Dave Grusin

Since the 1960s Dave Grusin has excelled as a performer, producer, composer, record-label executive, arranger, and bandleader. Although his command of jazz piano first surfaced on the hard-bop album Kaleidoscope in 1965, his keyboard work has consistently gravitated toward contemporary jazz. As a composer for film and television he has supplied some of the most memorable themes and scores of the past fifty years, among them The Graduate, Candy, The Milagro Beanfield War, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and many others. He has issued more than seventy albums, several of them soundtracks, while his credits as player, producer, composer, and arranger reach into the thousands. An Academy Award winner, he has also received ten Grammys. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he placed a succession of charting smooth-jazz releases on the charts, including Mountain Dance, Out of the Shadows, and Night-Lines. His long-standing partnership with guitarist Lee Ritenour has yielded Harlequin in 1985, Two Worlds in 2000, Amparo in 2008, and Brasil in 2024.

Born in Littleton, Colorado, to Latvian immigrants, Grusin grew up with a violinist father named Henri and a pianist mother named Rosabelle, both highly skilled musicians. His younger brother Don likewise became a pianist, arranger, and producer. Grusin began piano lessons at age four under his mother’s guidance. Although the household emphasized classical repertoire, his parents regularly took him to Denver concerts featuring jazz artists such as Ray Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, Hank Jones, Gene Krupa, Illinois Jacquet, and Flip Phillips.

Raised in a farming community, Grusin originally intended to study veterinary medicine. Three weeks before college began, however, he changed his major to music rather than abandon the training his parents had already provided. At the University of Colorado at Boulder he concentrated on piano while minoring in clarinet and performed in local clubs behind Terry Gibbs, Johnny Smith, and Anita O’Day.

Following graduation, Grusin relocated his young family to New York City intending to pursue graduate work at the Manhattan School of Music and earn a living on the club circuit. When union-card requirements delayed his local employment for six months, he accepted out-of-town jobs. A friend alerted him that Andy Williams required a pianist for sessions and tours; Grusin secured the position and left school to travel with the singer.

When Williams relocated to Los Angeles to host a weekly variety program, Grusin served as musical director and arranger. He signed with Epic Records and cut his first two solo albums in 1962: Piano Strings & Moonlight, an easy-listening jazz date featuring bassist Milt Hinton, drummer Ossie Johnson, and chamber strings, and A Jazz Version of the Broadway Hit Subways Are for Sleeping, which included Hinton, trumpeter Thad Jones, saxophonist Frank Foster, and drummer Don Lamond and produced a radio single from the title track. In 1964 he played on and arranged material for Williams’ Call Me Irresponsible & Other Hit Songs from the Movies as well as Peggy Lee’s In the Name of Love and additional projects.

After departing Williams’ television show in late 1964—while continuing as the singer’s recording and touring pianist—Grusin recorded the hard-bop album Kaleidoscope for Columbia in 1965 with bassist Bob Cranshaw, Jones, Foster, and drummer Larry Rosen, earning strong critical notices. He maintained his association with Lee on numerous singles, among them “Big Spender,” and the album Guitars à la Lee, then arranged the Mel Tormé hit “The Power of Love” in 1966.

Following extensive television arranging and composing for series such as Man from U.N.C.L.E., Grusin supplied his first original film score for Norman Lear’s Divorce American Style in 1967. That same year he joined guitarist Howard Roberts’ ensemble on organ for Jaunty-Jolly! and Guilty!, composed, arranged, and conducted Roger Miller’s Waterhole #3, and worked as arranger for Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 on Look Around, later singles, and the solo album Sergio Mendes’ Favorite Things.

Nineteen sixty-eight brought two significant film scores: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and six of the fourteen songs for The Graduate, both commercially successful pictures that altered prevailing standards in American cinema. He also composed the original music for the cult film Candy. In 1969 he continued arranging for Mendes on Crystal Illusions and Ye-Me-Le, remained with Roberts, orchestrated for Herb Alpert, and contributed material to Quincy Jones, Young-Holt Unlimited, and the Byrds, writing “Child of the Universe,” the B-side of “Wasn’t Born to Follow.” He further created the television theme for It Takes a Thief.

Throughout the 1970s Grusin supplied session work, orchestrations, and arrangements for Mendes, Roberts, Jones, Beaver & Krause, Bobbi Humphrey, Jon Lucien, Angela Bofill, Bill Withers, Al Jarreau, John Klemmer, Billy Joel, Patti Austin, the Brothers Johnson, Jeremy Steig, Grover Washington, Jr., Harvey Mason, Earl Klugh, and many others. He scored and recorded the soundtracks for The Friends of Eddie Coyle in 1973, The Midnight Man in 1974, Three Days of the Condor, The Yakuza, Bobby Deerfield, and The Champ, and composed television themes for Maude in 1973, Good Times in 1974, and Baretta in 1975.

His collaboration with Lee Ritenour commenced in 1976 when Grusin played clavinet on the guitarist’s fusion album First Course; he has appeared on numerous subsequent Ritenour recordings. With business partner and former Williams-band drummer Larry Rosen, Grusin began independent production work, releasing the direct-to-disc album Discovered Again, a collection of original film themes and compositions. In 1977 he issued the jazz-funk recording One of a Kind for Polydor, featuring Washington, Jr., Dave Valentin, Ron Carter, Steve Gadd, and Ralph MacDonald; the album later appeared on his own GRP Productions label. He closed the decade with the successful soundtrack for The Champ and additional sessions alongside Ritenour, Sadao Watanabe, and Tom Browne. For The Electric Horseman he supplied the instrumental score while Willie Nelson contributed vocal originals and a cover of Gregg Allman’s “Midnight Rider.”

