Jon Brion, A Conductor of Emotion
13 years ago, Jon Brion produced Late Registration, the follow-up to Kanye West’s self-produced debut. Last year, he produced the score for Lady Bird, the semi-autobiographic, first major release from newly-renowned director, Greta Gerwig. On Friday, he performed at the Largo, a well-known venue hosting a mix of music and comedy in Beverly Grove, the neighborhood where the commercial juxtaposes historical establishments, tucked in-between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood in LA. The shows are highly improvisational and guided by the audience, performed by Brion through multi-instrumental interpretations. With reclusive artists, there is a thin paper trail, requiring a sleuth-like dedication to follow new developments. As a result, it’s headline news if a clue is revealed. With producers, especially outside of hip-hop, it doesn’t matter if you’re always working — you’re rarely the topic of conversation. While the name Jon Brion may seem new, he’s actually one of the industry’s most seasoned veterans. Those that know of him, participate in a cult following of critical-acclamation, bestowing titles such as “the master” or “a savant” and offering tweets with complimentary generalizations.
For the last year, I regularly traveled for work to West Hollywood without catching wind of his Largo gigs. Now that he’s the subject of my writing, I’ve been made aware, but the work commute is gone, so the performance must live on in my imagination. As a fan, how did I miss Jon Brion among the clutter of concerts? It’s an example of one of LA’s best, but most frustrating qualities. There are treasures scattered across the metropolis, but like a scavenger hunt, you only find them when you put effort toward observing the environment they inhabit.
Jon Brion is the child of musically-passionate parents — his mother sang with jazz bands and his father directed ensembles at Yale. By Kindergarten, he had discerned a career path, instructing his teacher during an assignment to write, “I am Jon Brion. I am a musician.” He quit school on his 17th birthday and headed to the studio for his first paying session. From there, he formed relationships across the industry performing in the 80’s & 90’s with groups largely left unknown: The Excerpts, The Bats, ’Til Tuesday, The Grays; while he contributed session work and production credits for artists like The Wallflowers and Aimee Mann. It was his relationship with Mann where he’d meet and collaborate with Michael Penn, who would later introduce him to film auteur, Paul Thomas Anderson in 1996. Providing the soundtrack to match Paul’s vision, first in Hard Eight, then more prominently in Magnolia, Brion has consistently graced album after album and film after film since.
I can’t remember if I discovered Jon Brion through music or cinema, but in both potential instances, it was with art I revere. The two works? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey & Kate Winslet and Late Registration by Kanye West. Their common thread is an awe-inspiring output of emotion conjured up in the form of melodies from keys and strings. Brion’s genius is accompanied with an unparalleled work ethic, something we gather a sense of through his interviews. “If the songs aren’t great, I can’t do it. I live with these songs. They’re moving through my head constantly, even when I don’t want them to.” Brion commits to projects that are deeply personal and understands the difficulty of this choice. “I picked the hardest art form with the least amount of respect. The economy of language you need to get emotion across is so hard.” It is through this thoughtful labor of love that these beautiful, intimate stories are told.
For a concept as outrageous and abstract as Eternal Sunshine, the soundtrack is of immense importance. Because the plot is unrealistic, our imagination relies on the acting and music to foster empathy. Spike Jonze’s Her is a tangentially-related example. On its own, the premise of a romantic relationship between man and machine is nonsensical. Combined with sincere acting and a powerful score, the relationship becomes more tangible. As a result, the film is more likely to foster empathy. With Eternal Sunshine, there’s a relationship between two human beings — inherently, it’s more relatable. What’s hard to grasp is the plot — the idea that you could decide to erase someone from memory and then, mid-procedure, change your mind and fight to retain the memories being erased. In Eternal Sunshine, Jon Brion imagines the imaginary and creates a soundtrack to convey how it all might feel. It’s the music setting the mood from the start. In the opening scene, the melancholic keys from “Theme” guide and reinforce each of the protagonist’s mannerisms and actions. As we are more in-tune with these actions, the score amplifies the meaning of the dialogue and we begin to understand the gravity of his heartbreak. The soundtrack is able to evoke sadness so effectively because it is dynamic enough to change and reveal how beautiful his relationship was when it was happy. “Phone Call” is the track that does this most eloquently, a dreamy sequence representing the excitement and hope associated with a new romance and the strong feelings that take hold as each person lets their guard down. On “Peer Pressure”, Brion is tasked with capturing nostalgia and shame, in a scene where Joel retreats with Clementine to a repressed memory from childhood. As the story unfolds, the soundtrack methodically builds, helping make sense of a world constructed inside one’s mind. Eternal Sunshine is a roller-coaster, just as poignant as it is heartwarming. At the end, when Brion and Beck’s rendition of “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime” plays us into the credits, he’s got us just as emotional as the main characters.
