Glen Ballard Explores a New Side of Paris Through the Live Music of Netflix’s ‘The Eddy’

Glen Ballard, Songwriter and Executive Producer of The Eddy, speaks with Awards Daily about how he took his passion for jazz, the city of Paris, and how they both cultivate some of our most resilient artists on a 10+ year journey  to become one of the most audacious television musicals of the 21st century.

Six-time Grammy winner Glen Ballard didn’t set out to create a traditional television musical. Instead The Eddy is the culmination of years of hard work that began over a decade ago when Ballard started writing dozens of songs that would eventually become the genesis of the show. From there, he formed the titular band, partnered with songwriter Randy Kerber and producer Alan Poul, and the rest is history. The Eddy is a true passion project in every sense of the word that comes at a point in his career to channel his music into a grander storytelling pursuit.

What Ballard is perhaps most proud of is the fact that utilizing the diversely talented group of musicians that makeup the band The Eddy, the entire discography (which includes dozens of songs repeating throughout the series) was recorded live on set. It’s an accomplishment rarely done in film and television, especially across an eight episode series shot on film.

Speaking with Awards Daily, songwriter and executive producer Glen Ballard walked us through the decade long process of bringing The Eddy to life as well as how the show is a universal story and one that will appeal to everyone who appreciates art and the honest connection between an audience and performer.

Awards Daily: You’ve had a long and illustrious career in the music industry and while you’ve worked in film and television before I believe your work with The Eddy is the most hands on you’ve ever been with a series working as executive producer, you wrote the music & lyrics, and music director. What made The Eddy the project that inspired you to take on a more hands on role?

Glen Ballard: At this phase in my career as a songwriter I am looking for opportunities for the songs to be a part of a larger storytelling enterprise. I’ve done a lot of musical theatre and I have some experience with movie musicals. I did a picture with Bob Zemeckis in 2005 called The Polar Express. I’m currently working on adapting Back to the Future for the stage. A lot of what I am doing right now is using songs as part of the songwriting vocabulary.

In terms of The Eddy I really wanted to write a bunch of jazz songs, I wanted to have a band to perform them, and I wanted a club in Paris for that band to perform in. It’s a pretty tall order but that’s exactly what we did. I’ve been interested in jazz my whole life; it’s a genre that has been largely neglected from new songwriting. My attitude was that I wanted to write new jazz songs and that was the genesis of the whole project. I began writing these songs in 2007/2008 and just kept writing and eventually brought it to producer Alan Poul. It all began with the music. I’m looking for ways to tell a larger story and be able to use songwriting as part of that vocabulary.

AD: I read that over the years you wrote 60 songs that you and the rest of the team used to construct the overall story. Throughout that entire songwriting process did you write each song knowing they would be part of a larger piece or did that not come until later?

GB: It was always that high concept connection. The song lyrics, either obliquely or directly, always referenced Paris, the streets of Paris, the circumstances of the city – it was always a deep dive into this concept of reinventing the idea of musicians in this city. We wanted to be what is new about Paris and Jazz as opposed to a quiz of what viewers already knew.

AD: American audiences are used to a very specific and limited portrayal of Paris but the show depicts a very different side of the city that has yet to be portrayed in American media. It’s a culturally diverse portrayal blending the stories of immigrants including Black Americans, North Africans, and Eastern Europeans. How did you incorporate that into the music?  

GB: It’s happening naturally in the city already. The Moroccan and Algerian influence is profound. Paris’s relationship with North Africa is complicated, deep, and rich so you hear a lot of music with these influences. I think of myself as a part-time Parisian because I’ve lived in and out of the city for most of my adult life so I’ve always been interested in that cultural influence and you just hear it everywhere. There’s a rhythmic quality, we used key instruments like a guembri.

