The Unknown," has it that the only surviving print of the movie was lost for decades, only to be found at a French cinematheque where it was mistakenly stored in a repository with other films of uncertain origin labeled "inconnu," or "unknown."

It would be doubly ironic if the compositions of Phillip Johnston were to succumb to a similar fate - to be overlooked for decades until being re-discovered in the "unknown" pile far off in the future as works of singular genius -- for the relatively-unknown composer and musician has simply been one of the most innovative and creative forces in music of the last 20 years.

Perhaps Johnston was unconsciously attempting to underline his marginality when he decided to join forces with the creative spirit of Browning, that chronicler of humorous, freakish cinematic horror ("Freaks," "Dracula"), by composing an original score to accompany "The Unknown," which stars Lon Chaney as an armless knife thrower and a 17-year-old Joan Crawford as his love interest.

Johnston's group, the Transparent Quartet, will accompany a showing of the film with a live performance of the score on Saturday night in the Cinema Courtyard at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams at 8:30. Call 662-2111 for more info.

As the leader of groups including the Microscopic Septet (1980-1993), Big Trouble (1991-1995), and now the Transparent Quartet, and in collaboration with a host of like-minded artists and musicians, including John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Wayne Horvitz, Shelley Hirsch, Pat Irwin and Guy Klucevsek, Johnston has labored for two decades in what he describes as "the fringe of the downtown" -- that nebulous artistic territory off the popular radar, away from corporate sponsorship, outside of genre and sometimes even eluding conventional form, where contemporary artists patch together careers of visionary work through sweat, tears and the occasional foundation grant.

"I don't know where I fit in," said Johnston, who plays saxophone, in a recent phone interview from his Manhattan apartment.

What is all the more amazing is that in spite of his apparent marginality, the list of Johnston's impressive credits runs to three full pages of small type, including dozens of film, theater and dance scores, radio and TV work, original concert works, and recordings as a leader and sideman.

One of the busiest artists you've never heard of, Johnston has been compared to H.G. Wells, Steve Reich, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Vince Guaraldi, Captain Beefheart, Raymond Scott and Steve Lacy.

And what's even more surprising is that his music, as heard on recordings including the excellent compilation, "Music for Films" (Tzadik), and the soundtrack to "The Unknown" (Avant), is eminently accessible. Avant-garde, in this case, doesn't necessarily mean "difficult" or even "atonal."

Rather, what distinguishes or characterizes Johnston's work, and what makes it impossible to tame or define in conventional terms, is its willful perversity - its utter unwillingness to stay in one place, its defiance of genre, its universal embrace of the offbeat, its celebration of the quirky, dramatic and surprising gesture. His scores can flow seamlessly from cocktail jazz to horn-laced funk grooves to acoustic chamber music to synthesized electronics to frenzied post-bop to banjo bluegrass to rock 'n' roll to ersatz klezmer to cartoon music to skronking metal to Asian harp to blues guitar riffs to blowzy polka and back to classically-styled, string quartet music.

This isn't arch, pomo genre-hopping for its own sake, however. Rather, it is a reflection of the composer's experience - our experience, really - and what makes it work is its quality of organic coherence.

"I've grown up in a world where you've been exposed to all this type of stuff, all world music, classical, jazz, various folk and pop musics," said Johnston, whose film scores include "Faithful" by Paul Mazursky and Philip Haas's "Music of Chance," based on the Paul Auster novel. "And all this gets jumbled up inside your head. You take in all this stuff, and then assuming you're open to it, it just comes out at you, jumbled up in this form which is determined by your own perception and personality.

"Mine just happens to be oriented to irony and humor. I'm not even consciously aware of the genre thing. I'm not thinking about it - it's what I hear."

In particular, the process of composing for film is totally instinctive, says Johnston, dictated by his response to the visual, and not by ideas.

"I look at the silent film pieces sort of as opera overtures, because of the broad emotions expressed, the colorful nature of the characters, the acting style," he said.

Each performance brings out different aspects of the score. "It is through-composed, from beginning to end, but there are elements of improvisation to it," said Johnston. "There's a certain elasticity built into it." Performing one of these scores in sync with a one-hour film is exhausting, too -- on a par with doing four, hour-long sets in a jazz club, says Johnston.

The composer, who has also written silent film scores for "Page of Madness" (1928) by Teinosuke Kinugasa and "The Georges Melies Project" (1907-1912), decries the state of contemporary film music. In the liner notes to "The Unknown," he writes, "Most film music written today…is bad. It's bad music and it's bad art….Its purpose is only to reinforce the monochromatic emotions or storyline expressed on the screen."

Johnston sees his role as film composer as one of creating a "dialogue" with the film, "sometimes to color the mood, sometimes to comment on the underlying implications, sometimes to create dissonance, sometimes to express admiration and awe….The best film music serves as counterpoint to the images and dialogue it underscores: surrounding, cushioning, doubting, mocking, echoing, intensifying, subverting, interacting."

One can say the same thing about the best music, period - that it should serve as counterpoint to our lives by surrounding, cushioning, doubting, mocking, echoing, intensifying, subverting and interacting with the listener. This is the dynamic quality we all must demand in our music - and all our art, for that matter -- as listeners, viewers, readers, critics, composers, artists, and presenters. To do anything less is to settle for what is merely mediocre and crass - grossly ignorant, coarse, unfeeling and stupid.

Fortunately, there are still a few Phillip Johnstons around to remind us of art's potential not merely to entertain and to placate but to challenge and to subvert.

Search by Artist Name Album Title

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Aug. 26, 1999. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1999. All rights reserved.]