I’ve been involved with music my entire life. It’s all I’ve ever done.

As a kid, I started with piano, guitar and clarinet. By my teens I had dropped the clarinet, focused on guitar and picked up the electric bass. In college I added upright bass to the ensemble and started playing classical music.

I started playing gigs on guitar and bass in junior high school. We played all the current pop hits and lots of surf music. As the years rolled on rock became a stronger focus: Cream, Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Clapton, Stones, Beatles and the like.

In my senior year in high school I started gigging professionally for college parties in the greater Los Angeles area. I’d do whatever gigs came my way and was involved with a few original groups as well.

The piano became a strong focus in college as I studied composition and conducting. Life was pretty full. I was working as a bassist doing shows, concerts and private parties in a vast array of pop styles, writing music on guitar and piano and playing orchestral music with the Santa Monica Symphony two or three seasons a year. Rock to funk to Mozart and Beethoven: life was not boring!

Throughout college I became involved with jazz, free-form improvisation and world music. I also learned my first real funk and R&B licks when I worked with Sly Stone’s producer, Clarence McDonald, and did some club work and concerts in Japan. Also, in 1974 I did my first pro Latin gig with Latin/Jazz monster “Willie Bobo.” (There’s nothing like learning Cuban music from a Cuban musician!)

Once through with formal Schooling I hit the streets as a full time working player. In the mid- to late-seventies my career took me through the styles of Dixie, Disco, Country, Pop, Broadway, Vegas Cabaret acts, Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Reggae, Ska, Calypso, Middle Eastern music, Motown and various pop and R & B styles. These gigs have been in night clubs, discotheques, organ lofts, coliseums, Top 40 hotels, concert halls, civic auditoriums, Knott’s Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, and almost any place you can imagine.

Gigs in the ’80s were of a slightly different nature. Concurrent with various freelance gigs, I recorded for Warner Bros., Crescendo records, Capital Records, and played on many cartoon tracks. I was the musical director for singer showcases and the band leader of a local casual band called Raw Silk for many years. Additionally, I played with the SRO Big Bands, performing for anything from weddings to highly formal parties with or for people like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra and Johnny Carson.

At the beginning of ‘80s I also started teaching and got use to the teaching chair. I knew what it took to BE a musician and throughout these years I learned how to teach and get someone else to achieve their musical goals. (YOU!) I had many of stellar teachers as well as a few bad ones. By the ‘90s I had experienced teaching as well as being taught in both formal and informal situations.

The ‘90s carried on as usual with the exception of starting my book publishing company, Sonata Publishing. By 1993 I had been asked the same questions about the music biz so many times that I wrote a book answering all of the questions. It’s received rave reviews and you can read about my books at the Sonata Publishing website.

Also throughout the ’90s I was the musical director/conductor for actress/singer Karen Black in her singing and theatrical show A View of the Heart. The show has performed in Los Angeles, San Diego, New York and San Francisco to standing-room-only audiences. (After a few years focusing on acting, Ms. Black is getting back into doing her show and I’ll let you know when we’ll be next performing.)

Throughout these years to the present I’ve worked with the Drifters, the Ink spots, Edgar Winter, Martha and the Van Dellas, Ray Charles and many others. I’ve played a good share of musicals, hundreds of casuals (private parties) and various club gigs including Las Vegas/Reno cabaret acts, reggae groups, swing groups, big bands, celebrity look alikes, Polynesian shows, disco and R&B acts, Broadway-type acts, comedy acts, award ceremonies, Latin acts and amusement park show bands.

I’ve recorded jingles for NBC and CBS, needle drop libraries for Capitol Records and Soap Opera incidental music All of My Children and Desperate Housewives, as well as a few Rock, Gospel and reggae/calypso albums and hundreds of songwriter demos mostly in the styles of pop, funk, country, soul and R&B.

For the past thirty-five years I’ve been a local working guy playing music and it’s been a blast!

I currently live in Glendale, California, am freelancing, composing, writing charts of others (being a music copyist) and teaching bass, guitar and keyboard. I’ve recently rekindled my songwriting and composing life and am mastering materials to shop, playing with some original groups around LA and getting my book publishing company back in motion after taking a few years off .

You can hear a few of my projects by going to my MySpace site, and you can see more about me and my writings at my book publishing site.

CLICK HERE to go to Buttwinick Musical Services

Marty B.