Bruno Spoerri, you registered with SUISA on 9 March 1956, when you were just over 20 years old. At the time, you listed your main profession as a psychologist, indicating that being a musician was only a side gig, although you had been playing in bands since 1952. Did you start composing as soon as you joined SUISA?
Bruno Spoerri: These weren’t my first compositions but the first ones I registered because I did not feel it was right to do so for these particular ones. I was still living in Basel for the most part in 1956, but I studied at the Institute of Applied Psychology in Zurich and played in several bands. These included the Metronome Quintet in Zurich, the Modern Jazz Group in Freiburg im Breisgau and the Francis Notz Octet/Sextet in Basel and Olten. Their pianist was George Gruntz, and he told me that I absolutely had to register with the Swiss Musicians’ Association (now SONART) and SUISA. And so I registered the first few “pieces”, which I basically wrote for Francis Notz’s band.
Did the SUISA registration also have to do with the fact that you wanted to make music full-time?
Not at all, no. I really was a committed amateur, and I wasn’t the only one. I don’t think there was a single professional jazz musician back then. Those who wanted to play jazz were professional dance musicians. They were always a bit frustrated because they couldn’t play jazz or only very little. Hazy Osterwald did a jazz interlude for half an hour every evening when he performed. It almost felt more like comedy than jazz. After that, they were allowed to play jazz.
I’ve heard from other musicians from that time that self-composed pieces weren’t even in demand back then; is that true?
That too, yes, you had to play a given repertoire. And it was noticeable when anyone performed their own compositions. George Gruntz wrote pieces for the Francis Notz Octet back then, and then I started doing the same. I wrote the first arrangement for my own quartet, with which we, sort of, imitated Gerry Mulligan: I rewrote the Basel Morningstreich [a march performed at the start of the Basel Carnival] for the Gerry Mulligan Quartet – and made myself unpopular in Basel by doing so.
Jazz a rebellion against everything ranging from Bach to Debussy
In the new documentary film “Bruno Spoerri – a life for music”, you said that jazz was a kind of rebellion for you against everything ranging from Bach to Debussy. Was that also a breakout, to bring something new into the music, something that interested you, that fascinated you?
Yes, that was of course the typical youthful rebellion. My mother was a professional musician, a violinist, and her most important saying was: You must never become a musician, it’s the worst profession there is. She had actually played as a soloist in the Basel Chamber Orchestra, won a prize in Geneva and so on. She did, however, never get into a symphony orchestra – there was no room for women. That’s why she had to form an entertainment trio, with whom she then played in cafés, including in health resorts such as Davos and St. Moritz. It was quite a difficult life when you were accommodated in a hotel annexe and had to play both afternoon and evening concerts for the guests.
Was jazz an expression of improvisation for you back then, as a contrast to the rigid music theory and practice that was largely influenced by classical music at the time?
Exactly. I think it had something to do with the fact that I started playing the piano when I was six or seven. My mother was ambitious and immediately sent me to the best piano teacher in Basel. He was an absolutely strict, old-fashioned person. If you wanted to play the piano, you first had to practise your fingers on the table. As a child, I couldn’t stand it at all. I used to watch Disney films like “Snow White” and “Pinocchio” back then: That was my kind of music, that’s what I wanted to play. My mum immediately ordered me music books of these pieces. I wanted to play them and not the finger exercises by Czerny. The piano teacher actually spoilt piano playing for me.
To this day, you obviously enjoy playing with many musicians from strikingly different musical orientations. Is that kind of the epitome of music for you, that it’s played live and something new comes out with different musicians?
I have to say that improvisation interested me the most. In 1954, I had one of my greatest experiences. I heard the Gerry Mulligan Quartet for the first time. And that’s when I realised that these musicians have a magical cohesion. They listened to and interacted with each other while playing. They didn’t just mechanically play their part, they reacted to the moment. That left a huge impression on me. And that’s what I wanted for my music.
Shortly afterwards, you experienced another special concert, that of Oscar Sala in 1955. Was that also a key experience for you, namely what you can do with electronic instruments?
