In 2006 the world lost Arif Mardin, a classic (and classy) record producer and arranger who'd originally worked at Atlantic Records for over 30 years, producing hits for artists like The Bee Gees, Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, Hall & Oates, and later working with singers like Norah Jones and Jewel. Recently the Grammy nominated documentary The Greatest Ears in Town: The Arif Mardin Story was released on DVD, and it's a loving tribute to the man and the producer. While I was watching this film I began to notice the presence of Joe Mardin, Arif's son, who acted as co-director (with Doug Biro), producer, and sometimes interviewer for the film. He even co-mixed the soundtrack with Arif Mardin's longtime engineer, Michael O'Reilly. [see sidebar] I was curious what Joe's life was like growing up in the Mardin family, and how he'd also followed a career of music production, engineering, writing, arranging, conducting, and even drumming. I visited Joe at his Manhattan-based NuNoise Studio for a journey into remembering his father's career and how it has affected his own life.

It's great to see a film tribute to your father.

Thanks. He was such a behind-the-scenes guy for most of his career. He became a little bit more interested in the later years, in terms of doing photo ops and such, but he generally wasn't concerned with keeping a public profile. Luckily there's an amazing amount of goodwill in the industry from people who do know. I walk up to people at AES and give them the flyer about this film, and they're so happy that it's happening. They're happy not only because they knew and loved Arif, but also because they know that it's important — for music and the concept of record making — to share with a younger audience how records were made by producers who were first and foremost advocates for the artists.

I think one of the other key points that comes up is arranging and how important it is.

That's where he started. He grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, where both my parents are from. He became not just a jazz fanatic, but also a bebop fanatic in the mid '50s when he was a teenager. He was into Dizzy [Gillespie], Bird [Charlie Parker], and Duke [Ellington]. He'd also tell me stories about the first time he'd listened to Alban Berg's Lyric Suite for string quartet.

I want to connect our readers with films like this, as well as the history of our field.

Yes, I'm very proud of the film, for many reasons, but we're so lucky and honored to have interviews with Sir George Martin, Phil Ramone [Tape Op #50], Quincy Jones, Russ Titelman, Hugh Padgham [#55], and my dad. They kind of form a symposium or summit of record production.

I love that the documentary has so much footage of Arif's final record, All My Friends Are Here, and that we get to watch him interact with the artists.

People work so differently. It's unfortunate that people say, "Oh, that's this way of making a record," or "That's that way of making a record." Arif produced [Chaka Khan's] "I Feel For You," and he cut the half-inch, 2-track tape and created all of those wildly creative edits himself. He had measurements of what a quarter note and an eighth note was on the wall. The man who could sit there with the score and an orchestra and conduct, or could collaborate with Bette Midler on the interpretation of a lyric, could also sit there and cut tape.

Your father had gone to Berklee College of Music at Quincy Jones' suggestion, right?

Yeah, Quincy came through the Middle East, parts of Europe, and northern Africa on a State Department sponsored tour with Dizzy Gillespie. He was playing trumpet and writing charts. When they came to Turkey, Quincy said they met in Ankara. My dad must have traveled there, because he lived in Istanbul. They struck up a friendship very quickly. My father said, "I have a score I could show you." Quincy asked to see it. He took a look at it and thought, "Wow, this young man has some talent for writing for big bands, as well as with harmonies." Dad was totally self-taught. Somehow in 1957 my dad got commissioned to write three or four themes and orchestrations for a small jazz ensemble for Voice of America. He wrote and orchestrated the compositions and sent the charts to Quincy, who put together a little Who's Who of jazz musicians of the day to record these arrangements. Then Berklee School of Music was looking for the first recipient of Quincy's scholarship, and he sent them a tape and said, "I think we've got our guy!" Dad was still in Istanbul, and not even married to my mother yet. He got the letter, and my grandfather didn't want him to go. My father was being groomed for the family business [Turkish Petroleum]. He ended up marrying my mom in September of 1957. In January '58, in the middle of the school year, he landed in Boston and started his studies at Berklee.

