Robert Drasnin

Career[edit]

Robert Drasnin spent the vast majority of his career in music composing for films and television shows. He composed or supervised scores for well over 100 films and TV shows.


In 1955 Drasnin scored the film Teenage Devil Dolls, and his other film scores included Ride in the Whirlwind (1966), Picture Mommy Dead (1966), Daughter of the Mind (1969), The Kremlin Letter (1970), Crowhaven Farm (1970), The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970), Dr. Cook's Garden (1971), A Taste of Evil (1971), The Candy Snatchers (1973), Crisis in Mid-Air (1979) and Love, Mary (1985).^[2] Drasnin also scored incidental music for such notable TV shows as The Twilight Zone, Mission: Impossible, Wild, Wild West, Hawaii Five-0, Time Tunnel, Lost In Space, Mannix, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea.


Robert Drasnin served as music supervisor at CBS for such TV shows as Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone and a host of made for TV movies.


In 1959 Robert Drasnin received his M.A. in music from UCLA in Los Angeles. That same year, while working at Tops Records, Drasnin was approached by David Pell, the head of the label, to create an Exotica album. Pell wanted a record that would cash in on the popularity of the Exotica genre made popular by Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. Drasnin created 12 original compositions and would spend the later part of 1959 recording the record, originally released under the title Voodoo: Exotic Music From Polynesia And The Far East. Among the musical personnel was a young pianist by the name of John Williams who would later go on to score such notable films as Star Wars and Jaws. The LP was released on Tops/Mayfair records in both mono and stereo versions. The cover artwork for the LP featured a photo of a woman in a leopard print bikini dancing as two loin cloth-clad men play bongos in a dark jungle-like setting, bathed in red light. The original cover art was not used in the two different compact disc reissues of the album.


After Army service during the Korean War, he returned to UCLA as a graduate student and became associate conductor of the UCLA Symphony. During the 1950s he also played with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra and Red Norvo's quintet. In 1977 he became Director of Music for the CBS Network.


In 2002, three selections from the 1959 Voodoo album were used in the soundtrack for the documentary film Cinemania: "Desire", "Jardine de la Noche" and "Chant of the Moon".


In 2005 Robert Drasnin was personally invited by Tiki Road Trip author James Teitelbaum to perform at The Hukilau, a 3-day Tiki culture festival in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A 12-piece orchestra was assembled by Teitelbaum under Drasnin's guidance for the performance. The show consisted of selections from his 1959 album Voodoo as well as new Exotica-styled music that he composed after Voodoo. These new pieces would form the basis of the Voodoo II album, released in 2007.


In 2007 Robert Drasnin recorded and released Voodoo II, a follow-up album to his 1959 recording Voodoo. The initial recording was made in February, 2007, at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. The orchestra was recorded live to multi-track digital hard disk using Digital Performer recording software and Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) digital interfaces. The CD was produced by Skip Heller and released on Dionysus records in June 2007. Immediately following the release of Voodoo II, Robert Drasnin again performed at the Hukilau event with an orchestra similar to the 2005 lineup. The 2007 performance comprised compositions from both the Voodoo and Voodoo II releases.


He was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2008.^[3]


Drasnin was also active as an educator, teaching film scoring, orchestration and music theory at Cal State Northridge from 1976 to 1991 and in the Film Scoring program of UCLA Extension from 1993 through 2014.^[4] Bob was a member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists (Hollywood chapter) for many years.