Yes, but I didn’t know what to expect, I often went to concerts back then. It was rumoured that there would be a concert of electronic music at the Stadtcasino Basel, with a piece by André Jolivet, with the Ondes Martenot. I thought to myself, what is that? So, I went there. And it was an incredible experience for me, these Ondes Martenot literally blew me away. Ginette Martenot (the inventor’s sister) played the electronic instrument (first introduced in 1928).
The sounds it produces are particularly well suited to films. You later used the Ondes Martenot in the same way …
At that time, I had no idea that I would ever have anything to do with film(s). But I was very interested in what musicians did with such instruments, especially Oscar Sala, who for the first time also tried to perform some kind of popular music – which didn’t go down well at this concert. But he played a piece that I assume he improvised a large part of. Which, of course, the audience didn’t appreciate at all.
You were also sceptical to some extent. You once wrote that the Philips pavilion with the music of Varèse/Xenakis at the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels seemed sterile to you. Did that awaken your ambition to create more lively music?
From where I was standing, there were simply a few projections and then the music was added. It just seemed kind of dead to me, maybe too academic in a way. I would have tried to look for something with more movement. I appreciated it more when I heard it again later. I would have liked something more rhythmic.
Is rhythm something that particularly fascinates you about jazz?
Absolutely.
Slipping into film music through a series of coincidences
You made music with electronic devices for the first time in 1965. How did that come about?
I ended up in film music by chance and changed careers. Suddenly I was no longer a psychologist but working in a film production company as a “sound designer”, without knowing what that meant. I was responsible for all sound-related aspects for the adverts they produced. I had to organise the speakers, conduct the voiceover recordings, make sure that there were some suitable sounds in the background and also play music. Viktor Cohen, who had hired me, already had a vision of a profession that is now called sound design. Perhaps he was the first, at least in Switzerland, to have the idea that there shouldn’t be one composer for the soundtrack, someone for the sounds and someone else for the language, but that one person should bring everything together. That was an absolutely brilliant idea at the time, which I didn’t even realise myself.
You were soon asked to do soundtracks for films that were much longer than the 30 seconds of jingles. How did the first longer film you scored come about?
This was a semi-documentary film for the 1964 Expo. Felix Aeppli (historian and film expert) wrote that this Expo was the birth of the new Swiss film. Suddenly there were a lot of orders for the exhibition, resulting in a huge upswing for the film scene. With some detours in a rather roundabout way, I received my first commission from a small Lucerne film production company to make an industrial film about prefabricated construction. Then came a documentary film about the Expo, for which I was able to make the music.
In 1965, through a series of strange coincidences, I got my first assignment for a feature film. And it was one that I got to work on because the composers who normally worked for this producer apparently didn’t have time for it. I reckon the budget was probably just too small. The sound engineer Walter Wettler recommended me as a young musician; he probably also said that I would do it cheaper and with a lot of enthusiasm.
It was an incredibly successful start, although it was an absolute disaster for me at the time: I had practically no time to prepare. That’s why we improvised half of the music in the studio. I never thought that the music would somehow survive. But it wasn’t until much, much, much, much later that a record producer suddenly contacted me and said he had discovered this film and wanted to release the soundtrack on record. And so this music experienced a revival that I would never have expected.
What was the film called?
“The Strangler of the Tower”, a horror thriller spin-off. That was the last crime film that Erwin Dietrich made. And it was obviously quite a failure, because after that Dietrich switched to sex films – that was more profitable.
“For jazz musicians, rock music was commercial, wickedly commercial, not to mention electronic music. As soon as I used the first electronic instruments, they said they’d have to write me off, I wasn’t making real music anymore.”
But for you, jingle and film soundtracks were probably also a way of making a living from music and becoming independent?
Of course that was the case, because in 1965 I was married and had two children, the third was on the way. So I knew that I had to earn money for my family. When I received the request from Televico to join this advertising agency, I was simply concerned that I had to earn enough to support the family. I simply did it because the company boss told me that he would definitely pay me the minimum wage, the wage I received in the academic career counselling. He simply offered me the security, so I felt that I could go for it.
Was it difficult for your colleagues among the musicians to accept that you suddenly became “commercial”, that you worked for advertising?