When you were growing up, your dad was making records and producing. What did you know about his career and what did you think of it? Did it seem unusual?

I was born in 1963, so I was just starting to come of age as my dad was making Aretha Franklin records. Can you imagine going to the studio at Atlantic Records with your dad as a little brat and watching him work with Aretha, The Bee Gees, Average White Band, Roberta Flack, and Donny Hathaway? I don't know how I could have chosen to do anything else in life. I was too young and naive to think that it would be hard. It was an amazing way to grow up, with all of these extraordinary people. My parents were so down-to-earth. For all of my dad's success, they kept a normal home life.

They both talk in the movie about the long hours.

There was certainly that. He'd keep my mother waiting sometimes, and he couldn't be there all the time. But when something was important, he'd be there.

Do you remember your first time going into a studio?

I remember going to Atlantic in the late '60s, probably when I was five or six years old. It was either Tom Dowd working with my dad, or maybe an Aretha session. Those are the first vague memories I have. Certainly in the early '70s, I remember being there for the session for Aretha's "Until You Come Back to Me." I was nine or ten years old. I remember the 16-track days of Atlantic Studios very well. By the time I was in high school I was spending all my free time there. I was kind of a brat hanging out, and they would let me mix. I'd go into the tape library, find safeties of multitracks, and, if there was a free room, they'd allow me to practice mixing. Whatever I did at that point was lousy, but it was incredible to be in that environment. To be in a studio as a teenager in 1978 when the [Rolling] Stones are coming in and working on live albums... not that I was hanging with them, but they were around in the halls.

I can't believe you got to hang out and play with mixes.

It was unbelievable. Around that time, Gene Paul was doing a solo project with Hamish Stuart from Average White Band. I was getting a little older, like 16 maybe. Gene said, "I'm going to give you these tracks, and I'd like you to do rough mixes for us." It was like a little assignment. I think he told me to make sure that the kick peaked at -3 and that the bass peaked at 0. It might have been the other way around. I followed that, and I managed to make acceptable rough mixes for them. I had wonderful experiences like that with these people who really accepted me, nurtured me, and were kind to me at Atlantic. Nobody called me Joe — I was Joey to everybody.

You could have been seen as a nuisance.

I probably was, to a certain extent. At the end of the day my father wouldn't have allowed me to be around much if I were being a brat. My parents were very good parents, and they would put us in our place if we needed to be. I certainly was put in my place enough times!

Were you learning instruments?

My first and main instrument, oddly enough, is drums. I really should have become a piano player, but I didn't have the patience for it around that age. But I'd still be at the piano learning chords and writing songs.

Did you take drum lessons early on?

I studied very little. I had one lesson with Bernard Purdie that I can remember. We're still friendly to this day. It's phenomenal how fortunate I was. I was in the studio with my dad watching sessions with Steve Gadd and Steve Ferrone, eventually Jeff Porcaro. I got to watch those guys, get pointers, and eventually work with some of them. It was unbelievable.

Was it your father's suggestion to go to Berklee, as he had gone there?

No. My dad had become a black sheep of the family because of his love of jazz music. My parents were very hands-off about what I would choose. They said, "Don't be a bum, but do whatever you want and make yourself happy." It was only years later that I found out my mother was dreading my going into music, because she knew how hard it was. My dad was totally supportive and encouraging from that point on.

So Berklee was your choice?

It was. I decided pretty early on that I was going to go there. It just made sense.

Did you study drums, or did you focus on recording and arrangement?

I worked with some incredible teachers and studied classical snare drum. No matter your major, they still demand a certain level of proficiency with your instrument. I was playing in big bands. I focused on composition and arranging, without majoring in it. I studied with most of the major guys at Berklee, like the fabulous Herb Pomeroy. My father had studied with him. He was a brilliant jazz educator and musician. He codified his own system of how he thought Duke Ellington harmonized melodies. It was a class called Line Writing. It was very technical and fascinating, but at the end of the day also very musical. I was trying to get away from the drums, but I'm grateful that they didn't let me. I was playing in ensembles that performed concerts at Berklee, as well as the occasional gig outside of school. It was a lot of work. Nowadays I'm sure they all probably have to learn to use Sibelius or Finale, and can print out their parts. But we would stay up into the middle of the night copying out parts, and trying to make sure we didn't make too many mistakes.

