Work fast or slow?

A claim I have heard from arrangers and composers countless times over the years is that working fast is a prerequisite for getting hired. Two of my most important mentors, arrangers Alex Weiss and Bob Freedman, were known for delivering top quality work, time and time again, “under the gun”. I, too, found myself on many occasions writing orchestral and big band scores in one sitting and delivering them overnight. I also found that when I work on large, extended projects, my speed does increase gradually and, when “in the zone”, those ideas would float so easily and would almost just wait to be picked up. It’s an amazing thing to experience.

But one night in June 1995, after a recoding session with the great Lena Horne, I found myself at a restaurant table with a few musicians who played on the session. Among them was the producer of the record, Jeremy Lubbock. Jeremy conducted my one arrangement for the record and arranged the rest of the music. I met him for the first time that night and hearing his music was like that famous scene of Sallieri hearing Mozart’s music for the first time in “Amadeus”. I contributed nothing to the conversation but learned a lot. Jeremy actually took pride in working slow and not apologizing for it. He said something to the account of working as long and digging as deep as needed to come up with the music that moved him. He added that he always stood behind every note he wrote and was ready to defend it. Jeremy was a prolific composer and arranger and, in the L.A. music scene, he was mostly known for his masterpiece string arrangements on countless pop, R&B and jazz records.

I had a lot to unpack after that night.