September 14th, 2004
by Kenneth Bremer

Back in 1975, keyboard player and composer David Garfield founded his first musical group 'Karizma' in Los Angeles. Karizma was a band where the musicians could blend all their favorite styles such as Latin, Jazz, Fusion, Funk, Reggae and Pop. The blending together of these roots in the 'Karizma' style played a big part in the development of the sound that eventually came to be known as 'West Coast'.

Karizma became a perfect musical playground, where a lot of cool things happened and new styles were forged. In 1978 Michael Landau joined the group on guitar and also collaborated in the compositional duties. Michael was able to use this musical playground to develop his distinctive guitar style. Shortly after this time, while Carlos Vega (drums) was on a European Tour with Randy Newman, Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) took over, and a new Karizma lineup was ready to hit the stages. With this lineup, Karizma performed a lot of gigs around L.A. over the next couple of years and with various other guest musicians.

After making a new demo recording featuring vocals for the first time (James Felix) in 1982, David Garfield decided to make a Karizma album instead of a projected solo cd. The Karizma 1983 lineup was the Eighth Incarnation. The album 'Dream Come True' was really a dream come true for David Garfield, as he had finally made an album with all his musical friends, a project had become a band, and the album was being made with help from Steve Lukather, Tim Pierce, Ernie Watts, Neil Larsen, David Paich, Jeff Porcaro, Paulette Browne, Rosemary Butler and Tom Scott. After the release of 'Dream Come True', Karizma continued to do more local gigs and in 1984, Michael Landau was back on guitar again.


© Stefan Brunkhorst

In 1986, David Garfield tries another Karizma lineup. Together with this crew David Garfield records the second Karizma album 'Cuba'. In the studio the friends are together again, this time represented by Steve Lukather, Michael O'Neil, Nathan East, Luis Conte, Brandon Fields, Albert Wing and Walt Fowler. As a promotion of the album, Karizma went on their first tour of Japan. They recorded all gigs 'live', and the best material was released in 1987 on their first live album 'All The Way Live'. The third Karizma album was now a reality. Karizma has created a lot of their material live, so the energy on this album is very high, and it became a great success for the band, especially in Japan and and also in Europe, which also has opened its eyes for this group.

With their third album David Garfield can now see that Karizma is getting a lot of attention everywhere, so he forms his own label 'Creatchy' and in 1989 David Garfield is now ready to record a new 'Karizma' project, and this time with vocals again. In the studio Karizma gets help from Phil Perry, Michael Brecker, Brandon Fields, Vinnie Colaiuta, John Pena and Paulette Brown.

The result is the album '(Forever In The) Arms Of Love' and is released on the Creatchy label in 1989. This is the second Karizma album with vocals and it is reminiscent of the David Garfield 'Riding Bean' project, that was released the year before, also with Phil Perry on the vocals.

After the release of this album Karizma continue doing gigs, but David Garfield is having a lot more to do with composing, touring with other artists and the Los Lobotomys project (with Steve Lukather & Jeff Porcaro) is also beginning to grow. So David Garfield puts Karizma in a standby mode.

One of the keystones in Karizma has always been the drummer Carlos Vega. He dies suddenly in 1998, and this touches David because Carlos has been a very special and personal friend. As a tribute to his friend Carlos, Creatchy re-releases the 'All The Way Live' album with some special linernotes for Carlos Vega. Also this same year 'Dream Come True' is re-released on CD.



In 1999 drummer Vinnie Colaiuta got David and Michael Landau together to do some different drum oriented events. They are joined by well-known studio bassist Neil Stubenhaus and a new Karizma is formed. They called it 'Rizma 2000' and performed with Vinnie at a drum festival for the magazine 'Modern Drummer'.

'Rizma 2000' traveled to Germany to perform and ended up doing their first European tour. The 'Rizma 2000' tour was a big success, as they played at sold-out venues in Europe. While on tour, they decided to record their fifth CD, 'Document' (recorded live in Germany and Denmark). Because of the big success, Karizma returned to Europe on a second and longer tour to promote their new live CD 'Document'. So Karizma was back in concert again!

After the European tour David Garfield went back to Los Angeles to dig out some of the old Karizma studio recordings, and recordings of livegigs etc. He gathered material for the next Karizma album which would be entitled 'Lost And Found', an album that has songs that didn't make it on the albums or special versions of recorded songs and livetakes from the various club gigs in Los Angeles. Late 2001 the album was released on the Creathy Label in America and Europe, and in 2002 the album was also released in Japan with an additional track on it.

David Garfield is still doing gigs in Los Angeles with Karizma, and in 2004, Creatchy produced and released a live album with the Karizma tribute band called Potato Salad. In 2007, Karizma is working on a brand new studio album. The 'Rizma Fever' is still around !