What were your first steps after Berklee?

My first professional gig happened while I was still in Berklee. I was working on a project with a buddy of mine at Berklee named Alec Milstein. He's a bass player who lives in L.A. and has worked with a lot of different people. We had a project together of three songs. My dad happened to play one of the songs to Chaka Khan called "Caught in the Act" while they were working on an album. Alec and I were doing a demo to try and get our band a deal, and my father was producing us. Chaka heard it and said, "I've gotta have that. That's mine!" Bless her, because it wasn't nepotism. She genuinely loved this track that we had. She put her vocals on it and we didn't change the key — it was in a key more for a man — and she sang it in this wonderful register. That appeared on the I Feel for You album. That was fun to have in my last year at Berklee. Later my dad brought me in on a bunch of projects. I produced a band called New Man for Epic, but nothing ended up happening. We got great reviews in Billboard, Record World, and Cashbox. It was sort of baptism by fire producing and working on lots of projects in New York in the mid '80s. It's been a journeyman's existence.

What have you done since then?

All sorts of different projects, through the years. My dad and I worked together with Aretha, Bette Midler, Boy Meets Girl, Raúl Midón, and Anita Baker. I also did string arrangements for artists like Whitney Houston, Corey Glover, Paul Carrack, and even A-ha!

When did you start to move into being more hands-on with engineering?

I used to mix live sound when I was in high school. I know it's the time of specialization, where some people only write or do certain jobs, but I feel like the whole production is part of a vision in a certain way. I think you could say that's my father's fault, because my dad would write an arrangement and go in and cut it with the band. In the early days of Atlantic, up until the mid '70s, he'd be in the mix room mixing by himself. I thought that's what a producer did. You're behind the console, you might have to cut tape, you write arrangements — you do all of these things. I never thought of those as being separate. I do most of those duties on the projects I work on now.

What projects have you done lately?

This year I produced half of a Christmas album for Jewel [Let it Snow] and we co-wrote a couple new Christmas songs. I produced an album for Elliott Sharp [Sky Road Songs] a couple of years ago for his Terraplane blues project, which features my debut as a lead vocalist on "Banking Blues." Elliott's a great presence on the New York downtown scene. As far as I know, it was the last album that the late, great Hubert Sumlin performed on, and he recorded in here. It was fantastic. I've got these NYU students who come to me. I mixed an album for a great little group called the The Bailen Brothers [Must Be Mistaken]. I'm currently producing and co-writing with Melody Noel, an NYU senior at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. She already has a publishing deal. Super talented, and very pop. I also released an album of my electronic music [Fairytales Interrupted] that I wrote to accompany an exhibition of digital artwork by my sister, Julie Mardin.

What do you see in the future of your career?

I'm always very pleased to see in Tape Op how affordable and powerful technology has aided many engineers and producers in having great careers, and making records in their own spaces in new ways. But I'm also sure many of your readers also find how labor-intensive it's become making records, how everybody knows there's the "safety net" of the DAW and the plug-ins, and how this affects the workflow for everyone. Sometimes it's, "I have limited time and budget so let me get this session done," because you know you can play god and fix it. The musician(s) might be thinking the same thing. It's all a very Marshall McLuhan type of world. One skill becomes dominant while another skill gets diminished. I'd like to do more writing, but it's a dilemma for me because I love producing records. If I co-write a song with an artist, I love to be able to take it to its natural conclusion. But there are diminishing returns to sitting in a studio for months on end in front of a computer screen. I'm very ambivalent about that going into the future. I miss the days of seeing people in more of a collaborative effort. Of course that still exists, but not as much as or how it used to.

I've heard some people comment that perhaps producers are a dying breed, which is terrifying.

