Just A Song & Dance Man
March 5, 2010Michael Jackson’s life was so mythologised it’s often forgetten a working artist lay behind the fame and controversy. On the eve of the DVD release of This Is It, MAG spoke to a handful of the late Jackson’s collaborators about his working life. By Dan Rule
Travis Payne’s memories of Michael Jackson are not of an aggrandised ‘king of pop’, or a contentious, controversial figure. For the long-time Jackson collaborator, and associate producer/choreographer of This Is It, Jackson was the hardest of workers.
“He would lead by example in a way that so few do,” says Payne, who began working with Jackson in the early ’90s, after a stint as a dancer on Janet Jackson’s 1990 Rhythm Nation tour. “He made it his business to make sure he knew everybody’s job, what everybody did onstage, and off.”
“Someone that in tune — someone who cared enough about those details — is a rarity in this business,” he continues. “In a production of such a large scale it gets compartmentalised, but Michael blurred the lines. He hired people for their area of expertise: then pushed them further.”
It’s a side of the Jackson paradigm lost in the media hyperbole in the wake of his sudden death in June 2009. But with the release of This Is It on DVD, which covers the intense preparation for Jackson’s most ambitious live experience ever — an ultimately unrealised 50-show, sold-out series of concerts London’s 02 Arena — Payne, producer Michael Bearden and director Kenny Ortega made it their mission to expound a legendary artist in his element.
“This is the first real glimpse into Michael the creator,” says Payne. “These were Michael’s cameras that were running, so he was at his most comfortable. He was onstage, surrounded by people he brought into his life at different times and everyone he wanted there was there. He was the architect; “It didn’t speak of him as a father, son, (or) brother, but that’s not what this film was about. It was about his art. We set out to create a legacy piece, but it turned into so many other things: a ‘how to’, a love note to the fans.”
Twenty-five-year-old Australian guitarist Orianthi Panagaris, who Jackson handpicked to play on the This Is It tour, remembers a creator in full control. “He was sweet and polite offstage, and then he would get up there and become larger than life,” she says. “Onstage Michael Jackson commanded everything.”
Legendary ex-Guns ’N’ Roses guitarist Slash worked with Jackson on several projects in the ‘90s, and recalls an artist who was more assertive and driven than his passive demeanour suggested. “He definitely knew what he wanted, how he wanted things to go, but he’d also be doing the same thing that everyone else was doing,” he says. “There might be 50 dancers, but he was in sync with them all. He didn’t demand any more from them than he did of himself. I think the integrity and the perseverance to be really, really good at what you do is the one thing that you definitely learn from Michael.”
Payne concurs. “You were creating at the highest level, a level that transcends,” he says. “Working with Michael in that environment for so many years really lets you know what’s possible; how to apply that kind of magic.”
This Is It is out now through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