Not back then, no. That came later, when jazz rock emerged, when I also played with rock musicians. People said: Now he’s gone commercial, now he wants to earn money. Mind you: We didn’t earn anything from rock music back then. For jazz musicians, rock music was commercial, wickedly commercial, not to mention electronic music. As soon as I used the first electronic instruments, they said they’d have to write me off, I wasn’t making real music any more.
You once said that you were not dismissive of advertising and film music but saw it as a craft to create music that fulfils a purpose.
Yes, I soon realised that film music is not the kind of music in which you can realise yourself. You can’t bring in your own ideas like a classical or modern composer. You are the employee of the film; you fulfil a function. First and foremost, you are dependent on the director. And secondly, production, because as far as the money is concerned, you have to stay within the limits of how much money there is available. Which wasn’t a lot at all in Switzerland at the time. So, you can’t just make any dreams come true, you have to delve into the film, or rather into the soul of the director. You also need to know exactly what the director expects from the music.
How much freedom did you have in creating the film music, how specific were the parameters you were given?
That was very different from case to case. There were directors who knew exactly what they wanted. There were also those who had no idea what they wanted. It was always best with those who didn’t know exactly what they wanted, but who knew what the music was supposed to achieve and were able to say so or even write it into the script. And then, of course, we watched the film together and talked about it at the same time, for example: where could the music play a role and where could it not? And where it’s just filler material, we’d rather leave it out than produce background music that didn’t mean anything.
Success in advertising music with new sounds
You apparently once said that you were able to buy a big new synthesiser with the royalties from SUISA?
My first electronic instrument, which I bought in 1967, was the Ondes Martenot. I was convinced that I had to create something with electronic music. Firstly, because I was interested. And secondly, because you can be successful in advertising if you can produce sounds that the others don’t have.
Especially effect sounds?
Exactly: If you can do or create something that the others can’t. And then there was the fact that money was always incredibly tight. For every instrument I could play myself, they had to pay one less musician. I then looked around to see what was available on the market. I could not find a Trautonium or a Theremin anywhere. On the other hand, the Ondes Martenot could be ordered from a company in France for 6,000 Swiss francs. So, I borrowed the money from the boss of Televico, bought the instrument – and immediately used it in a commercial. Thanks to this advert, I suddenly earned a lot of money, completely unexpectedly. I was able to change my contract. I no longer had a fixed contract with the company because I found out that SUISA’s royalties were about double what I was earning. And then I entered into a new contract, said I’d work for them for free, but that I wanted all the royalties. And then suddenly received settlements from SUISA in the order of CHF 100,000 per year. I was overwhelmed. But then I also got overconfident, I have to admit. I’ve done all sorts of things that require money. Instead of being clever enough to buy a house or make a good investment, I started buying instruments …
… which were still very expensive back then …
Yes. I got hold of the first Moog catalogue in 1967, when you could buy a synthesiser for around 10,000 US dollars, the equivalent of around 50,000 Swiss francs at the time. That was still completely out of reach, so I waited a bit. Then I saw an advert from a company, Electronic Music Studios London. They had a small synthesiser that only cost 6,000 Swiss francs. And I boldly ordered it straight away – and then sat behind the thing day and night, creating new sounds, soon also commercials. Thanks in part to the new sounds, it was suddenly raining money. I then founded a production company with two friends that recorded Swiss musicians. We realised far too late that nobody was interested in pop music from Switzerland. That’s why we hardly got rid of the records we produced there. But we persevered and thought it would be a great story.
And then we wanted to build our own electronic studio, but we couldn’t raise the money. Then we saw an advert for the largest synthesiser at the time, the Synthi 100 from EMS. It was a two-metre piece of furniture. And we ordered this in a fit of exuberance, which cost us 50,000 Swiss francs. Two weeks after we ordered it, they called me and said it was too much of a risk for them, they didn’t want to do it. But then I bought it myself, if I remember correctly, with an advance from SUISA. And that was my absolute stroke of luck. Because I was suddenly the only person in German-speaking Switzerland who had a synthesiser that big.
