Two of the most powerful documentaries that came out in 2014 had to be Garnet's Gold and Virunga. One depicted one man's search for what he believed to be a grand, buried treasure while the other documents a group of brave individuals coming together to face death at the price of saving the last of the world's mountain gorillas. Composer J. Ralph was brought in to provide the main music for these films including the score for Garnet's Gold and the original song "We Will Not Go" for Virunga, tying together the imagery and message of each project with his accompaniments.
The multitalented musician took some time to talk to us about his latest projects and a few we can expect in the future. We also learned just how passionate the composer is about documentaries and the lessons we learn from them.
How did you get into composing music and writing original songs for documentaries?
I got signed to Atlantic Records when I was 22, and the grand finale of that album was an orchestral piece that I envisioned, and I wrote this little melody and film composer Carter Burwell arranged and conducted the piece for me. I was enamored with the orchestra and the learning, almost like a mentor, that I knew I had to do more of that sound and work with that, the orchestra. Ever since I was a kid, I was always obsessed with film music and its ability to immediately transport you back to the place that it was written for in the movies, and to transport you to the characters or to the places and then moments of those films. You could listen to the music, and close your eyes, and can feel and see all of the images. That's basically how it started and I love trying to distill the stories into this sonic narrative that creates a visual picture.
Just looking back at your resume, you mostly focus on documentaries, is there any specific reason?
Ever since I was a teenager I had always been obsessed with finding the most unique and original artifacts or records or everything I always wanted to be one of a kind and special truth that you would unearth. As I got older, I felt that, for me, the stories that used to be so compelling were getting diluted, and it seemed to be familiar stories. So on the one hand, when you're a kid you watch Indiana Jones and you're like "wow, that would be so cool to be Indiana Jones. Go on those adventures, be the guy, find all the stuff, and help the save the world." Then you grow up and obviously it's a movie and he's not real, he's an actor. Then you start to find these subjects that are so monumentally brave and compelling and unique and you realize that they are real. You can touch them and talk to them and it's so inspiring to me that these incredible subjects and people and places can create this connection and this inspiration in real life. I find myself thinking about the movies and the issues for months and months and months and years after I've seen them. It doesn't happen with the features. If I asked you to tell me right now five of the 10 best pictures of the last year, could you do it?
That's just last year, what about the year before? If I said to you, "Did you see Man on Wire or Senna," or pick any documentary, it doesn't need to be mine, any documentary and you as a non-teenager would still be inspired. And I don't even mean to say that teenagers can't be, I'm saying you can be inspired from this for a long time, and these issues because they're so profound either on the creative plane or in a social, injustice plane. You find that they resonate with you far longer and have such more profound importance than something that is just made for entertainment sake. That's the best movie that's made, still an incredibly moving and emotional and cinematic experience. For me, a lot of them are just okay. I think a lot of movies are about worth as much time as a YouTube clip that you would send around to a friend and you'd watch it and laugh and you guys would make jokes and maybe you'd see a few others clips that were inspired by that clip, referencing that clip, and you don't, it's not two hours, three hours of your time. Most films that you would go see, or a lot of films, they have a few good jokes, it's kind of a story that you heard already, it's not worth your time really. But the great films are always great.
You had a number of projects come out this year. Most recently is Virunga. How did you get involved in that one?
A friend of mine took me to a screening of Virunga and I saw it and I was just blown away by the film making and by the subject matter and the bravery and the heroism and solidarity of the rangers of this story, and their willingness to put themselves at risk, put their lives at risk, to help protect this park for the children of tomorrow and the gorillas and to make the world a better place. It's so selfless. I don't know a lot of people who are willing to stand in front of bullets to back up what they believe in. I saw that film and I was blown away and I ended up meeting with the director and envisioned a song that could kind of celebrate the heroism and solidarity and bravery and hope of what these rangers are doing and it could bookend the story and could open the film over the entire backstory of Africa and the Congo. Then, almost as this emphatic call to action over the closing credits.
You also had Garnet's Gold come out. How did this project come about?
Garnet's Gold is produced by Simon Chinn, the two-time Oscar winning producer of Man on Wire and Searching for Sugar Man, and he is really helping to evolve the documentary medium to new chapters in the way that he's telling stories, in the way that he's allowing stories to be told. Ed Perkins, the director of Garnet's Gold, is a masterful storyteller. His ability to remain subtle and nuanced with this very personal story, and helping to create this world to tell this story of this poet and dreamer's adventure, to find meaning of his life, on this rite of passage, into the Scotland Highlands, looking for this buried treasure that he feels he has this ultimate clue for. It's just such an incredible story of love and dreams and self-worth, and the measure of a man. It's very sophisticated and a lot of very powerful, cultural moments are looked at here.
