The Arrangers

[Late]

When it comes to large group arrangers (I'm thinking nonet or larger), who do you find yourself returning to most often? So many great arrangers, with perhaps the notable exception of Gil Evans (along with a few others), seem to forever stand in the shadow of great soloists.

I'd be interested in hearing who your favorites are, along with a representative album or song. For me, Bill Holman is virtually non pareil for big band settings. I could listen to his arrangement of "Out of this World" from Mulligan's first CJB album all day. He was also no slouch as a saxophonist. Here's a disc with great arrangements that I think is under-remarked:

In A Jazz Orbit

[Dan Gould]

For me its Benny Carter, first and always. Here's one of his best:

[SGUD missile]

Having been an arranger my whole working life, I could list many of myfavorites, and all for differing qualities: Certainly Gil Evans and Bill Holman rank very high on my list as well (especially Willis )

Some of my other favorites ( in no particular order ) include: Billy Byers, Marion Evans, Manny Albam, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn, John Mandel, Gerry Mulligan, George Handy, Bob Florence, Frank Foster, Rob McConnell, Sam Nestico, Carla Bley,the list is endless ..

Of the newer generation : Maria Schneider, Jim McNeely, Vince Mendoza, John Fedchock, Gordon Goodwin among them ..

then there are the experimentalists:

next post ...

[DIS]

Yeah, Willis! I loved Holman's In a Jazz Orbit album when it appered in 1958, and I'm still listening to it. In fact, I have most of the charts from the album.

To name just one other, Gerald Wilson has to be one of the most neglected. And whereas dozens of Holman's charts can be found, I've found only four by Wilson.

[jazzbo]

Ellington and Strayhorn, and Ellington/Strayhorn.

[king ubu]

Just one to add: Tadd Dameron - he really has a sound all his own!

[Brad]

Tadd Dameron and Neil Hefti, esp. with Basie.

[JSngry]

Assuming that claims of his fradulence are either unrue or somewhat exaggerated (an assumption I don't have enough information to make, one way or the other), I really dug the work of Walter "Gil" fuller w/Dizzy's 40s big band. Nobody has capture the true bebop flavor for a big band setting, imo. If he didn't do the work, as some have claimed, whoever DID do it has my undying admiration.

But favorite arrangers overall?

Too many too mention. Collecting their recordings and studying their work is kind of a hobby of mine, as I'm a somewhat thwarted arranger myself (not enough time/readily available opportunity, to learn the finer points of the craft the way I'd like to - through trial and error. Someday...).

For the sake of this thread, I'll differentiate between "Composers" and "arrangers", and go by how well I like how the arranger in question was able to put their stamp on somebody else's material.

Some favorites not yet mentioned (I think...):

Oliver Nelson

Nelson Riddle

Claus Ogerman

Fletcher Henderson

Sy Oliver

Eddie Sauter

Rene Hernandez

Duke Pearson

Julius Hemphill

Willie Maiden

Hall Overton

and too many more to mention.

[Joe Christmas]

Late, you started this thread with my favorite record from my favorite arranger, Mr. Bill Holman. And you're the one who turned me further on to him, after my exposure through the Kenton Mosaic set, if I'm not mistaken. There are several band directors here in the Pacific NW who play old Kenton tunes, West Coast stuff, etc etc. I've asked on several occasions and the reply is always that they're using Holman's arrangements.

Staying in the pocket, I also really respect the music that Butch Morris and Gerald Wilson get their hands on.

Also Barry Guy and George Lewis for more avant/out stuff.

[Late]

I was just going to add Guy myself. Though he's largely working with his own (or collective) writing, Guy still gives me a strong sense that he's an "arranger" — just not perhaps in this sense that one would typically think. Still, he seems part of the logical evolution in the arranger phyla as the music lets us know it.

[king ubu]

Of course Barry Guy!

Don Redman (with Fletcher Henderson and with his own band)

also George Gruntz

ubu

[king ubu]

Then how about George Russell? Big

[Joe Christmas]

Yeah, Barry Guy is so much more than a composer of his own material. Those large LJCO pieces are epic. Rumor has it that he's written again for his New Orchestra and an Intakt disc may follow. Not that it counts as "jazz" arranging, but in Europe he and his wife are very respected interpreters of Bach's music and other Baroque stuff.

Gigi Gryce had some really nice arrangements under his belt.

Who's the arranger for the Mingus Big Band?

[SGUD missile]

Who's the arranger for the Mingus Big Band?

I think Don Sickler and Sy Johnson are among the writers ( Maybe Bill Kirschner as well )

I'm sure there are others

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Mainly Sy Johnson, but Mike Mossman has done several charts for the Mingus Big Band. Ronnie Cuber, Steve Slagle, Jack Walrath, Howard Johnson too.

Some of this stuff is available from Hal Leonard.

Mike

[maren]

Melba Liston

[jazzbo]

Good call Maren, we daren't forget her.

Mary Lou too.

[king ubu]

Melba Liston

She did some great work for Randy Weston!

