David Lanz Bio

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Returning to the music that launched him as an international phenomenon a ... sheet music to learn how to play the piece - and Lanz's interpretation of Procol ...
With the release of Cristofori’s Dream…Re-Envisioned, David Lanz has, in a sense, come full circle. Returning to the music that launched him as an international phenomenon a quarter-century ago—when he recorded the original Cristofori’s Dream - provides the world-class pianist and composer with the perfect opportunity to take stock of his art and both assess where he’s been and where he hopes to go. Cristofori’s Dream was a million-selling musical thank you note to Bartolomeo Cristofori, the man who invented the piano in the 17th century. It resonated with a wide array of listeners and topped Billboard’s Adult Alternative/New Age chart for months. The title track remains hugely popular today - countless piano students have purchased the sheet music to learn how to play the piece - and Lanz’s interpretation of Procol Harum’s classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale” on the original album is considered one of the most popular of the countless covers of the song. Journalists have agonized over what to call Lanz’s style - words like refined, pioneering, regal, comforting and pensive have all been used to describe his work - but Lanz has a favorite tongue in cheek catchphrase that suits his sound perfectly: “heavy mellow.” For more than three decades, the visionary recordings and live performances of David Lanz (pronounced Lahnz) have served to heal, to inspire, to provide spiritual nourishment and, simply but so vitally, to soothe frazzled nerves in this increasingly stress-filled world of ours. But it wasn’t until Lanz had already honed his chops as a rocker, a funkster and an all-around journeyman musician that he contemplated how his talents might best utilized. “I asked myself, ‘What does the world need?’” he says today. “And I said, ‘The world needs healing.’ This is a good path for me to take.” That path was toward a contemplative, impressionistic style, both solo and in tandem with other musicians, that put the spotlight squarely on Lanz’s piano, an instrument he uses to communicate one-on-one with each listener. Through his music Lanz connects in an intimate manner with his audience, tapping into their emotions, thoughts and dreams like an old friend - which is precisely what he has become to so many. David Lanz was only five when he first placed his hands on a keyboard, inspired by his mom and grandmother, both of whom played. By his teens, Lanz had begun working with local rock combos in the Pacific Northwest (his first was called the Towne Cryers), then a regional hotbed for R&B-flavored garage-rock and, later on, the new artsy, progressive-rock sound. He eventually landed in Canada with a band called Brahman, and in 1974 Lanz’s piano found its way to a national number one single, Terry Jacks’ “Seasons In the Sun” (which he admits now he was never that crazy about, although his fee for the session paid for a new amp!). A full decade passed, during which Lanz took gigs playing rock, funk and even disco, anything to pay the bills and get his name out there. Then came the epiphany. “I had been doing yoga and meditating and getting into Eastern philosophy,” says Lanz, “and slowly I started thinking about how music could help folks with stress.” Lanz created a tape of light piano music for a project by a friend, who then asked him, “Why don’t you make a record like that. I was still trying to write the great American pop hit at that point. But slowly I went, ‘Maybe there is something to this.’ I wrote a few more pieces and that ended up being my first solo piano record.” That album was Heartsounds (1983), released on a new label called Narada. It was received favorably and Lanz was off. “I’d always had this secret melodic, easy side,” Lanz says. “And I put that together with the desire to help people—if they want, they can use the music for relaxation or de-stressing, or for introspection. So all those different influences started to roll together.” What set Lanz apart from other artists recording in a similar vein at the time was his penchant for not eschewing melody and rhythm. Where some in the so-called New Age scene (a term that Lanz accepts but doesn’t love: “It’s a lifestyle,” he says, “not a musical genre.”) sought only to soothe, often by presenting a theme and then repeating it ad infinitum, Lanz’s work is dynamic, alive. “If you listen to my stuff, even if there are no drums, my left hand is my rhythm section,” he explains. Lanz’s big commercial breakthrough arrived in 1988 with Cristofori’s Dream which became an enormous success, topping Billboard magazine’s first Adult Alternative/New Age chart and remaining for a remarkable 27 weeks. Never one to stay in one place, Lanz followed that massive release two years later with Skyline Firedance, for which he recruited an 80-piece orchestra, and cut several more albums for Narada—among them 1998’s Songs From an English Garden, his first to tap into the British Invasion repertoire of the ’60s. He then moved to Decca Records for three more releases, including 2000’s East Of the Moon, which earned Lanz a Grammy nomination. More recently, with Liverpool: Re-Imagining the Beatles and Here Comes the Sun, Lanz both revisits a favorite place in his life—and the lives of millions—by offering his take on the music of the world’s greatest-ever rock band and ventures forth into uncharted territory. That’s how Lanz likes it, always heading into the unknown in order to expand his artistry and share what he’s found with the world. David Lanz is a welcomed retreat back into music with heart, soul, guts, splendor, surprise, musicality, humanity, meaning, depth and all of the other things that really matter.