Don King–like music impresario.” Muller became Lane’s go-to guy, doing a wide variety of arrangements for him—one of the earliest for singer Nat Kennedy’s “What’s Happening Brother.” It was a gospel tune with an R&B flavor; Muller remembers it as “kinda corny stuff, but it was helping me get my chops together.” The first Brass Construction recording came on Lane’s Docc label, so named after a prominent Black doctor, Coolidge Abel-Bey, who bankrolled the operation. “Two-Timin’ Lady,” backed by the frantic “Take It Easy,” was released in 1972. While shopping for a major-label deal with the single, Lane called Muller in to do arrangements for a band that had gone through a few name changes, but was by then known as Brooklyn Trucking Express. For a tough funk band like B.T., as the moniker was abbreviated, strings were unusual, if not unheard of. To make their horn and guitar–led tunes stand out, Lane wanted a different feel and called in his boy genius to write string parts for a few songs. “Before then, I had never really done string parts, but Jeff, not being a musician, thought since I could do horn charts, strings would be no problem. I remember him saying, ‘By tomorrow, I want a violin section there!’” Muller shakes his head, laughing. “The parts for ‘Express’ I did in fifteen minutes because Jeff was outside my grandmother’s house in his car waiting for me, beeping the horn while I was furiously writing!” The string motifs the teenager came up with, self-described as “so simple,” got worldwide exposure when the album and “Express” in particular became smash hits. Even James Brown took notice and came up with one of his funkiest tunes in reply, “(It’s Not the Express) It’s the JB Monorail.” The B.T. Express record was the first time this style of string arrangement was used, a texture that later became de
rigueur for “disco,” as the new trend of dance music was being called. As a pioneering example of this global phenomenon, it was only natural that others would pick up on it. Listen to Silver Convention’s “Fly Robin Fly” and the similarities are striking. “A lot of that fall-off stuff on the strings,” Muller describes the sound, “comes from me as a horn guy basically writing horn parts for strings, because I didn’t know any better.” His arrangements fused the horns and the strings but still kept the track lean and funky, not overdone. “It’s about prudence,” Muller explains. “It doesn’t get in the way, and it’s supportive. It brings the track to another level, and that, to me, is what good arranging is.” With Muller’s star on the rise, he continued to devote himself to broadening his knowledge in music as well as other areas, getting degrees in political science and media. His insatiable hunger for musical knowledge and his professional dedication to seeing projects through made him a highly sought-after component of the thriving New York City club music scene, though by his own admission he was a studio fiend, only occasionally venturing into nightclubs themselves. “I knew Larry Levan,” he says of the legendary DJ. “We used to go down to the Paradise Garage and bring our latest acetates to test out. Larry would listen to the track and say something like, ‘Okay, this is three o’clock.’” Muller would be obliged to hang out in Levan’s spacious booth until the temperamental jock was ready to play the song, and he would watch the crowd’s reaction. “We made changes based on that, bringing a part up or down in the mix, say.” Below is a personal selection of Muller’s productions, running the gamut from his early work with Brass Construction and some classic late-’70s rarities, to his essential work with Skyy and Salsoul, and an overlooked 1985 single.
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