SUNDAY READ: My Brother, the Music Man

I'm so lucky to have Jez's music on the Photowalks soundtracks.

Close your eyes for a minute and think about the original background music you hear on most YouTube videos. Open them up again, and tell me—was that a good image you just conjured up, or one that just went in one ear and the other?

I am so lucky that my uber-talented brother Jez (as well as my pal Paul Ellis) contributes original music to the Photowalks soundtracks. Where would Photowalks be without them?

I’m venturing that most people never give it a second thought—oh, there’s some melody in the background, underneath a voice narration, so I wanted to bring it to your attention.

I pulled 13 of Jez’s best compositions and pulled them into a 40-minute YouTube compliation for your musical listening pleasure. And he put the songs onto a soundtrack album that’s available for sale at Bandcamp. Please give it a listen!

For Photowalks I need background music to augment the voiceover, as I noted, and make it sound less flat, plus the melodies also bring style to images that you see on the screen. Imagine a Photowalks episode without music?

It’s not as drastic as a movie like “Jaws” or “Psycho” without the soundtrack—as music is the co-star of films like that, but it really adds so much to my little show. Especially when the music is as great as what I get from my brother and Paul.

I ask you to consider this: most music that you hear on original YouTube videos are “royalty-free,” crappy, either very generic, bland or AI created concoctions that are rented from companies like Epidemic Sound and Artlist via a monthly subscription.

Music 101: You can’t just grab any song you like and put it in your video. That’s a violation of copyright laws. So the options are to subscribe to a royalty free music service and hope for the best or get original music for your production.

YouTube has a “free” music section, mostly drek, but there is some decent stuff in there. I like a group called TrackTribe. Yet the music is only for use on YouTube—so that knocks out Facebook and Instagram. The music from sites like Epidemic and Artlist are for all social media.

And there’s my problem. When I accessed some of the songs from all three of these locations earlier in Photowalks’ life, and then got the show on Amazon Prime Video and later Scripps News, I had to wipe the soundtracks and start all over again, replacing them with music I had rights to for online, streaming and broadcast.

Which brings me back to my brother. He sits down at the keyboard and creates original compositions on the spot, records them into his computer and dashes them off to me. They are emmintley hummable, melodic and fit perfectly with the whole “on the road” vibe of the show, with a twist. When’s the last time you heard solo piano on a travel show? My guess is never, and I just don’t think there’s anything cooler. (He also augments with other instruments on some tracks and also plays with other people, including Victor Bisetti and our cousin Peter Grant.)

My brother reading the liner notes on a 1960s era record album

Jez has been playing the piano since around age 10, inspired by Elton John, Leon Russell and Chico Marx (yes, Chico) and he went on to carve a career in the Atlanta area playing in bands and leading combos at clubs and concert facilities. But it’s on solo piano where he really shines, and he now performs most days at the Atlanta airport, in the perfect gig. Show up, sit at the piano, play some songs, get paid.

We grew up together in idyllic New York City, where we spent most waking hours listening to show tunes as kids, before we transitioned to rock and roll. Most weekends we headed over to the Fillmore East (I had free tickets, courtesy of a great neighbor) to hear the likes of Elton John, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, the Jeff Beck Group, Traffic, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Who and Jimi Hendrix perform. We saw the Rolling Stones and Hendrix at Madison Square Garden and the Who (again) at Lincoln Center.

We went to Marx Brothers movie revivals in New York at the Thalia, and ordered ice creams together at Carvel and grilled cheese sandwiches at Stanley’s Diner in New Milford, CT., near where my parents had a “weekend” home. (Jez actually grew up, food wise, unlike his older brother.) He posed for me in the city and country as I started figuring my way around a Pentax Spotmatic. And even on vacation in Puerto Rico.

(We also have a sister from my father’s second marriage, Lily.)

With the maracas in Puerto Rico

Jez eventually moved south, banking on there being more work for a musician in Atlanta—and he was right. He built a wonderful family with Mindy and kids Janna and Bill and is the happiest person I know. Especially when he’s behind a keyboard. (Sort of like me around an ice cream cone.)

Give a listen to the music and tell me if you don’t agree about how lucky I am to have his music on the show—and to be his brother, of course. You can read more about him at his website, http://www.jezgraham.com

Thanks for giving this all a read and listen and if you’re hungry for more, catch the interview I did with Jez about his music, directly below.