Grusin’s prominence grew further during the 1980s. The GRP label he founded with Rosen gained momentum, and he released the smooth-jazz landmark Mountain Dance in 1980 on GRP through Arista. He also recorded Dave Grusin & The GRP All-Stars with Special Guest Sadao Watanabe for JVC in Japan. In 1981 he scored the award-winning films Tootsie and On Golden Pond. Out of the Shadows, issued in 1982, spent nine weeks in the Billboard Top 200. Night-Lines followed in 1984 and featured Phoebe Snow, David Sanborn, and bassists Marcus Miller and Lincoln Goines; its hit single, “Theme from St. Elsewhere,” originated as a television theme. He then collaborated with Ritenour on Harlequin, which included songs and vocals by Ivan Lins, reached number two on the jazz charts, and earned two Grammy nominations. That year he also arranged, conducted, and recorded the score for Michael Cimino’s The Pope of Greenwich Village. Subsequent film work included the 1985 score for Goonies and the 1986 score for Lucas.

In 1987 Grusin, Ritenour, and additional jazz-funk musicians released Cinemagic, consisting entirely of contemporary-jazz interpretations of his film themes. The following year he and brother Don issued Sticks and Stones, performed solely on keyboards, samplers, and drum machines, which received praise even from traditionally conservative jazz critics. Also in 1988 Grusin won an Oscar for his score to The Milagro Beanfield War. In 1989 he earned an Oscar nomination for the score and soundtrack to The Fabulous Baker Boys and released the charting album Migration, which contained new compositions alongside the central suite from The Milagro Beanfield War.

Grusin began the 1990s with the score for the Robert Redford and Lena Olin film Havana, performed by Ritenour, Mason, Alex Acuña, Brian Bromberg, Don Menza, Abe Laboriel, and others. His 1991 album The Gershwin Connection reached the top of the jazz-albums chart with assistance from Chick Corea, John Patitucci, Eddie Daniels, Eric Marienthal, and Gary Burton. He also recorded the score for Bonfire of the Vanities. Two years later Homage to Duke, a tribute to Duke Ellington featuring a large cast and chamber brass, appeared alongside his Oscar-nominated score for The Firm. The 1994 Orchestral Collection, drawing from The Milagro Beanfield War, Havana, and additional themes, peaked at number ten on the jazz-albums chart. He continued scoring films and television while recording the soundtracks for The Cure in 1995, Mulholland Falls in 1996, and the Henry Mancini tribute Two for the Road in 1997. He played on, composed, arranged, and produced sessions for Paul Simon, Phoebe Snow, Art Farmer, and Bobby Broom, and composed and conducted the serial music for the biopic Selena. Additional 1990s soundtracks included Hope Floats and Random Hearts.

Grusin and Ritenour opened the twenty-first century with Two Worlds, a classical program spanning Bach, Bartók, Villa-Lobos, and de Falla, plus a medley of the traditional songs “Shenandoah” and “The Water Is Wide” sung by Renée Fleming; each contributed an original, and the album received a Grammy nomination for Best Crossover Classical Album. In 2002 Grusin joined pianists Eliane Elias, Herbie Hancock, Bob James, and Brad Mehldau on the tribute album Portrait of Bill Evans. The solo-piano collection Now Playing, surveying his film, television, and jazz compositions, appeared in 2004. In 2008 the duo reunited for Amparo, another classical-crossover project featuring Joshua Bell, Chris Botti, Fleming, and James Taylor; its second track, “Danzón de Entiqueta,” earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.

Grusin’s 1974 soundtrack for The Yakuza later received remastered reissues from Film Score Monthly and, in 2017, from Varese Sarabande. In 2010 he and brother Don released the piano-duet album One Night Only. Heads-Up International issued An Evening with Dave Grusin in 2011, documenting a live performance with the seventy-five-piece Henry Mancini Orchestra that presented his film music alongside works by Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Mancini; guest vocalists included Patti Austin, Jon Secada, and Monica Mancini, while instrumentalists comprised Gary Burton, Arturo Sandoval, Nestor Torres, and Sammy Figueroa.

Between 2008 and 2020 Varese Sarabande and smaller labels reissued numerous Grusin soundtracks, among them twofers such as Heaven Can Wait/Racing with the Moon, The Friends of Eddie Coyle/3 Days of the Condor, Absence of Malice, The Yakuza, And Justice for All, and Murder by Death.

In 2023 Grusin and Ritenour traveled to Brazil, assembled a band featuring harmonicist Grégoire Maret, and recorded with drummer Edu Ribeiro, bassist Bruno Migotto, percussionist Marcello Costa, rhythm guitarist Chico Pinheiro, and vocalists Tatiana Parra and Ivan Lins. The repertoire blended classic Brazilian material with newer selections and originals, including Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Stone Flower,” Milton Nascimento’s “Cravo E Canela” and “Catavento,” Celso Fonseca’s “Meu Samba Torto,” Lins’ “Vitoriosa,” two pieces by Ritenour, and one by Grusin. Released by Candid, the album Brasil appeared days after Grusin’s ninetieth birthday in June 2024.