Jazz pianist thought job offer from Spike Lee 'was spam'

Fergus McCreadie, a talented jazz pianist from Scotland, recently had an experience that felt almost unreal. One day, Fergus received a phone call from a New York number, but he thought it was just spam and ignored it. Soon after, he got an email claiming to be from Spike Lee, the famous film director. Fergus was sure this was another scam, but his manager suggested they check to see if it was real. To Fergus's surprise, it was actually Spike Lee reaching out to him.

Spike Lee wanted Fergus to help create music for his new crime thriller film, Highest 2 Lowest. Fergus was amazed when Spike Lee flew all the way to Edinburgh just to watch him perform live. After that, Fergus and his jazz trio, which includes bassist David Bowden and drummer Stephen Henderson, traveled to New York to work on the movie's soundtrack. While in New York, Fergus attended an NBA game featuring the New York Knicks, Spike Lee's favorite basketball team. He even convinced Spike Lee to pose with a scarf from Queen's Park Football Club, a team from Glasgow.

In the recording studio, Fergus and his band played their song Stony Gate, which was used throughout the film's score. Spike Lee showed the musicians the scenes where their music would be featured, making sure they understood the emotions he wanted to capture. Fergus explained that it was more about performing the music than composing new pieces, as Spike Lee wanted to use Stony Gate in the score. Fergus felt honored to be part of the project and hopes to work on more movie soundtracks in the future. The film Highest 2 Lowest has been released in the USA and will be available on Apple TV+ soon. It stars Denzel Washington and is a reimagining of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 film High and Low. Fergus still finds the whole experience surreal, but he is proud to have contributed to such an important project.