This was the long version of a rather large campaign that had numerous shorter cutdown versions with different footage and stories but similar music. I was even asked to adapt the music for the CEO’s walkout music for a corporate event! I wish I could have seen that.

I had an unusual opportunity to write some music for this ad before photography even started. The director explained the concept and I had a few weeks before getting footage. With the imagery in my mind I wrote some music on a lark, not expecting it to be used but hoping it might provide a starting point. The director and editor ended up cutting the footage to that initial track and they were really happy!

GE ran a campaign of short documentary films featuring their U.S. plants and the employees who work there. I scored this piece on Louisville, Kentucky using a variety of instruments including strings, piano and my beloved Rhodes.

For this Lincoln spot I went for a fiery Ocean’s 11 sound with a searing Hammond organ, bass, guitar and old school drums.

For this spot I channeled one of my all time favorite groups of session players, the Swampers from Mussel Shoals, Alabama. They were all over the charts in the 60s and 70s backing everybody from the Staple Singers to Jimmy Cliff to Paul Simon.

Sometimes there’s nothing like some simple solo piano.

For this pooping commercial I went with a 60s hard bop piano trio sound.

For their 2020 campaign SwingLeft ran a 90s infomercial spoof. To get that cheesy 90s infomercial sound, I composed the underscore using only a 1990 Korg M1 Workstation, the keyboard used for Seinfeld and many other 90s shows. Call now!

The first pass for this one was a lot faster and a lot more clurb. Then I slowed it down, swapped the synths out for strings and it seemed to click.

This one was quite challenging because no matter what I did this guy in the shadows just looked a bit spooky. Fortunately, I came upon this old song I wrote (with lyrics!). I put it up against the picture and it worked better than anything else I had going. I made an instrumental version on piano and it seemed to do the trick!

I had some fun here mixing electronics with more naturalistic woodwinds, guitar and piano. I had composed this prior to the creation of the spot and I thought the director made a fascinating choice pairing the initial electronic sound with the pastoral imagery.