David Garfield

The Los Angeles based keyboard player David Garfield has a long career as a musical director, arranger, composer and producer behind him, and he is still one of the 'Cats' that you always see playing local clubs such as The Baked Potato, Cafe Cordiale, La Ve Lee. You'll also find him on world tours with big acts with likes of George Benson. Over the span of his career, he's scored and recorded for films ('Annie' and 'Always' with J.D. Souther), Television ('Fame' and its five accompanying 'Kids from Fame' recordings), and commercials (Coca Cola, McDonald's, Seven Up).

Over the span of his career, he's scored and recorded for films ('Annie' and 'Always' with J.D. Souther), Television ('Fame' and its five accompanying 'Kids from Fame' recordings), and commercials (Coca Cola, McDonald's, Seven Up). He has produced many albums and appeared on several as a keyboard player, arranger and composer. Along with his active recording career he toured with Earl Klugh, Michael McDonald, Nancy Wilson, Oleta Adams/Luther Vandross, Brenda Russell and many local L.A. acts and has been the musical director for George Benson and Dianne Reeves. He also appeared on The Tonight Show, Arsenio Hall and Solid Gold, and has composed and recorded more than 200 original compositions.

As if that array of challenges weren't enough to satisfy his creative urges, Garfield has led several popular bands rock/jazz/funk/world beat fusion bands in Los Angeles since his arrival in the mid-70s. The first of these was Karizma, which he formed with top session players Carlos Vega, Lenny Castro, Mike Landau and Jimmy Johnson. Karizma played sold out club dates in L.A. for years and released four albums ('Dream Come True', 'Cuba,' 'All The Way Live,' and 'Arms of Love') to great success in Japan, Australia and throughout Europe. At one point, Karizma, which still regroups every so often, also toured extensively, including dates with Sadao Watanabe, Jeff Lorber and the Yellowjackets.



Garfield and longtime friend/collaborator, guitarist Steve Lukather from Toto, formed Los Lobotomys in 1985, and this band has also met with great success in L.A. and abroad. In 1994, Garfield and Lukather produced the guitarist's second solo album 'The Candyman' on Sony International. The project featured Fee Waybill from the Tubes and Simon Phillips, drummer for Toto, and the band embarked on a sell out tour of Europe and Japan, sharing stages with Peter Gabriel, Aerosmith and others.

As is typical of his musical resume, Garfield has worked on a number of unique projects over the past few years, both at home, in Europe and Japan. The Los Lobotomys tour led to a long-term scoring assignment on a German TV show, and he has produced various Japanese artists in addition to working with top Italian singing star Eros Ramazzotti.

Garfield has also performed at Keyboard Magazine's 20th Anniversary Concert at the NAMM show alongside Bruce Hornsby and Joe Zawinul; played at the Modern Drummer magazine's anniversary concert with Steve Ferrone; scored the syndicated TV show 'Sentinel'; sat in with Isaac Hayes and The Blues Brothers at a House of Blues benefit concert; released two DCI instructional videos on how to play rock and roll keyboards; written music for the trailer for the Billy Crystal-Robin Williams comedy 'Father's Day' with James Newton-Howard, and background cues for Good Day L.A. In between these gigs, he was pouring over the logistics and finally the recording sessions for the Tribute to Jeff release.

Garfield also formed a production company, Creatchy Productions. With access to the top studio musicians and state of the art technology, they have offered modern production values to both commercial and experimental projects. Creatchy Productions has released many projects by various artists, and has accessed the Japanese and European market. By continuing to craft world music with Contemporary Jazz and to delve into new international technologies, David Garfield has secured his niche as a visionary in contemporary music.


At first glance, all of these diverse projects may seem to have little in common with his earliest gigs touring and recording with Willie Bobo, Freddie Hubbard and Tom Scott. The Chicago born, New York and St. Louis bred Garfield can summarize his entire, admittedly all encompassing career in three simple words: 'I make music. That's my mission statement. Things developed slowly over time, till I was playing every different kind of music in unique situations.

Always going against the grain, doing music that may not have been the 'in' thing at the time but hanging around until it became popular.'It all goes back to when I was seven years old, first learning the piano,' he adds. 'There seemed like a great spiritual connection there, and I felt compelled to keep playing. I started my life playing rock, Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk and started meeting more and more jazz musicians in St. Louis which made jazz a logical second love for me. It's been an incredible education.'

David Garfield has led many musical projects and one of the cornerstones in his career is the 'Tribute To Jeff' project released in 1997. On May 8th 1992, music lost one of the greatest drummers ever, Jeff Porcaro. He was a big part of the west coast music and L.A. scene through the 70s and 80s. Jeff Porcaro was like a magnet, attracting attention from musicians and fans, and today he still is 'King Of The Groove' because of his very tight drum playing. Making 'Tribute To Jeff' album required a lot of hard work and for David Garfield it took 5 years to finally put the record together and release it. There are many well-known musicians on this album and most of them have played with Jeff Porcaro on albums, tours and gigs. David Garfield has always been very close to the Porcaro family, so he was the right person to make this great album.

David also hosts the yearly Carlos Vega Memorial Birthday, a tribute to his friend Carlos Vega, who introduced him to the Los Angeles music business. Carlos Vega passed away in 1997 and David Garfield keeps the spirit alive with the annual concert every year in December at a local club in Los Angeles.

In 2005, David Garfield and his production company Creatchy Records released the albums 'Tribute To Jeff Revisited' and 'Seasons Of Change', and later that year he went to Europe with Los Lobotomys for a week of gigs and clinics in Denmark.

David is currently working on new releases from both Karizma and Los Lobotomys and will be going to Europe to perform with Russ Miller, Eric Marienthal and John Pe?a in the spring of 2007.