You had a big head start in advertising music thanks to the new sounds but weren’t these devices very controversial at the time?
Yes, it was said that this would make all musicians obsolete, that one day there would only be electronic music. That’s the same thing they say about AI now.
Is that why you were also criticised by musicians?
Yes, very much. The, shall we say, real jazz musicians thought that I could no longer be taken seriously. In England, the Musicians’ Union wanted to ban the synthesiser. Until people realised that someone actually had to play the synthesiser.
To a certain extent, the criticism that the electronic tones often sounded stiff and the possibilities for expression were limited was justified. Did that change for you as a saxophonist when you discovered the Lyricon electronic wind instrument in 1975?
Absolutely, because I was never a good pianist. When I played something on the keyboard, I had my limits. I was able to use tricks, such as often recording runs at half speed and then playing the tape twice as fast. The Lyricon was an enlightenment for me as a saxophonist. It was the first electronic wind instrument that existed. The developer was a saxophonist himself. That is why he has installed a mouthpiece that reacts to the blowing strength and lip pressure. You could really modulate the sound with it, which was a huge step forward compared to the first synthesisers. But it took a huge effort to tickle some life out of this instrument. Only a few of the saxophonists have actually played the Lyricon.
Out of protest?
The saxophonists were often against using anything electronic. There have been famous saxophonists like Lee Konitz who were involved in a record with the Lyricon, then they put it away and never looked at it again.
Why?
Perhaps it was too mechanical for them after all. And you really had to learn how to deal with the Lyricon. It took me many hours to achieve the desired expression. If you didn’t put in that kind of effort, then it simply wouldn’t work. Today it has become very easy to make electronic music. In rather exaggerated terms, you can tell the computer to make the music this way and that, and then it does it without you having to do much else. There are actually so many ways to make music. But I hear almost nothing of it in the music that is successful today.
In the fringes of the music scene, there are definitely people who experiment. And I have the feeling that there is a young generation of musicians who are taking advantage of the new possibilities and not just making music that is basically very rigid and is only interested in the effect of dance music.
When the computer found its way into music
You also got involved with the use of computers in music very early on, including as a co-founder of the Computer Music Society in 1982. That was avant-garde back then, because nobody really understood why you should use a computer for music …
I was of the same opinion back then.
And yet the computer has become a matter of course for practically every musician today, it has become an “everyday instrument”. Do you judge that positively or negatively?
Both. On the one hand, it offers an enormous number of possibilities. And on the other hand, I’m going to say this in a rather mean way, it’s become much easier to make bad music. You can easily produce something that sounds like “real” music but is basically just a cliché. It has become much more difficult to break out of the clichés. There are so many predetermined patterns; so, you have to invest a lot to escape the clichés and create something new. What you might even like at first seems like something you’ve heard a thousand times before on the third listen.
You made interactive computer music very early on, which you called computer-assisted jazz. Was that an attempt to bring a jazz element into this kind of music?
Yes, improvising has always been important to me. I’ve always played in bands and wanted to bring electronics into it. I had a band called Jazz Container, and I had the VCS3 on stage and used it to direct my saxophone playing, doing complicated things.
Ultimately, you wanted to turn the computer into a kind of fellow musician?
I was always looking for a way to make music with the computer that was alive. I didn’t want to just press a button and then it does something. But that you can talk to the computer, so to speak. It was one of the many funny coincidences that I met the American musician Joel Chadabe at the Ars Electronica in Linz, who was also taking part in their competition. He later invited me to my first concert in America.
At this gig in New York in 1986, I had my first Commodore C64 with me and my first programme, which my friend Hans Deyssenroth had written for me. This keyboarder was already working with MIDI and was able to achieve a kind of echo effect with this programme. It picked up what was played at the time and played it back, even in variations. And I had a device that converted the pitch of the saxophone into control voltages for the synthesiser. This allowed me to control the synthesiser with my saxophone so that it played a second and third voice. After the concert in a former church, Joel Chadabe told me that the audience had included electronic music greats like Wendy Carlos, whom I got to know afterwards. That was an incredible experience.
