Gabriel Mann (singer)
Gabriel Mann (January 17, 1973, born Gabriel Shabbtai Rutman) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for the songs he has written for various TV series and films. He was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. r
Biography
Mann is the youngest of four children, born to a physician who doubled as an Orthodox Jewish cantor and a pianist mother. Since he was young, he had this influence in his life, although his songs are of a different kind of music. At the age of seven, he began to study piano.
Two years later, Mrs. Kocurek became his piano teacher. She taught him how to learn songs by listening to the radio. Training his ears and hands, Mrs. Kocurek realized the gift of Mann. His classical music studies were based upon Debussy, Bartók and Crumb.
According to him, his experiences with pop music were self-guided, being that his parents didn't listen to this kind of music. His first LP was Billy Joel´s Glass Houses, bought from a friend. He also listened to his sisters collection of records, which included The Cars, Rolling Stones, Eagles, Yes and Elton John. Reading and typing out the lyrics of the songs he listened to opened his eyes to the songwriting process.
He began composing songs in Middle school, most of which were influenced by Elton John. At the end of his senior year, Mann signed up for the annual Alamo Heights High talent show as a way to showcase his talent. When he performed Billy Joel's Vienna, it was a sensation.
Career
It didn't last long, because in the following year he moved on to Israel, during the Gulf War crisis. Now he was playing songs in public places. This time, too, he interacted with other musicians, like Josh Ross.
In the next year he enrolled in University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in musical composition. As a freshman, he joined Off the Beat, the campus a cappella group for which he ultimately became musical director and then went on to join the university choir.
During his college years, he was approached by a functionary of Philadelphia-based Ruff House Records who gave him the chance to professionally record four songs.
After college, he moved to Los Angeles where he enrolled in USC's Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program. The course of the study was headed by Buddy Baker, a prominent composer for TV and movies. To get into the program, Mann wrote arrangements for orchestra, big band and pop and was accepted.
He launched his own band while in school, named The Electric Sausage Nightmare Band. He began to work for various composers for TV, like David Schwartz and Russ Landau. But it wasn't enough, and he began to record his own compositions. So, he launched another band: The Gabriel Mann Situation, a trio that included Adam Marcello and Carson Cohen. They´ve opened for the Rolling Stones as a sidemen with Tim Burgess of Charlatans UK. Their work was also showed on TV show Arrested Development.
Living in Los Angeles, he has performed live in Hotel Café, where an entire community of singer-songwriters has been performing, too.
The soundtrack for the 2004 film Sleepover Sleepover included the Gabriel Mann song "Remember", which helped introduce his music to a wider audience. Also in 2004 Mann began recording songs for his new album.
His band has also performing as part of Alanis Morissette´s European Tour in April 2005, with Glenn Tilbrook in the USA in May of the same year, and for Jamie Cullum, across North America.
Mann is a member of The North La Brea All-Star Conquistadors, a group consisting of singer-songwriters Mann, Adrianne, Garrison Starr, and Jay Nash.