Stephen James Taylor | |
---|---|
Born | Los Angeles, California, United States | September 28, 1954
Genres | Film score, electronica, trip hop, jazz, worldbeat |
Occupation(s) | Composer |
Instrument(s) | Guitars, keyboards, homemade instruments, programming, bass, drums, string arrangements |
Years active | 1978 – present |
Website | http://www.stephenjamestaylor.com |
Stephen James Taylor (born September 28, 1954) is an American composer best known for his film and TV scores. He has earned four Emmy nominations, two Annie nominations, and a DVD-X Award on "Best Original Score (for a DVD Premiere Movie) to date ('05). [1]
Stephen James Taylor was born in Los Angeles, the middle of five children to James Brainard and Jane Carolyn (Johnson) Taylor. His parents were both educators. His father was a math teacher who became one of the first Black principals in the Los Angeles Unified School District. [2] His mother taught Spanish in secondary school and in Adult Education classes. She was also an accomplished pianist, organist, and vocal coach. [3] Taylor's uncle (Jane's brother) was Tommy Johnson a "first call" studio musician who played tuba on over 2,000 recordings including the soundtrack to Jaws . [4]
One of the ways he achieves his sound is by working with a larger palette of notes rather than those allowed on conventional instruments. He introduced microtonality to the vocabulary of film music [5] with his score for The Giving [6] composed solely using a scale with 58 tones per octave, unequal. Other Taylor scores incorporating microtonal cues include Why Do Fools Fall in Love , Gregory Nava , The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa , [7] Mickey Mouse Works , The Final Insult, Powers of Time, A Question of Faith , The Glass Shield , Black Panther , The Eames Aluminum Chair, and A Gathering of Elephants.
Taylor has written the scores to most of the feature films of Charles Burnett including To Sleep with Anger , The Glass Shield , Selma, Lord, Selma , Oprah Winfrey's The Wedding , and Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation , for which he won best score at the Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival. For director Robert Townsend, he has scored several projects including Holiday Heart for Showtime and Phantom Punch . He also composed the score for Richard Tanne's 2016 feature debut, Southside with You , which dramatizes the first date between President Barack Obama and his future wife, Michelle Robinson. Additionally, he scored Tanne's 2020 follow-up, Chemical Hearts, for Amazon Studios. Other credits include the HBO film, Boycott , directed by Clark Johnson, the 2004 Disney animated theatrical release Teacher's Pet , as well as a number of television, cable and direct to video movies [8] including the 2016 documentary Maya Angelou and Still I Rise.
His prime time music career began in 1981 when he joined the composing team of Mike Post and Pete Carpenter writing and orchestrating for such shows as Greatest American Hero , The A-Team , Magnum, P.I. and Hunter . He co-wrote the theme to ABC’s Gideon Oliver in 1988 and in 1993 he was hired by David Chase (who later went on to create and produce The Sopranos) to write the music for the 2nd season of NBC's I'll Fly Away resulting in Taylor's 2nd Emmy nomination. Another network show was Under One Roof for which he wrote the main title song and underscore for the first few episodes. This CBS show was the last primetime black family show on a major, non-cable network.
In 1996, he was commissioned to write and conduct an orchestral suite, with Mark Watters, for the Atlanta Symphony to perform at the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics for which he received a BMI Olympic Tribute Award. In 2007, he was also hired to create world music for the lobby of the World of Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta as well as do some surround sound design for one of the permanent installations there.
Taylor’s experience in writing music for animation began with Hanna Barbera and Ruby-Spears in 1980, runs through Spielberg's Tiny Toon Adventures in 1990 and several series for Disney TV animation in the 1990s such as Jungle Cubs and Raw Toonage , up through the present with the recent release of the Black Panther for Marvel. He was hired in 1991 to write a new theme for G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero , for which he also provided the score for 2 seasons. He composed the underscore and main title song for all 3 years of Mickey Mouse Works (later incorporated into the newer show, House of Mouse ) with a 12 piece band that included homemade instruments and fretless guitar. [9] [10] This show represented the first time the core Disney characters (Mickey et al.) had been animated for television in 50 years. In 2006, he composed The Adventures of Brer Rabbit .
