Berklee today

JAN 2013

Berklee today is the official alumni publication of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a forum for contemporary music and musicians.

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Late Night—Live! By Mark Small Behind the scenes with the SaturdayNightLiveand LateNightwith JimmyFallonshow bands. Lloyd Bishop/NBC Photo courtesy of Dana Edleson/NBC The Art of Live TV For late-night TV shows, a great band is essential. All the major network and cable shows in the genre have iconic bands that feature top-echelon musicians. High visibility and a nice paycheck are part and parcel of this work, making a place in such bands a coveted position. In late December, before the network shows went on holiday hiatus, Tuffus Zimbabwe '05 and Mark Kelley '03—who play with the Saturday Night Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bands, respectively—pulled back the curtain to offer a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes in their work. At an 11:00 A.M. call for the Saturday Night Live Band, Zimbabwe takes his seat behind the keyboard on the SNL Keyboardist Tuffus Zimbabwe of the SNL band 24 Berklee today set, with a mountain of charts to his left. Saxophonist and SNL band director Lenny Pickett apologizes to the members of his 11-piece outfit at the outset, telling them there will be no breaks in this rehearsal given the vast amount of material they need to cover for tonight's broadcast. "This is the Christmas show," Zimbabwe says. "There's always a lot of music in this one." The band runs through Christmas tunes giving them a distinctive touch. "Jingle Bells" is a shuffle, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" has a funk groove, "It Came upon the Midnight Clear" gets a Latin treatment. Pickett weaves his trademark hardblowing tenor saxophone lines around the melodies as the band churns underneath. They pause only to mark adjustments to the charts and then move on. Most of these tunes will be played off the air for the studio audience during commercial breaks. But the audio feed will come up intermittently to the TV audience with midtune snippets serving as bumpers between ads and underscoring announcements about future SNL episodes. Zimbabwe had already done two rehearsals for the comedy sketches on the Thursday and Friday before today's rehearsal. "Friday was a long one," he says. "I started at noon and didn't leave here until 11:30 P.M." He was working on accompaniments to skits with the SNL music director and others. Now it's the day of the show, and the full band reviews all play-ons, play-offs, intros, and endings to prepare for the dress rehearsal that will start in a few hours. Canadian actor Martin Short (this week's host) and SNL cast member Fred Armisen appear alternately on the bandstand to settle questions about intros and tempos for their musical skits. Even after discussions and rehearsals, things continue to mutate. "Sometimes things go one way in rehearsal," Zimbabwe says. "Then later there will be changes and we have to adjust on the fly." Zimbabwe is also expected to jump in if there is a slipup during a musical skit. "This show goes out live, mistakes and all," he says. "We can't go back and fix things. If something happens, it's expected that I will steer the boat." He relates that on a past show, the chart called for the band to make a crisp entrance on a groove tune for a skit. But the actor came in singing the intro slowly and rubato, making it impossible for a graceful band entrance. "The piano is the hot seat," Zimbabwe says. "That was a spontaneous moment. So I started out accompanying slowly and gradually brought the song up to tempo in the first A section. The horns and everyone else entered in the next section. To the audience, it sounded natural and in the end it turned out fine." Zimbabwe is a great fit for this job. He possesses sharp music-reading skills and broad musical sensibilities. Growing

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