As it did for myself, the music of Eternal Sunshine caught the attention of Kanye West and through an introduction by Rick Rubin, work commenced on Late Registration. For me, one of the most impressive features of Brion’s contribution was how he was able to continue the narrative of The College Dropout with a completely different sound. Compared to its soulful predecessor with chipmunk-pitched samples and beat-heavy production, Late Registration is much more symphonic, dominated by keyboards and strings. The shift is present from the start, audible in the cascading broken chords that dance across “Heard ’Em Say”, a track in which Kanye reflects on inequitable realities and promotes optimism as a response. It’s Brion’s meticulous arrangements that enable Kanye to be vulnerable across the record. In “Roses”, this is particularly evident, a song about the fragility of life told through the illness of his grandmother. Similar to Eternal Sunshine, the minimalism and delicacy of the keyboard constructs a backdrop perfectly fit for West to broadcast emotion. Even with the keyboard secondary, Jon’s instrumentation allows Kanye to be raw and heartfelt, leading to the timeless, most sentimental track he’s performed, “Hey Mama”. In addition, Brion understands Kanye’s sound and prepares the tracks so they can be paired with the samples and skits he’s known for. In “Gold Digger”, Brion is responsible for the horns that accompany Jamie Foxx’s Ray Charles impression. We see his versatility on display in compositions like “Celebration” and “Gone”. Subtle strings season “Celebration” as it builds and waltzes through an ethereal party, growing louder as it is infused with synths. Kanye later recruits him for the keys on the similarly futuristic track, “I Wonder”, and on percussion for “Heard ’Em Say” descendent, “Homecoming”. Despite what the credits say, I can’t help but assume that Brion was responsible for the Chris Martin piano riff as well. It’s “Gone” from Late Registration, where we hear his influence most. A longer track showcasing the lyrical prowess of Kanye, Consequence, and Cam’ron — its instrumental features a staccato piano keeping pace with West’s wordplay and strings interpolated for theatrical effect. “Gone” is in the same vein as the songs from Brion’s scores, as much an orchestral arrangement as it is a dope rap song.
The introspective nature of Brion’s music has led to the maturation of the artists he collaborates with. In Late Registration, we got a more emotionally coherent, sensitive version of Kanye West. Working with Best Coast on their sophomore effort, The Only Place, Brion was able to take the success of their debut and advance the sound to be more representative of their poetic lyrics of love lost and found. Early into the filming of Punch-Drunk Love, director Paul Thomas Anderson was having trouble getting enough anger from Adam Sandler, his leading man. Brion, who did the score, created additional music to capture the emotion Sandler needed to get into character. Just recently, Guillermo Del Toro admitted that The Shape of Water, his Oscar heavyweight, was inspired by Brion’s score. Throughout the entirety of Lady Bird, Brion shapes tracks specifically to facilitate the telling of a coming-of-age story that is one part, younger Gretta Gerwig, and another, present-day Saoirse Ronan. He’s responsible for “I Try” by Macy Gray and “The Underdog” by Spoon. He has credits on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and much of Frank Ocean’s Blonde. He’s 54 and has been in the business of musical evocation since he started. I can confidently say he’s got no sign of slowing down or losing acuity.