How much creative freedom did you have with Garnet's Gold?
J. Ralph: Usually we discuss a concept of the sonic narrative if you will; I'm always pushing for less music. Documentaries are even more sensitive to making sure that the music is carefully handled and after all, you're dealing with the truth and you're dealing with real life subjects, so I'm trying to always meditate on these films and say, "What can this subject sound like? What could this place sound like? What does this issue sound like?" And then trying to distill that into the sonic narrative and help reinforce the story very subtly, so that you just keep using instruments and themes to help keep the audience connected with these very powerful stories. I believe that this is the golden age of documentary. The technology is now at such a point where the same technology that would be used to create a feature film is now available for a percent of the price to a one or two person crew; you don't need a 50-person crew with all these lights and all this other stuff. The democratization of the equipment has enabled storytellers to tell non-fiction stories in the most grand and beautifully cinematic way. That coupled with the fact that social media and reality television has pervaded the entire culture, the entire planet, so everyone's understanding of reality is forever changed. If you watch a movie from the '40s, nobody dresses like that anymore, nobody talks like that anymore, nobody acts like that anymore, people don't carry themselves like that anymore.
So movies are a reflection of society, and of course at sometimes it's a reflection of a period piece, or what somebody would presume to be the future, but it's always this imagination or reflection, what's happening is that reality is so accessible and is so immediate and people have access to such personal moments of profound joy or profound sadness or profound importance or injustice, and it's so immediate that the bar for what's acceptable, for what's believable as truth has been changed. It's like in order to continue at this point, every actor would have to be Meryl Streep or Al Pacino or De Niro, because it would take a level of sophistication and talent to be able to create such natural storytelling. It's very difficult so I think a lot of people don't believe the performances and don't relate to movies the same way because everything's in transition right now, things are changing and also, on the other side, it's made acceptable, from 10 years ago which was maybe not acceptable to the masses, a more naturalistic, directed dress, style of stories. And also, this new world where people, social media people, can be intriguing to culture and be elevated to newsworthy without knowing who they really are. It used to be that you were just a famous musician or painter or author or film star, and so now, culture is interested in just "normal people" or people that are not from entertainment or the arts so to speak. All this social and reality stuff has made acceptable and caused interest in people, hither to, that have not been looked at as worthy of a story.
What was the first instrument you learned how to play?
The guitar.
What would you say is your favorite instrument to write for, or play, now?
Whatever instrument I'm playing at the time is my favorite instrument. So if you're playing drums, that's amazing. If you're playing saxophone, that's amazing. If you're playing the piano, or the bass, it's all about tone and feel and instruments are such an incredible to be able to interact with and be able to make sounds and control sound and bend it into this emotional language.
Do you have any advice for musicians, composers; songwriters that are trying to get into the industry that you are in?
Keep finding a perspective that's unique. Always find a unique perspective, I guess that would be the advice. Don't try to emulate what you heard or what you think; because as soon as you try to do something what you think is the vital stuff, it's evolved into something else. You always want to have your own perspective and you always want to try to tell the story as truthfully and as directly as possible. Take risks with the music and lyrics and be bold.
Do you have any other projects that you're working on now, or will be coming out in the near future?
With Garnet's Gold it was a profound honor to work with Liza Minnelli and Wynton Marsalis in the song of the grand finale of the film that plays into the end credits. The whole song embodies the entire story and subject of that film and is kind of like its anthem. Then, with Virunga, it's the first time ever that the three biggest artists in Africa are on the same track, so that was a huge honor. For that song, it's really like a celebration of bravery and hope and solidarity and heroism, so that was something that was taken from the story and converted into this anthem, mantra. It's written in five languages. I wrote it in English, and then, translated it to French, which is the lingual franca of the Africa nations that we were working with. From there, we went to Bambara and Serer and Lingala, for each of the respective artist's. For the chorus of the song, it was very important to me that it was in English, so it was absolutely clear that that is the message of the rangers, that we will stay here to protect this park and we will stay and fight to the death to make sure that you know that we don't want it to fall.
Then something that hasn't come out yet is the follow-up to The Cove, which is Racing Extinction, made by the same film makers of The Cove and it will be an expose on species extinction and the oceans and it's an incredibly powerful, beautiful film that travels all over the world to help raise awareness of how rapidly we're affecting the planet, and what we can do to stop it. Then, another film called Meru, which is about the three most prolific mountain climbers and explorers, kind of the Ernest Shackleton's of our day, Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk. They've climbed almost every important mountain in the world and have gone to the furthest reaches of the planet, exploring the unexplorable. This film is their journey to climb, what many consider to be the hardest mountain in the world, it's called Meru.
For more on J. Ralph, check out his website!
