An Afternoon With the Gruber-Meister Part I

Tales of Music, Magic & Hollywood

BY RYAN M LUÉVANO

Ken Gruberman

The name Ken Gruberman may not ring a bell to most people, but if you have ever heard of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Hans Zimmer, Ray Charles, or David Copperfield then by some degrees of separation you are already familiar with Gruberman’s work. He is an award-winning music copyist, a six time Grammy award winner to be specific. His Grammys are for such albums as the 1979 disco I Will Survive, Ray Charles last album Genius Loves Company and Stevie Wonder’s Time 2 Love. A true Renaissance man in music, Gruberman has worked in music preparation, music copying, performance, orchestration, arranging, music supervision, score supervision, orchestra contracting, librarian, and conducting. With a continuing career that has spanned over 50 years in television, music, movies and magic there are certainly tales to be told, tales that Mr. Gruberman shared with me from his living room.

How did you get into music copying and music preparation?

“I was born into it. My dad [Jack Gruberman] was called ‘The Quill’. He came out of WWII . . . and he and his friend Jack Webb transferred Dragnet [1951-1959] from radio to TV . . . I grew up with perfect pitch and all these people who used to hangout at the house, like Leonard Slatkin.” Gruberman goes on to mention that as a child he helped his dad in his office running the ozalid machine, an early photocopying device.

The Infamous “Ozalid Machine”

Ozalid Machine

Briefly described, using this device involves taping vellum pages of music together and placing them on ozalid paper (yellow paper with light sensitive coating on one side). When it came time to make a duplicate “you would shove it into the ozalid machine yellow side up, where it goes around a big glass tube with an ultra bright light, which burned off all the light sensitive coating, except anything that was hidden by the black notes and staves. that version goes up the conveyor belt . . . where ammonia vapor turns the yellow black. It was a 220 volt machine, high power, and it had a heater on the top with a bottle of liquid ammonia dripping . . . and I learned how to use this when I was eight.” That was Ken and his father’s process of making a simple copy, “that’s the way it was, that’s the way people have been doing it since the thirties,” a process that is surely taken for granted today.

Fast-forward: Quill Music

“My dad died suddenly in 1979. And . . . I decided to keep it going . . . I wanted to honor his memory for everything he had built; I just didn’t want it to disappear. My mom said, ‘Let it go’ and I said, ‘No I don’t think I can.’” Accordingly, Ken created Quill Music a music copying/preparation company just like the one his father started many years ago—with a few minor changes of course. “One of the first things I did was get rid of that nasty old ozalid machine. I was one of the first pioneers of xerography, I had a Xerox 3109, which I learned how to hack myself . . . no more ammonia.” This method lasted all the way to era of printers.

It should also be noted that aside from being musically knowledgeable Ken is also a technologically savvy as well; he is the Tech Daddy for the Huffington Post and a ACSP: Apple Certified Support Professional. This is significant because as Ken states, “I was the first professional copyist in LA to go computer in 1987.” He saw a demo of a new technology at an ASMAC (American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers) luncheon by the company Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU). The demo was of its new notation software called Professional Composer, or “professional nightmare” as Ken remarked. Mark Mann led the presentation, “everyone in that room catcalled [him] . . . made fun of him and were heckling him—except me. A light went on for me . . . this is my future.”

Now everyone uses notation programs like Finale and Sibelius for music copying, arranging and composing. At this point there is even an overuse and reliance of these technologies for music composition, a craft that is supposed to come from the mind, not a machine (more to follow in this subject).

September of My Years: Frank Sinatra

Sinatra’s Album “September of My Years”

Ken remembers one of his first music preparation assignments was working on the Frank Sinatra album September of My Years (1965), which won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. “[Sinatra] was a lot nicer than a lot of people assumed. He could be kind of a jerk, but he also had a really nice side—he was a complicated guy.” Ken goes on to mention that Sinatra did not read music, everything he sung was by ear, and Ken appreciated that Sinatra always credited his arrangers (they were the ones who created that Sinatra sound that makes him famous even today). “I recorded with Frank when I was twelve years old. I’m on ‘High Hopes’ [1959] and ‘Pocketful of Miracles [1961].’ I got thirty-two bucks for that.”

“The Magic of David Copperfield”

It was surprising to hear how Ken described the way Copperfield approached his music: “He needed to have the music first, then figured out what he was going to do to it—the music would always fit his routines like a glove.” Based on my experience working with magicians, Copperfield’s process is the exact opposite of how most magicians include their music. This of course makes sense when you consider Copperfield’s musical background, as a teenager he performed in musicals, and is a fan of musical theater, so he is familiar with how music can be used for drama.

Copperfield “Walking Through the Great Wall of China”

The biggest illusion that Ken provided music for was Copperfield’s walking through the Great Wall of China illusion on his CBS special, “The Magic of David Copperfield VII: Walking Through the Great Wall” (1986). For this grand illusion, “I had the idea of reworking Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom . . . I worked with John Williams over the years . . . he was reticent about the idea and I said, ‘Do you know what kind of publishing you’re gonna get?’ He said, ‘Okay, no problem.’ Soon after Ken spent time going through the Williams’ scores and created a 45-minute suite for the Copperfield TV illusion.

Copperfield, “Walking Through the Great Wall of China”