Frank Marocco
(Accordion)
(For ten years, this Chicago native had his own touring group, but after settling in Los Angeles in the 1960s to work as a studio musician, he played with composers such as Henry Mancini, John Williams, Johnny Mandel, the various Newmans [Lionel, Randy, et all ...played on over 200 movie soundtracks [including "Dr. Zhivago" and "The Godfather] and virtually every situation comedy on-the-air. Most recently, a polka he co-wrote was featured in both "Grumpy Old Men" and its sequel. Regarded as perhaps the number one jazz accordionist in the world, to this day he still travels to Europe to give concerts. However, of all his playing, he says that the two things peoplealways ask him about the most are his work on Pink Floyd's The Wall and Pet Sounds.)
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FRANK: "I just remember that he was very talented. He worked differently than anything I had been used to before that, in that there wasn't much [written] music. There was just a little sketch with some chords on it. Then, each session would start off with him pounding out some chords on the piano. He had everything in his mind, in his head, all the sounds he wanted, and he just had that knack of transferring what was in his head to the orchestra.
He would go around to each musician and tell him what he wanted them to play and how he wanted them to fit in. At the beginning of the day, you were thinking that this was going to be a disaster. It was so disorganized. At the end of the date, everything would come together like magic.
"He would have me try different things. He would say, 'That's what I want,' 'Do this with this sound!' On 'Wouldn't It Be Nic' I ended up doing something that was the most difficult thing I've ever done before or since. I came up with this part that was like a triple bellow shake. It was physically demanding, because we had to do it over and over again, and by the end of the session, it was exhausting. I remember thinking, 'I'll never suggest that again!'
"The most important thing in any kind of music is feel; and he had the knack of doing that for his kind of music. He knew how to get the feel he wanted out of a player. He was very pleasant, easy to work for; it was just his unorthodox way of doing it that I thought was humorous at the time, but he ended up getting exactly what he wanted."