We also have to ask ourselves, "What is a producer today?" The modern music producer is just as likely to have their own clothing and fragrance lines with appearances on Page Six rather than being someone who spends most of their time in darkened rooms in front of speakers. I say that jokingly, but there is truth to the modern producer becoming more an entrepreneur, and more famous (or perhaps more infamous?) than the artists they are producing. Ever more powerful technology at ever decreasing prices has also been a double-edged sword, democratizing record making while also contributing to marginalizing or ending careers. The economics of digital downloads and streaming has also wreaked havoc on the possibility of a musical middle class. I remember seeing interviews with working actors talking about how in the '90s they'd have the occasional commercial, appearances on a major sitcom or movie, maybe voiceover work, and they would have viable careers. Reality TV, combined with the technologies of the Internet and cable, have wreaked havoc on that too. It's not exactly analogous but I also think a lot about the so called Golden Age of the Hollywood Studio System and the pool of directors, editors, cinematographers, composers, and script writers working together every day, every week, earning a living while often becoming masters of their respective crafts. The same was of course true in recording studios, with session musicians, engineers, producers and arrangers working together daily, not to mention the training and grooming of up and coming talent that this system offered. I do lament that no longer being the norm. One wonders if some of the great artists in the '60s, if they had to have many more responsibilities and wear many more hats, if their creative output would have been the same.

Well, if Bette Midler had to write her own charts, that'd be a different perspective.

Yes, and it would be wonderful if it was by choice but not by necessity. When I see arranger friends of mine, I jokingly say, "Doctor, it's nice to see you." Producers and engineers are like doctors. You bring us your music, and we're like psychologists trained to be of service to you. Quincy Jones speaks to this in the film. People who practice, cultivate themselves, and refine their abilities and skills; it's important for culture and society that what these people do affords them a livelihood.

What do you think are the most important lessons you took from your father on music and record production?

My father was a very unpretentious person, and he wouldn't ever say to someone, "This is how you do it. Watch me." He would just do it. If you were intelligent enough to pay attention, you would really learn. The way that he would deal with artists to engender trust, as well as an atmosphere of safety... I can't say enough how that's affected how I approach situations with some of these people who I'm lucky enough to be in the room with. If you give them the respect and room to do what they do — but at the same time you're not a "yes person" — as my dad would say — that comes back to you and the trust builds. I can't thank him enough for letting me be there and watch him do it. When I'd be hanging out at Atlantic and huge rock bands were in, I'd hear about big name producers from the assistant engineers. The band would do a take, and the producer would press the talkback and say, "That was a great take, except the bass player totally blew it in the last chorus." It's an environment of fear, an environment for boys, so to speak. It may be very effective, in a certain way, but it's not even conceivable that my dad would have done such a thing; even in a situation where he was producing the most testosterone-charged artist, he never would have done that. He would always try to create an atmosphere of friendliness, trust, and creativity. I have to also add that he completed the string arrangement to "No Way Out," one of the songs on All My Friends are Here, from his bed the night before he passed away. I think that may have been his greatest lesson of how to live one's life. I had the honor and privilege to conduct that arrangement when we recorded it two months later.

You see some of that from the footage for All My Friends are Here in the film.

Yeah. Robin and Barry Gibb from The Bee Gees said Arif would say, "Let's do it. But let's not do it tomorrow, let's do it tonight." Daryl Hall says that Dad would focus in on the originality or the eccentricities of every artist that he worked with. When I was 20, and he was in his 40s, he'd made so many records and done so many different things.

He'd say, "Let's sample the demo from the cassette and put it on a key." That would end up becoming some weird sound that was part of the hook. But he got to the point of doing such unorthodox things because he'd done it the "right" way a so many times. I don't think it was a matter of boredom. But you start to see how you can break the rules and come up with new ideas by not getting too comfortable in your professionalism and experience. My father would take this Zen approach and see where the creativity took us. He taught me not to get too complacent about being a "professional."

My favorite part of the film was your dad saying, "That was perfect. Let's try one more."

That was his catchphrase for years. He was notorious. That was his diplomacy. It was really like, "You do need to do another one, but I'm not going to tell you to do another one."