He received a bachelor's degree in music composition from Stanford University, after which he continued his studies in classical composition and conducting privately with Henri Lazarof, Dr. Albert Harris (composer), and microtonality with Erv Wilson. As a "music oriented content provider", he has redefined himself as a 21st-century composer/artist.
Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white gloves. He is often depicted alongside his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, his pet dog Pluto, his friends Donald Duck and Goofy and his nemesis Pete among others.
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney Productions, with story direction by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer and production supervision by Walt Disney and Ben Sharpsteen. It consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Music critic and composer Deems Taylor acts as the film's Master of Ceremonies who introduces each segment in live action.
Mickey Mouse Works is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation featuring Mickey Mouse and his friends in a series of animated shorts. The first Disney television animated series to be produced in widescreen high definition, it is formatted as a variety show, with skits starring Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, Pluto and Ludwig Von Drake while Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, Huey, Dewey and Louie, Chip 'n' Dale, Scrooge McDuck, Pete, Humphrey the Bear, J. Audubon Woodlore, Dinah the Dachshund, Butch the Bulldog, Mortimer Mouse, José Carioca, and Clara Cluck appear as supporting or minor characters. Musical themes for each character were composed by Stephen James Taylor with a live 12-piece band and extensive use of the fretless guitar to which the music of the series was nominated for an Annie Award in both 1999 and 2001. Most of the shorts from the series were later used in House of Mouse.
Carl William Stalling was an American composer, voice actor and arranger for music in animated films. He is most closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts produced by Warner Bros., where he averaged one complete score each week, for 22 years.
A Goofy Movie is a 1995 American animated musical comedy-adventure film produced by Disney MovieToons and Walt Disney Television Animation. Directed by Kevin Lima, the film is based on The Disney Afternoon television series Goof Troop created by Robert Taylor and Michael Peraza Jr., and serves as a standalone follow-up to the show. Taking place three years after the events of Goof Troop, the film follows Goofy and his teenage son Max as they embark on a misguided cross-country father-son fishing trip across the United States.
John Frederick Hannah was an American animator, writer and director of animated shorts.
Runaway Brain is a 1995 American animated comedy horror short film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. Featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, the short centers on Mickey attempting to earn money to pay for an anniversary gift for Minnie. He responds to an advertisement to work for Doctor Frankenollie, only to find out that he is looking for a donor to switch brains with the monster he created. Featuring animation by animator Andreas Deja, it was first released in 1995 attached to North American theatrical showings of A Kid in King Arthur's Court and in 1996 attached to international theatrical showings of A Goofy Movie. It would be the final original Mickey Mouse theatrical animated short until Get a Horse! in 2013.
Robert Fred Moore, was an American artist and animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Often called "Freddie," he was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Despite limited formal art training, he rose to prominence at Disney very quickly in the early 1930s, due to his great natural talent and the tremendous appeal of his drawings. His drawings are still greatly admired by animators and animation fans.
William "Bill" Benjamin Lava was a composer and arranger who composed and conducted music for feature films as well as Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated cartoons from 1962 to 1969, replacing the deceased Milt Franklyn, making him the last composer and arranger in the classic era of Warner Bros. Cartoons.
Disney Television Animation (DTVA) is an American animation studio that serves as the television animation production arm of Disney Branded Television, a division of Disney General Entertainment Content, which is a division of Disney Entertainment. The studio was originally established in 1984, by Gary Krisel during the reorganization and subsequent re-incorporation of Disney following the arrival of then CEO Michael Eisner that year.