Joel Chadabe also told me that there was a little box called a Macintosh. And one of his students (David Ziccarelli) had written an ingenious programme that could be used to improvise. You could play a melody and press a button, whereupon the programme played variations of this melody. You could also ask for the melody to be played backwards or faster. Or that one sound was always replaced. That was a huge discovery for me. The programmer called this interactive composing. That was the first time you could do something live with a computer. Before, you always had to record something first, then wait until you could play it again.
You could actually press “Record” in the concert, then the programme would record what you had played and after a few notes it would start playing itself and changing what you had played. I then immediately bought a Macintosh in Switzerland. I then used the two programmes M and Jam Factory for years.
Being a member on the SUISA Board
Another important innovation was sampling, which was soon to occupy SUISA as well. What was your motivation for being on the SUISA Board from 1979 to 1994?
I don’t remember how it came about. At some point, I sat on a members’ committee and that’s when I became interested in the topic. If I recall rightly, they simply wanted to have a jazz musician on the Board of Directors. And that promptly landed me in the middle of a big discussion.
Because of jazz or because of sampling?
Because of jazz. At that time, there were two rates for radio remuneration, one for classical music and one for jazz. And the jazz musicians were given significantly less consideration. George Gruntz was on a committee at the time and brought up this discussion; he also wrote a “World Jazz Opera”. He said that we jazz composers actually compose like classical composers, why are we paid less when our pieces are played on the radio? As a jazz musician, it was naturally up to me to represent this on the board. I did that with fervour – and of course met with a lot of resistance. One of the board members once told me at a meeting that if you say the word jazz one more time, I’ll walk out. At that time, composers of so-called serious music were of course still in the majority.
Did sampling, which you used very early on, soon become an issue at SUISA?
Yes, there were also famous lawsuits for unauthorised sampling, which usually ended badly for the authors because it was very difficult to prove. And because the people who sampled were mostly backed by big American companies who could pay lawyers and get their way.
You have also had experience of this. In 2013, it came out that the rapper Jay-Z used a sample from your film score “Lilith” without asking you beforehand …
That went completely differently because it was about American rights. SUISA couldn’t really do anything about it, but they gave me good advice. The first time we tried to claim compensation, we ran into a wall. The American company in charge offered the English record company (Finders Keepers Records) a ridiculous amount in a contract they could not accept. It wasn’t until about a year later that an article appeared in Blick [Swiss tabloid] by a journalist who had heard about it. And he wrote the headline that Spoerri would now receive a million. Of course, I didn’t even see this million in the distance. But then I got a phone call from Jane Peterer, a music publisher I knew from before. She had lived in America and had witnessed such sampling discussions and also conveyed that she knew how to do it. And then I said, well, give it a try. And then she did the only right thing. She simply phoned the vice-president of the record company in question and apparently told him about the entire shameful business. And then the gears suddenly kicked into motion, through personal intervention, not through the court. A contract was actually signed in a very short time, based on which Finders Keepers Records received a decent sum, of which I then received my share.
The challenges of the digital world have become much greater in the meantime, where do you think this is particularly true?
Clearly the AI. There are already countless AI-generated tracks on Spotify. You’ve never really earned anything from Spotify, and now you’re earning even less. I can well imagine that if someone wants a film score and doesn’t want to spend money, then they can have some background music produced very cheaply with AI, which in turn doesn’t need anyone to compose it. And the AI was trained with compositions by real composers … But of course it would cost a large sum to produce such a soundtrack in the conventional way. As long as you don’t have great expectations regarding quality.
I would say that music with which you can earn money is at a turning point. I have the feeling that we could end up back where we were in 1960, namely that musicians can no longer make a living from music, except perhaps the few who are employed in a subsidised symphony orchestra. But as a musician who produces music that is recorded on any medium, you’re fighting a losing battle. You have to be able to do this part-time and earn the money with a “proper” job, as they used to call it. Then you can also make the music you want to make.
It was the same for you at the beginning of your career …
Yes, exactly. Now I have my pension from SUISA and the AHV. So now I can do what I want again, because I no longer have to earn money with the music.
www.computerjazz.ch, website of Bruno Spoerri
