That’s just the way it is
What do Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and filmmaker Spike Lee have in common?
They all had a hand in Grammy-winning pianist Bruce Hornsby’s daring new album, “Absolute Zero.” As you can imagine, it’s stylistically unclassifiable and enrichingly trippy.
Hornsby, 64, has been scoring Lee’s projects — mostly his indie films and the Netflix series “She’s Gotta Have It” — for over a decade. They met when Lee directed some videos for Hornsby in 1995.
“I’ve written 230-plus pieces of music for Lee ranging from one minute long to four minutes,” said Hornsby. “Lots of these instrumental pieces — we call them cues — are fully formed. They wanted to be developed into songs.
“Fully six or seven of the songs on ‘Absolute Zero’ have their origin in Spike Lee film cues.”
It was a “crazy, intangible, strange process,” he said, “putting words to an already completed musical picture.”
His process with Hunter is also unconventional. The pianist, who toured with the Dead from 1990 to ’92 and has since sat in with various Dead musicians, had teamed up with Hunter on three previous pieces before working on “Take You There (Misty)” for this new album.
Hunter reached out to him in 2008. They’ve been writing longdistance ever since.
“It’s a bit like Elton John and Bernie Taupin in the sense that Bernie would write the lyrics and send them to Elton,” said Hornsby. “I haven’t seen Bob Hunter since 1997 at the second Furthur Festival at Alpine Valley” in Wisconsin.
As for Vernon, the Bon Iver frontman has long been a fan of Hornsby. In 2015, he invited the pianist to join him for “Black Muddy River” on a Dead tribute record.
The next year, Hornsby performed his entire 1986 debut album “The Way It Is” at Vernon’s Eaux Claires festival. In 2017, Hornsby was a special guest during Bon Iver’s performance at the Coachella fest in California.
“When Justin starts singing in an isolation booth at a recording studio, the air changes in the room,” Hornsby observed. “There’s excitement and possibilities because he’s such a creative force. He has his own unique vision and approach. He brings a ton to the table. And he’s a great person and a great hang. That’s a fairly unbeatable combination.”
Other Eaux Claires performers ended up on “Absolute Zero,” including the Brooklyn chamber group y Music and British harmonizers the Staves as well as guitarist Blake Mills and esteemed jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette.
Vernon and Hornsby have worked on several tunes together. Hornsby appears on Bon Iver’s new single “U (Man Like)” — from the group’s fourth album, “I, I” (due Aug. 30) — while Vernon sings on Hornsby’s new “Cast Off.” Both were recorded last year in Vernon’s studio near Eau Claire, Wis., along with a few other tunes.
Hornsby welcomes collaboration and he loves improvisation. His 20 studio albums have explored jazz, electronica blues, Americana, bluegrass (with Ricky Skaggs), Appalachian (he played dulcimer) and all kinds of experimental sounds. His signature hit, “The Way It Is,” was, as he describes it, a folkie tune about racism with two jazz piano solo improvisations.