A lot of people have this idea that jazz is this fixed unchanging genre but the whole concept of jazz is that it does change; it is kaleidoscopic. For us, it was an enriching quality to have the ingredients of North African music and of some Eastern European music and still have it be jazz. This is the one genre where you can start here and end up in an entirely new place. The places where this music was being created and where these people live are on the fringes of Paris so it’s kind of a metaphor of the outside looking in.

AD: The titular song of The Eddy bookends the series with two very different versions of the song. I’m curious why you and the rest of the creative team wanted that piece to bookend the series?

GB: I think that song is the explanation for the whole show; it’s a concept of a place where you feel safe enough to unpack all your secrets and figure out what is important in life. I’ve always felt if you have the right piece of music (especially with a drink in hand and the right music playing) it can help you figure out your shit. The song is about that and it became the overarching theme for the show.

We hear versions of the song in almost every episode. We hear an up-tempo version in the sixth episode and of course we have the accordion street version at the end. We never imagined that the song would stretch that far and we’re grateful for that.

I loved the end of the first episode where we hear the song “The Eddy” for the first time. It’s so deeply emotional and the way that Damien knows how to use the camera is just so beautiful. The visual vocabulary of the way he sets up the camera is so unique. It felt like I was being pulled into this club in the way that I wanted the audience to be and I am just so proud of the directors for being able to pull everyone into this experience and feel the energy of these artists.

AD: With the music being recorded live on set during takes I’m curious if any of the songs evolved throughout the shooting process?

GB: All of the songs were written obviously in advance but then we added some characters that Jack had written into the story that we called the unnamed; Sim and Tarif who are brothers. Sim works in the club, he falls in love with Elliot’s daughter Julie, and they have a relationship. He’s making his own music with his own band and so when we got those scripts we didn’t have the songs. We ended up writing those songs with one of the actors in the show, Sopico, who is a great new young artist in France. He’s got a Moroccan background and with him we were able to tap into a huge amount of music we had never heard.

AD: What was it like recording the music live on set?

GB: I think it’s relatively, if not completely, unprecedented to record music live for a movie or television. All the music you hear is live from the set and I am so proud of the band for being able to pull it off. It wasn’t easy, especially the editing. Damien shot his two episodes on 16mm live and we recorded it live on location – that level alone I don’t think an audience has ever seen anything like that. I think it adds immensely to the energy of the show.

AD: When you went back to watch the series was there any piece of music or scene that moved you in an unexpected way?

GB: There are some scenes in the third episode, directed by Houda Benyamina, at the wake of one of the characters. We wanted to begin with this idea of what a New Orleans second line jazz funeral would be like morphing into a North African rhythmic new take on jazz. It takes place in this small house and in addition to The Eddy band we added like fifteen horn players and as they move around it morphs into this different kind of music. The transition into those pieces of music both representing the idea of jazz and the great tradition of the second line funeral was my favorite scene from the entire project, no question.

It was almost 100 degrees that day in Paris that day. We were dying because it was so hot but we all felt like something special was happening. It was almost like an LSD trip, man. It was a beautiful day for us and I am so grateful that it is all there on film.

AD: In the end the show has a lot to offer, especially to fans of jazz and music in general. I’m curious, what do you think audiences that aren’t as well-versed in the genre will be able to take away from The Eddy?

GB: My idea was just to bring you into that circle of artists who perform for love and not money. I think it’s pretty obvious that these are people that do something that takes a huge amount of skill and commitment, but they do it for reasons other than fame and fortune.

I didn’t want this to be for jazz aficionados. I think they’ll appreciate it but it’s about people committed to an art form and what they have to go through to get there as well as the music and these transcendent moments on stage that disappear like smoke. It’s all riding on that moment and there’s something beautiful and fragile about that.

In a digital world those types of moments don’t even exist. It’s a unique thing that happens between an audience and performer, in a club, at an exact moment in time and I think that’s just beautiful.

The Eddy is available to stream on Netflix while the original soundtrack The Eddy (From the Netflix Original Series) is available to stream across all major platforms.