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The Eddy is a place where only the best will do.
Yet this club didnt start out as a vividly realized TV setting that was only later filled with music.
From that dream came a suite of songs.
From those songs came a band formed to play them.
And it all began over a decade ago.
I wrote the first songs forThe Eddyin 2008, Glen Ballard says by phone from Paris.
For Ballard, simply paying tribute to the past wasnt an option.
For me, that was like death because I think thats where jazz is going wrong, Ballard says.
All the songs are brand-new.
Theres a lot of young people in the band.
It was about demonstrating what jazz could mean in this moment.
It just went like wildfire, Kerber recalls.
I mean, we found ourselves writing a song in two or three hours!
Glen is so prolific as a lyricist also.
What he didnt have was a story to go with the songs.
The only story was,Its probably an American.
Thats all I had, Ballard says.
Poul thought it was enough to get started, however.
This is some rich DNA.
Im not exactly sure how we do this, but stay tuned, Ballard remembers him saying.
Poul confirms being wowed by the raw material.
Glen started talking about his idea to do a show based in contemporary, multicultural Paris, he recalls.
And he said he had written a suite of songs, and he gave me a CD.
I listened to the songs; I was very taken with them.
But we really didnt have a story.
I felt I needed a collaborator to have a go at develop this idea, Poul says.
I approached Damien and took him to see the band, and he came onboard.
Its a very unorthodox beginning.
I met a young director named Damien Chazelle, Ballard remembers Poul telling him.
He just did a short film thats going to be a feature calledWhiplash.He gets music.
We should invest in him.
BothLa La LandandFirst Manlay ahead, destined to keep Chazelle busy.
Style and songs alone dont make a series, however.
Jack took it, and he ran with it.
We were always working, the four of us together.
He wasnt the last.
So did Kerber, whose pianist character brings moments of lightness and wry humor to an often heavy show.
Kerber didnt find his new role to bethatgreat a challenge.
My character in the show is not far away from my character in real life, he says.
So as far as that goes, it wasnt a big stretch for me.
Im playing a pianist in a band, in a club.
We found that, absolutely, they had to be musicians, Kerber says.
It was too big a hurdle to jump in that small amount of time.
They would play music ten or 12 hours a day on set, usually all night, Ballard says.
Ballard notes that the musicians roles kept expanding as the series progressed.
(Jack kept adding stuff for them to do, he says.)
Not that the part of Maja didnt present challenges for her.
We met her in January of last year; she was nine months pregnant, Ballard recalls.
She had to learn 19 new jazz songs.
With the band completed, all the elements for the series clicked into place just in an unusual order.
An even more apt comparison may be forming a circle, one that looped back to Ballards original fantasy.
This is about people playing music at the highest level with such passion and such energy.
I just wanted to show that, Ballard says.
And though a second season remains an open question, Ballard sounds satisfied with whatThe Eddyhas accomplished so far.