Christopher Diamantopoulos is a Canadian actor. He played Russ Hanneman in the HBO series Silicon Valley and starred in the film The Three Stooges, and the TV series Good Girls Revolt. He voiced Mickey Mouse in the eponymous television series, The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse and the short film Once Upon a Studio; for the former, he received two Emmy Award nominations.
The Skeleton Dance is a 1929 Silly Symphony animated short subject with a comedy horror theme. It was produced and directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks. In the film, four human skeletons dance and make music around a spooky graveyard—a modern film example of medieval European "danse macabre" imagery. It is the first entry in the Silly Symphony series. In 1993, to coincide with the opening of Mickey's Toontown in Disneyland, a shortened cover of the cartoon's music was arranged to be featured in the land's background ambiance. The short's copyright was renewed in 1957, and as a published work from 1929 it will enter the US public domain on January 1, 2025.
Ronald Francis Clements is an American animator, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He often collaborates with fellow director John Musker and is best known for writing and directing the Disney animated films The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), Treasure Planet (2002), The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Moana (2016).
In animation and film, "Mickey Mousing" is a film technique that syncs the accompanying music with the actions on screen, "Matching movement to music", or "The exact segmentation of the music analogue to the picture." The term comes from the early and mid-production Walt Disney films, where the music almost completely works to mimic the animated motions of the characters. Mickey Mousing may use music to "reinforce an action by mimicking its rhythm exactly. ... Frequently used in the 1930s and 1940s, especially by Max Steiner, it is somewhat out of favor today, at least in serious films, because of overuse. However, it can still be effective if used imaginatively". Mickey Mousing and synchronicity help structure the viewing experience, to indicate how much events should impact the viewer, and to provide information not present on screen. The technique "enable[s] the music to be seen to 'participate' in the action and for it to be quickly and formatively interpreted ... and [to] also intensify the experience of the scene for the spectator." Mickey Mousing may also create unintentional humor, and be used in parody or self-reference.
John Edward Musker is an American animator, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He often collaborates with fellow director Ron Clements and is best known for writing and directing the Disney animated films The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), Treasure Planet (2002), The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Moana (2016).
The Opry House is a 1929 Mickey Mouse short animated film released by Celebrity Pictures, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the fifth Mickey Mouse short to be released, the second of that year. It cast Mickey as the owner of a small theater. Mickey performs a vaudeville show all by himself. Acts include his impersonation of a snake charmer, his dressing in drag and performing a belly dance, his caricature of a Hasidic Jew and, for the finale, a piano performance of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt.
The 27th Annual Annie Awards were held on November 6, 1999.
Mickey Mouse is an American animated television series produced by Disney Television Animation. Featuring Disney cartoon characters Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy and Pluto in contemporary settings such as Paris, Venice, Tokyo and New York, the series has the slapstick feel of the earliest Mickey Mouse shorts while providing a modern update, and "presents Mickey in a broad range of humorous situations that showcase his pluck and rascality, along with his long-beloved charm and good heartedness". The animation is provided by Mercury Filmworks.
Get a Horse! is a 2013 American animated comedy short film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and directed by Lauren MacMullan. Combining black-and-white hand-drawn animation and color computer animation, the short features the characters of the late 1920s Mickey Mouse cartoons.
Fantasia is an American media franchise owned by The Walt Disney Company that commenced in 1940 with the theatrical release of the film of the same name.
He later broke racial barriers when he was appointed principal of the predominantly white John H. Francis Polytechnic in Sun Valley, then returned to South Los Angeles in 1967 to become the first principal of Locke High School.
She is survived by James B. Taylor of Los Angeles who she married Aug. 21, 1949; three sons, Ronald Taylor, Stephen Taylor and Peter Taylor, all of Los Angeles; two daughters, Nancy Taylor of Los Angeles and Carolyn Taylor-Olson.
In addition to working film, television, and music recordings, Johnson performed with many local ensembles, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pasadena Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Academy Awards Orchestra.