[Jim R]

Fantastic string. I wish this were a radio show, and each of you were a guest DJ with a couple of favorite tracks to share. I have some of the music mentioned anyway, but I have to confess to being somewhat blase about appreciating the art (never been as keen to large ensembles, at least as compared to small group recordings).

Was Quincy Jones mentioned? I was just listening recently to Art Farmer's "Last Night When We Were Young" on ABC Paramount, and was reminded of Jones' work on that.

[Late]

Eddie Sauter

Rene Hernandez

Willie Maiden

Hall Overton

Representative big band arrangements by these guys?

I know Sauter did Focus, Overton did the arranging for Monk's Town Hall concert, and Maiden did some of Ferguson's Mercury arrangements ... what else?

Completely unfamiliar with Hernandez.

Missile — care to list some representative albums/tracks from your list of more current arrangers? Thanks!

[JSngry]

Sauter wrote some really great stuff for Benny Goodman's early 40s band, some really great charts. READ MORE ON AMG. The Sauter-Finnegan orchestra (co-led by Bill Finnegan, another great writer of the same era) was a bit of a gimmicky farce in my opinion, but still, Sauter's (and Finnegan's) work on their own is among the very best of it's type. His chart on "Perfidia", a vocal feature for Helen Forrest, is just TOO damn hip! (Although it's a type of hipness that might require some "technical" knowledge to fully appreciate, stuff like voicings and subtle chord substitutions, that's exactly the type of thing that seperated the men from the boys in this type of writing. But an "educated" (i.e. - experienced and discriminating) listener, although perhaps not being able to describe in technical terms everything trhat's going on, can surely HEAR the differences and pick up on the nuances of everything he does in these great charts.)

Rene Hernandez was one of the archetypes of "salsa" and wrote too many great charts in the idiom to mention, especially for Machito and Tito Rodriguez. His writing was very often "jazzy" in flavor and always retained the rhythmic essence of Afro-Cuban music. Odds are that if you hear a "salsa" arrangement for a larger group (including somebody more "progressive" like Eddie Palmieri), you're being touched in some form or fashion by the work of Rene Hernandez. A seminal/archetypical figure, AFAIC.

Maiden stayed w/Maynard until the late 60s, and his writing can be heard on the Roulette. Cameo, and Mainstream recordings by that band. A particular favorite of mine is his take on "All The Things you Are", recorded by Chris Connor, Maynard for their Atlantic album DOUBLE EXPOSURE. That's as hip a piece of writing as you'll ever hear. Another one is "Tinsel", done by Maynard on his Mainstream COLOR HIM WILD album. It's a ballad, but it's also a 12 bar blues (which actually took me a few years to figure out, so striking was the construction!) that is a masterpiece, imho, bold and vulnerable simultaneously, with a genuine melancholy throughout that few writers for Maynard dared/cared to explore. Maiden then went w/Stan Kenton for a while, where he contributed some sublimely inventive and swinging charts for a band that, as periodically happened in the Kenton orb, was actively interested in such things. The thing I like about him is that his writing is almost always full of a blend of dry-but-light humor and deep harmonic sophistication. He was a niche unto himself, truth be told.

Overton's work w/Monk (and he also did the writing for the concert that Columbia recorded, location escapes me at this moment. Philharmonic Hall, maybe?) is really all I know, but that's enough, ain't it?

[SGUD missile]

One reason I omitted Quincy Jones ( who was an excellent arranger on his own in the 50s/60s for Basie and his own bands ), is that for the bulk of his career, he's become a producer /executive farming out the actual arranging work to guys like Billy Byers ( his main man for years ) , Don Sebesky, Thad Jones, and more recently, Rod Temnperton, Marvin Kibble,Jerry Hey and others ..

JS covered the other guys quite throughly ...

also: Don't forget the English and other European tradional guys in addition to todays experimentalists: Bob Farnon, Johnny Keating, Laurie Johnson, Claus Ogermann, Rob Pronk ..and again, many others

[JSngry]

Claus Ogermann gets a lot of flack from "jazz purists" for his work, but I think he's a most inventive and original writer. He's never been afraid of the "fat" chords, and his technique of creating/resolving dissonance through the juxtaposition of moving and sustained parts, although definitely not his "invention", is one that he's stylized into a deeply personal "stamp".

He's no different than anybody else, and sure, he's done some some "too light" work over the years, but his writing on the first Sinatra/Jobim collaboration virtually defines "creative elegance" afaic, and that's not at all an isolated example.

I still need to check out Farnon, Phil. I keep hearing words of the highest praise from too many people I respect to let him go unexplored too much longer!

[frank m]

I hope that wasn't a putdown of the Sauter-Finegan band. That was an original--indeed a unique- band with a great vocalist in Sally Sweetland. I saw them a couple of times and they were even even splendid visually with that expanded tympany section. IMHO one of their better recordings was an LP of reorchestration of arrangements that they each did singly for the Miller and Goodman bands. I know that they couldn't make it for long in the economics of that time but they were sure interesting while they lasted. I think that a lot of jazz purists didn't much care for them because they didn't realize it was a band with a well developed sense of humor.

Someone else who hasn't been mentioned here is Ralph Burns who did so much arrangement for at least one of the Woody Herman herds. I still find "Summer Sequence" and its sort of epilogue "Early Autumn" to be haunting.IMHO that piece of music will still be around when we're all gone. All of which leads me to a question: Whatever happened to Ralph Burns after his association with Herman????? And was he really only 22 when he did that arrangement????

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Burns did manage to keep busy after Woody Herman.

-----

Ralph Burns, 79; Jazz Pianist, Noted Arranger

by Jon Thurber

Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2001

Ralph Burns, a onetime jazz musician who fashioned a diverse career

as an arranger, winning two Academy Awards, a Tony Award and an Emmy

while helping expand the range of several popular artists, died

Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 79.

Burns died at St. Vincent's Hospital of complications from a recent

stroke as well as pneumonia, according to a spokesman for his

business manager.

After making a name for himself as a pianist and orchestrator for

Woody Herman's band, Burns played a key role in some of Broadway's

most memorable shows. He worked on "Chicago," "Funny Girl" and "No,

No, Nanette." Over the years, if there was a Bob Fosse production,

Burns' name was usually connected with it. With Fosse he did "Sweet

Charity," "Dancin'" and the film "Cabaret." His award-winning career

spanned decades, as did his awards. He won a Tony in 1999 for "Fosse"

a couple of decades after he picked up his Academy Awards for

adapting the scores of "Cabaret" and "All That Jazz." Some critics

say his orchestrations for the Kit Kat Klub band in "Cabaret" helped

make that one of the prime movie musicals of the last quarter-

century. He later added a shared Emmy to his collection of statuettes

for "Baryshnikov on Broadway."

And he collaborated with a who's who of leading figures of American

song. He worked with Richard Rodgers on "No Strings," Rodgers' first

score after Oscar Hammerstein II died, and with Jule Styne on "Funny

Girl." In the recording studio, he worked with Ray Charles, Tony

Bennett and Johnny Mathis.

"Everything I did with Fosse I loved," he later told Michael

Phillips -- now The Times' theater critic -- when Phillips was

writing for the San Diego Union-Tribune. "That was my ideal

situation. But I also loved 'Funny Girl,' working with Jule Styne and

with Barbra Streisand."

Born in Newton, Mass., Burns learned piano at an early age and by 12

he was playing in dance bands in and around Boston. He attended the

New England Conservatory of Music briefly, but spent most of his

teenage years working in a local jazz orchestra.

He later said he learned orchestration by analyzing the recordings of

Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington, transcribing their

legendary compositions note by note to see how they worked.

Burns moved to New York City as a young man, playing in the clubs on

52nd Street. By the early 1940s, Burns was playing piano and writing

orchestrations for Charlie Barnet's big band.

Then he joined Herman's band, also as a writer and piano player. He

worked with Herman over the next 15 years and wrote many of the

band's big hits including "Bijou," "Apple Honey" and the three-

part "Summer Sequence." "Early Autumn," one of his later and more

notable compositions, came from an assignment to write a fourth

movement for "Summer Sequence." Years later, Johnny Mercer wrote

lyrics for the tune, and it became a favorite of singers.

Herman later told Leonard Feather, the jazz critic, that Burns had

much to do with the success of his band.

"...I suppose the most important change for us was having Ralph Burns

as arranger and pianist. He was as much responsible for our sound as

anyone at that time," Herman said.

But after several years of touring, Burns left the band to continue

his writing and to take work as a freelance orchestrator. He worked

with Bennett, Mathis, Charles and, later, Aretha Franklin and Natalie

Cole.

It was Burns who introduced Charles to the instrumentation that

combined a big band and strings and gave him two of the biggest hits

of his long career: "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "Georgia on My

Mind."

He began orchestrating and arranging for the Broadway musical theater

in the mid-1950s and kept at it all his life. Last year, he

orchestrated "Thoroughly Modern Millie" at the La Jolla Playhouse.

He told Phillips that his big-band training always helped him in the

theater.

"When it came to arranging a Broadway score's big, jazzy numbers --

the dance numbers -- I was already used to writing for an orchestra

in that way. Most of the orchestrators who worked in the theater at

the time would hand over that stuff to somebody else. It was not

their world, you know. They were legit; they were schooled in the

strings and woodwinds. With me, they'd say 'Get hot,' and I could get

hot."

His first film credit was "Cabaret" in 1972, which was followed by

such familiar movies as "Lenny," "Urban Cowboy," "Annie," "My

Favorite Year," "The Muppets Take Manhattan" and "New York, New York."

In the 1990s, Burns returned to his roots, arranging jazz albums for

Mel Torme and John Pizzarelli.

It was probably fitting that Burns would return to the music he

started with.

"I still listen to jazz. My roots are still there, and I feel I can

go listen to Woody's band to steal ideas when I'm writing for a

film," Burns told The Times some years ago. "'Simple Is Better' was

always [Herman's] motto, and good taste; I think he's taught an awful

lot of arrangers how to develop that way."

Memorial services are pending.