Canadian songwriting legend Marc Jordan recalls at around 20 years of age being led around a bustling Moroccan bazaar, with its myriad of stalls and artisans.

Jordan told Playback Daily Wednesday about how he relied on young English-speaking Arab guides to navigate the walled ancient market, and one led him to an old trader who doubled as a wise sage.

“The old man spoke a bit of English, and he said if you want to sell baskets, you’ve got to live in the bazaar. I never forgot that,” Jordan said just before the Canadian Film Centre unveiled the veteran music producer and session musician as its next chair of the Slaight Family Music Lab.

That exchange, played out in a colourful and chaotic Arab market, sums up the wisdom Jordan now has for Canadian music composers and songwriters looking to score movies like the pros: try your hand in Los Angeles to learn and find your way among some of the best.

“If you want to score films, if you want to write songs for films, at some point you have to interface with Hollywood,” Jordan insisted.

The American-born, Toronto-raised artist, who will help Canadian music creators learn more about the film scoring process via labs in Toronto and Los Angeles, adds there’s almost an inevitability to knocking on doors in Hollywood to get a career off the ground.

“There’s a myth in Canada that it’s very, very difficult to break in down [in Los Angeles]. That is not the case. It’s difficult, but it’s more difficult to break into Canada because the pie is much smaller,” Jordan argued.

What’s more, he insists, no one does western culture better than Hollywood, so it’s good to mix with, and be mentored by, top-notch music composers, whether American or Canadian expats like Oscar-winner Howard Shore, Chantal Kreviazuk and Christopher Beck.

Jordan got his start in professional music in Los Angeles after signing with Warner Bros, and during a 15-year stay in California before returning to Toronto recording and producing records for Warner Bros. Records, BMG, and Atlantic Records.

He rarely scored movies, and instead wrote songs that landed in soundtracks for Like Father, Like Son, The Slugger’s Wife, Never Talk to Strangers, Heavy Metal, Blown Away, among others.

And Jordan all the while penned songs for the likes of Dianna Ross, Bette Middler, Kenny Loggins, Joe Cocker, Cher, Natalie Cole, Bonnie Raitt, Josh Groban and Rod Stewart, including the hit “Rhythm Of My Heart.”

Film music composing is David and Goliath stuff, he insisted, as Canadian underdogs look to face down lumbering Hollywood giants to line up gigs.

Which is why Jordan advises emerging Canadian talent to pick up a sling and some smooth stones in Los Angeles to forge a career.

“There’s no lack of talent in Canada, as we know. Canada produces some of the funniest people, some of the greatest lyricists, the great pop writers. Per capita, we punch way above our weight,” he argued.

But the Juno award-winning Jordan points to the reality of economics making it hard for artists to thrive in Canada  because of its small population and market.

“It’s always good when you measure yourself up against the gold standard, which is here [in L.A.], and that doesn’t say anything negative about Canada. It’s just a question of economics,” he insisted.

Pictured: Norman Jewison and Marc Jordan / courtesy CFC