First of all he was one of the leading Russian scientists of his time, a practicing surgeon and chemist, a professor at the St. Those who like to go into awed rapture at the single-line improvisation of a Stan Getz might well consider the curious career of Alexander Borodin. Later, I became aware of Mel Powell's contributions to the Goodman library, such as Mission to Moscow and The Earl, as well as those of Eddie Sauter, including Benny Rides Again and Clarinet a la King, Jimmy Mundy's contributions to that band included Swing-time in the Rockies and Solo Flight, which introduced many listeners to the brilliance of guitarist Charlie Christian and Gene Gifford, who wrote Smoke Rings and Casa Loma Stomp for the Casa Loma Orchestra led by Glen Gray. I became aware of Eddie Durham, whose name was on Glenn Miller's Sliphorn Jive which I just loved (he was actually a Basie arranger) Paul Weston and Axel Stordahl who wrote for Tommy Dorsey Jerry Gray, who wrote A String of Pearls, and Bill Finegan, who arranged Little Brown Jug, both for Glenn Miller and above all Fletcher Henderson, who wrote much of the book (as I would later learn to call it) of the Benny Goodman band. Whether I learned their names from the record labels or from Metronome or Down Beat, I followed with keen interest the work of the arrangers. When the title wasn't that of some popular song and the record was an instrumental, then chances were that the name was that of the man who composed and arranged it. And so from my the earliest days I looked on the record labels for the parenthesized names under the song titles to see who wrote a given piece.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |