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[0:01] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's The Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:09] Robert Bannon: Well, Roundtable family, it's one of my favorite things to talk about as artists who talk about art, who talk about music, who talk about creative things. And our next guests continue to just make more and more creative things. I don't know. They probably have five jobs now. They probably have seven or eight jobs. They do everything. I don't know what they conduct. They arrange. They make operas. They sing pop songs. They put movie songs together. They sell out tours and stadiums, or they play for the greats all around the world. Our next two guests are just incredible. They're musicians, musicians. Rufus Wainwright, Chris Walden, welcome to The Roundtable. Thank you both so much for being here.

[0:45] Rufus Wainwright: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

[0:47] Robert Bannon: So Rufus is on the road. He's got gigs all weekend. He's on tour. And Chris is literally planning for a big show tomorrow. So you all are just booked and busy.

[0:57] Rufus Wainwright: Yeah, no, I'm yeah, I just had crab cakes in Maryland and I'm on my way to Richmond, Virginia, and then Atlanta. So, yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm doing my duty here in America, singing, singing for the people.

[1:12] Robert Bannon: Rufus, I see here that you're we're talking about an album. The album is called I'm A Stranger Here Myself.

[1:18] Rufus Wainwright: Yes, absolutely stunning. It makes me think of growing up with my little Italian grandmother when I hear you sing Mack the Knife, when I hear some of these arrangements of songs I've never heard before, which may have had a little something to do with you as well. It is stunning. So I read that Kurt Weill's music was with you for a long time. Where when did you discover this music?

[1:38] Rufus Wainwright: I was about 13 years old. I was living up in Montreal and I went to a record store and I saw this incredible album. It looked great with this woman, a black and white picture of a woman smoking a cigarette who wasn't beautiful per se, but had just so much magnetism. And then that was Laudalania. So I bought it for the cover. And then, of course, Laudalania was married to Kurt Weill and all the songs were were his. And one side of the record was his Berlin material and the other one was his American stuff. And it just totally changed my life. When I put that album on and I've been an uber fan ever since. So thanks to a record cover. Remember those?

[2:27] Robert Bannon: You were drawn there. It was there for a reason. Chris, you are somebody who's made big band and orchestra arrangements for Bublé and Diana Krall and Jennifer Hudson and Paul Anka and Christopher Cross and the Academy Awards and American. You have just done it all. But you you you this album must be very specific. You're like the perfect person for it. Growing up in Germany, you must have had. When was your first recollection or known of Kurt Weill's music?

[2:53] Chris Walden: So I mean, growing up in Hamburg, Germany, and then also coming a little bit from a musician's family. My mother is a choir singer, even though not in the musical world or the Weill genre, but in early Baroque and Renaissance music. But I've been around music as a toddler and as a young kid already. And I think my parents took me to the Three Penny Opera when I was in elementary school or so. And Kurt Weill's music and also Bertolt Brecht's stuff is still relevant in Germany and being performed in a lot of theaters. So that's something growing up in Germany, one becomes in touch with very naturally with his music. And so was I. And yeah, so that's something that I was familiar growing up in Germany.

Whereas in America, I have to say, most people I knew when I told them about this project, they're like, oh, yeah, I love Kurt Weill. And that's Weill with the V. V-I-L-L-E, who's an American singer, songwriter who's still alive. But he's not. I was shocked at how unknown he was in America still. I mean, they know his songs, but they don't necessarily know who he was. So it's been great to bring that back as well in the United States.

[4:12] Robert Bannon: Absolutely. We have the Great American Songbook. He's part of that, but he's also a part of the Great German Songbook, the Great World Songbook. You have to listen to it. It is absolutely stunning. Rufus, your voice is always stunning, but it is stunning. This started at Cafe Carlisle. Is that true? You didn't intend for it to be a full album?

[4:32] Rufus Wainwright: Yeah, I was at the Cafe Carlisle for one of their stints. And I decided, you know, to make it a special evening, kind of dedicated to what would...

[4:49] Robert Bannon: It's breaking up a bit, Rufus.

[4:58] Rufus Wainwright: Can you hear me now?

[5:02] Robert Bannon: Now we hear you.

[5:03] Rufus Wainwright: Oh, God. I wanted it to be an exploration of some, how can I say it, to educate myself as well further into a genre. And I chose Kurt Voss. That was where I came up with the setlist. And then later on, when Chris and I decided to do the album, you know, we decided, you know, kind of boosted up a bit and do it for orchestra.

[5:34] Robert Bannon: And a full orchestra you did, Chris. Tell us a little about Pacific Jazz Orchestra and how these big, gorgeous orchestrations came to be.

[5:42] Chris Walden: So Rufus basically did all the legwork before we even met by curating the program for his show at the Carlisle. I met Rufus through a common friend that we have. His name is Don Franzen. He's married to Dale Franzen, who was herself an opera singer. It's now a Broadway producer. She produced Hadestown and her husband, Dale, Don Franzen. He's an entertainment lawyer and sits on the board of my orchestra. And he came up with the idea, how about doing an album with Rufus, or a project with Rufus Rainwright, a concert. And I thought that's a great idea. And initially I thought maybe we'll do like the greatest hits of Rufus or do something and put an orchestral spin on Rufus's material. But then Rufus, when I started talking to Rufus, Rufus said, I just did this program of Kurt Weill songs at the Carlisle. How about we just take that set list and adapt it for orchestra? And I thought that's a great idea. So this is, long story short, this is how this whole concept came about to do this with orchestra.

[6:46] Chris Walden: And the Pacific Jazz Orchestra is an orchestra that I started about four years ago. And it's Los Angeles resident orchestra for jazz and beyond programming. And it's actually the only one of its kind. We're not a symphony orchestra. We're basically a big band plus strings. We're a 40-piece ensemble, the only one of its kind in the country. The only comparable orchestra is the Metropole Orchestra in Holland, which has a similar instrumentation. My PTO is modeled a little bit after the Metropole Orchestra, which I got a chance to work with many times before as well. I started this orchestra as a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles. And we're putting on a concert season of five to six projects per season.

And the one with Rufus was in our first season and was already one of the highlights that we've done in the short existence of the Pacific Jazz Orchestra. And we're very proud of it. And it was planned as a concert. But we had the equipment. We just recorded it. And also we filmed it. It was also aired as a PBS special on television. And we put out this album. So this is how this all came about.

[7:57] Robert Bannon: Rufus, for you, what was it like to then be able to get up there and hear the orchestra from the original idea at the Carlisle, to then hear these arrangements with this big, giant orchestra and your voice soaring over it? What does it feel like as an artist?

[8:12] Rufus Wainwright: Well, if anything, it was incredibly surreal. Because as well as doing this concert, I was in the middle of orchestrating my own musical or arranging, I should say. It was a musical I wrote called Opening Night that was on the West End. So I was really furiously working away at that. And then this concert was set up. And I'd sort of been talking to Chris on and off virtually. But I wasn't in LA at all. And I was so busy in London. So then one day I just got on a plane, flew in. The next day I went to rehearsal, rehearsed everything, did the concert that night, which we recorded. And then the next day I went back to London. So it was very fast. And I was very tired. And I really think that it worked very well for the piece, for the recording.

Because especially with Kurt Weill's music, you want a kind of weariness. You want a darkness. If you're up there and you're too pert and you're too rested, I don't think it works as well. It needs a kind of decadence. And I was definitely in that kind of mode. So I think when I really listened back to the recordings, I was shocked at how seamless it was. And I really think it was seamless because there was no seam.

[9:41] Robert Bannon: Rufus, you bring up the point. His music is beautiful and sexy and dark and cynical. So is that the part of the reason that you love it and it keeps living? It's universal.

[9:54] Rufus Wainwright: I mean, Kurt Weill's music, the way I've sort of gauged it at the moment, because there was a lot of Kurt Weill projects at one point, I think around 20 years ago, around the time of my first album. I remember my friend Hal Willner, who's sadly no longer with us. He did a Kurt Weill record with Marion Faithfull and Nick Cave and stuff. But it seems to be every 20 years or so, his music resurfaces and is so powerful.

[10:24] Rufus Wainwright: Break daunting. Because it really deals with, you know, the rise of fascism, and you know, and, and, and political unrest, and, you know, and the angst that society's experience and, you know, bingo. We're in that, we're in that, we're in that place again. So his music is sadly relevant again, though, the music helps us through all of that as well.

[10:50] Robert Bannon: It sure does. Thank God for the music, because there's not the world on fire out here in these streets. So, so Chris, when you take songs like Mack the Knife, you take September songs, songs that are on the album that are gorgeous. They're songs that have been interpreted by some of the greatest singers, some of the greatest bands, orchestras. How do you honour the history of these songs and the original arrangements, but still putting your own stamp on it and making it your own?

[11:17] Chris Walden: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. Especially at the songs from his earlier period, when he was still in Berlin, I stayed closer to his original orchestrations, because at that time, he was actually doing his own orchestrations. And I was staying closer to the stage version of these songs and, and just fleshed it out a little bit more for our instrumentation. The songs like September song, or Mack the Knife from his period when he was already working in the States, that was the time when he was also using orchestrators. He wrote the melody and the chords, but there were orchestrators arranging it for the specific purposes. And on those songs, I took a little bit more liberty and, and freedom to put my own stamp, my own arranging stamp on these songs.

And in the particular case with Mack the Knife, Rufus and I, we really wanted to kind of build that bridge from the time in Berlin to his later time and to actually to even into the Bobby Darin version within that one song. And that's why we, with that song, we started out with a treatment that's more true to how it was in the Three Penny Opera. And then over time, over the time the song progresses, we kind of venturing then into the Bobby Darin style of the song. And Rufus starts singing, starts out singing in German, and then switches to English.

[12:47] Robert Bannon: I was gonna ask you, I put it on, and I'm like, Rufus is singing in German. So Chris, how is Rufus's German? How did he do?

[12:52] Chris Walden: He's actually pretty good. His German is really good. And yeah, and there's another song on this album where he sings in German. The song is called Fear Not. The German title is Fürchte Dich Nicht. And Rufus did a great job on it.

[13:05] Rufus Wainwright: That's very sweet. You're being very kind. I love it. I love it. It took me for a ride when it started. I thought I was going to start to sing along. And I said, oh, this is a choice. And I'm obsessed. Well, I must say, you know, German, look, my husband is German. So I hear a lot of German. And my opinion of German is that spoken, it can go either way. If there's people who speak German, and it sounds like when Marlene Dietrich speaks German, it's incredible. Some other people speaking German is not so incredible. But sung, I think it's arguably the most beautiful language. German when it is sung, both in opera and also in, you know, theater music. I don't know, I think it's gorgeous. So I love singing in German. I love singing in German, actually.

[13:52] Chris Walden: It sounds absolutely gorgeous. It's gorgeous. So Rufus, your career, we said before, your pop opera, musical theater, classical music, the Great American Songbook. When you approach a project, what makes you say yes? What inspires you? You have so many different lanes.

[14:06] Rufus Wainwright: I don't know. I oftentimes just sort of wake up and suddenly I'm on stage and it's happening. And it sounds weird, but it isn't. Yeah, I mean, yes. I think what that means, though, is that anytime I want to do a project, it's so visceral and it's so embedded in my soul and body that I just, I'm almost like a zombie. You know, I kind of just gravitate towards the piano or the guitar or the orchestra and do it. So I really don't think about it too much. I just do it because it's like a calling of sorts. So I get a lot of calls, for sure.

[14:57] Robert Bannon: And we are so grateful for all the calls. We need all the calls, please. Chris, what's it like for you in this project and all the work that you've done to sit down, write things on paper, notes on lines, come up with ideas, hear things in your head, but then the second it actually becomes live and then an audience hears it or the recording studio is a hush after something is done because it comes, it has to be the ultimate payoff for what you do for a living.

