# Mike Lang: The Passing of a Great Man and Musician



## Dave Connor (Aug 6, 2022)

Mike Lang who passed away yesterday Aug 5th, is one of those unquantifiable people you come across in life a few times in fifty years. Your first impression of him (which overwhelms every other) was of a man so humble and honest as to astonish. The fact that he was well known as the best keyboard player in Film, Records and TV made that even more baffling. You sort of couldn't believe the complete lack of ego or putting on airs. I met him in very humble circumstances in my life to which he responded as from one musician to another, without a molecule of condescension. I adored him for that. He then proceeded to give me a carte blanch invitation to any of his sessions. So you find yourself at Disney with Jerry Goldsmith, or Paramount with Lalo Schifrin or Evergreen with Hank Mancini. Or at Universal for a Post and Carpenter, Magnum PI date or a Billy Goldenberg mini series date. Or a Lionel Ritchie record date at Ocean Way. Because all those people wanted Mike on piano or with his arsenal of synths and keys because he could play or read anything - with a ton of insight, feel and groove. Or, very authentic Chopin if you like.

He once told me of a film date where a producer handed him a very difficult excerpt from a Liszt piano concerto he was expected to play at sight! (explaining how completely unrealistic producers expectations could be.) His response was, "give me a minute." At his home once he was giving me a tour of a freshly unpacked keyboard no one had seen yet called a DX7. I'll never forget standing in the orchestra next to Mike when Jerry Goldsmith walked up to him to hand him his own programmed sounds for that instrument, and then hearing those scintillating sounds in the middle of the orchestra. It just transported you. Thanks Mike, for one of the greatest musical experiences of my life.

Mike was a music connoisseur of the highest order. He had a basement in his home that was the size of a library room and functioned that way. There was row after row of beige file cabinets all filled with meticulously catalogued music. I'm sure you would find everything in there from Frank Zappa charts to Beethoven symphonies to Gesualdo. Not to mention a staggering collection of piano music. It was his command of styles that put him in such huge demand whether it was on The Sting or Pearl Harbor. He could do anything. One time chatting with his wife at the time Karen, she said, "Mike's really excited, he gets to play like Teddy Wilson at a session today!"

The last time I spoke with Mike was when he played piano on a film I worked on, Daddy's Home 2. Everyone had left for lunch but he was sitting at the piano improvising these two handed arpeggio's with gorgeous harmonies. A guy who's done 10,000 sessions wants to hang around and play a little bit when everyone else has bolted. My last words to him were telling him how beautiful that improvisation was.

The amazing thing is that the sadness around losing one of the best musicians of our time is that the grief is dominated by the quality of the man himself and not just his bottomless talent. Mike Lang was not just one of the greatest musicians anywhere but one of the greatest people. We should add that lesson to our music lessons I'm sure. He is greatly missed already.

Mike’s IMDB page: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0485854/


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