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Former North Valley resident Robb Janov, right, poses with actor Ed Harris on the set of “Sweetwater,” a Western that was filmed south of Santa Fe. (Courtesy of Robb Janov)
Former North Valley resident and professional musician Robb Janov recently had a different kind of performance experience.
Janov, who recently moved closer to his work where he teaches music at Jefferson Middle School near Lomas and Girard NE, had a bit role in the Western movie “Sweetwater,” which stars Ed Harris and January Jones.
The movie – filmed south of Santa Fe – debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It’s due to be released to theaters later this year.
Janov, who plays an electric violin in many bands around New Mexico and also teaches the innovative “Rock and Rhythm” class at Jefferson, is a member of a ragtag band of musicians warbling through a rocky rendition of “Blue Danube Waltz” as Ed Harris pummels a corrupt sheriff.
It was a quite a different experience from teaching seventh- and eighth-graders with little musical experience how to play “Green Onions,” but Janov said it forced him to draw upon some of his own classroom savvy.
“This was really the first movie I have ever done. All my teaching and my TED talk prepared me,” he said, referring to a presentation he made to the TEDxABQ 2012, which aims to unlock the creative and economic potential of New Mexicans through events that draw out inspiring ideas, generate meaningful connections and foster innovation.
“This was all tied in,” Janov said of that presentation. “I did some acting. I presented a violin. I did a whole presentation. They all felt tied together. Those things seem very connected to me especially since a teacher uses his skills in the classroom to play and act.”
Janov and fellow musicians sawed away on their instruments while Harris dances through town. Cutaways show the group, with Janov decked out in an Old West duster, in the middle of the street before Harris enters a building.
Toward the end of the scene, Harris throws the sheriff out into the street and the music suddenly stops. The camera pans to the group, who are open-mounted in amazement.
“It was a blast,” Janov said. “I had a lot of fun just watching the whole process and how elaborate the whole process is. It was so professional. Everybody knew what they were doing.”
Except perhaps the musicians themselves.
The original plan, he said, was for the musicians, who had never even met until showing up on set, to mime playing to a recorded track.
“They wanted musicians that really play instruments so it looked like we were really playing,” Janov said. “And we expected them to play some music on a speaker and we would play along. It made sense because Ed Harris was dancing through town there wasn’t any dialogue so we thought they could just crank the music, we’ll mime and then they can add the professional recording or they would go in a studio and record it themselves.”
Robb Janov, who teaches music at an Albuquerque middle school, poses in his Western garb on the set of “Sweetwater.” (Courtesy of Robb Janov)
Instead, “I heard two or three seconds of the music, then it stopped and people were shuffling around. And then somebody said, ‘We need to check out a few things, just play the song.’ That was a bit of a jolt to all of us because we never rehearsed it. We didn’t have music. There was not music given to us. We were just thrown in. So we were grinding through the song as best we could, including a kid on a trumpet. It was pretty rough. It was painful for us.”
And when they were finished, they heard, “that was fantastic. That was exactly what we want. We don’t want this to sound like a professional studio recording. Real musicians at this time, it would go up and down. There would be moments when it would sound kind of good and then it would really clunk out at various points.”
It was quite the jolt to a professional musician.
“I hated the way it sounded,” Janov said. ” It got better as the day went on, but I thought, ‘Oh man, this is kind of embarrassing to play so bad.’ They had a vision for it and I think they got it.”
It was a nice life lesson for the teacher, though.
“I love that my teaching here every day and having to be up in front of people every day helped,” he said. “All my practicing, playing music, helped. I feel that as a teacher, in some ways, I’m on stage all day. And I have to be both my authentic self and also my teacher-self a little bit, too. I want to be as authentic as I can, but within the parameters of teaching. It’s a challenge every day. I think that’s why I’m intrigued by acting.”
— This article appeared on page 16 of the Albuquerque Journal