[15:25] Chris Walden: Yeah. And actually, and that very good point, but and that never gets old, that feeling, because I still get goosebumps the first time I hear my music that until that point has only existed in my head when I write it down. And then when the music gets passed out and the orchestra plays it for the first time, I get goosebumps every time I hear my music first time being played by an orchestra. This is still the great payoff. That's why it's worth to the labor over every note when I write it for weeks and months and leading up to the moment when it's being played for the first time.

[16:02] Robert Bannon: You all are way too smart and artistic for me. I am. So Rufus, you're on the road when people buy tickets to you this summer and this fall into the winter. What can we expect? What is the live?

[16:08] Rufus Wainwright: Yeah, well, I'm also in the process now of making a pop record. And so I'm in the studio a lot. And therefore, a lot of my show now comprises of new songs that I'm trying out on the public. Some of them are about my life. Some of them are quite gargantuan in terms of the world we live in. I like to address everything, of course. And yeah, so there's a lot of new material, which I'm very excited. I also just, you know, my father allowed a way to celebrate his 80th birthday. And I learned a song of his, this great song he wrote called Thanksgiving, which I did a very long, a very kind of complicated arrangement for. So I'm also singing my dad's songs a little bit, which is nice.

[17:03] Robert Bannon: I love that. And I love your dad. And I love your sister, Lucy. And I love all y'all are so talented. It's disgusting. And then with love, I say that. And Chris, for you, you're just creating music and orchestras and playing with shows. What's on your horizon? What are you working on? I would never ask an artist that unless they were as booked as Chris is.

[17:22] Chris Walden: Well, tomorrow, which is probably will be before this podcast will air. But tomorrow, we have our season opening with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra at the Soraya. It's a concert featuring Sutton Foster. Then we have more concert planned throughout the season. We'll do a Quincy Jones tribute at the Ventura Music Festival. We'll do a Christmas show at the McCallum in the desert. Then we have a guest artist in February, Candice Springs with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra. So I have already a full schedule with the Pacific Jazz Orchestra. Besides the PGO, I'll be also serving again as the lead arranger at the upcoming Oscars. So the producer and I have already been talking about what we're going to do for the memoriam. And so I was spinning around some ideas. I cannot start working really until the nominations come out. Then I'm going to dive really into the Oscars. But yeah, so I got stuff on my plate.

[18:22] Robert Bannon: How casual. Chris was just like, well, you know, the Oscars come along and I arrange. And my main objective is not to be in the memoriam. So before I let you all go, Rufus, if people have never heard this music before, if they're discovering the album today, what do you hope by the end when they listen to it beginning to end that their dinner party, date, drive home, walk around the park? What's the goal? What do you hope people take away from it at the end?

[18:45] Rufus Wainwright: You know, I think what's beautiful about Kurt Weill's music is that even though it's quite intellectual and there's a lot of sophistication and interesting musical moments, it's really heart driven. I mean, his melodies when they go there are just totally emotional and have a lot of feeling. So just be prepared to let go unexpectedly. Let go. How about you, Chris?

[19:17] Chris Walden: Yeah, Kurt Weill's music is in a way, his melodies are in a way simple, but writing simple melodies, as Rufus and I have discussed often, are really the hardest one to write. But his music still has a complexity to it besides the melodies being simple. And that's the beauty of Kurt Weill. And it's sometimes for me hard to explain this with words. But talking about music is like similar to dancing about architecture. It's hard to convey this. Yeah, but Weill's music is simple yet complex, but still touches you at the heart.

[20:05] Robert Bannon: Gotta listen to it. Listen, and if you're a Recording Academy member, my fellow members, you're not going to find an album that's more beautiful musically than this album is. Just remember, it's absolutely stunning. There's nobody that has artistry like Rufus Wainwright, and nobody's going to lay down some arrangements like Chris Walden, and you got to check it out this year, for sure. Thank you both so much. It's such an honor to talk to you both. Thank you so much for spending time with me.

[20:28] Rufus Wainwright: Thank you so much.

[20:30] Chris Walden: Okay, thank you. Bye.