Claude Thornhill

From Wikipedia

Claude Thornhill
Claude Thornill, ca. 1947. Photography by William P. Gottlieb
Background information
Birth name	Claude Thornhill
Born	August 10, 1909 Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
Died	July 2, 1965 (aged 55) New Jersey, USA
Genres	Jazz Cool jazz
Occupations	Pianist, Bandleader, Arranger, Composer
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1924–1965
Associated acts	Paul Whiteman Benny Goodman Ray Noble Billie Holiday Lee Konitz Gil Evans Gerry Mulligan

Claude Thornhill (August 10, 1908^[1] at Terre Haute, Indiana – July 1, 1965, New Jersey) was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. He composed the jazz and pop standards “Snowfall” and “I Wish I Had You”, the last recorded by Billie Holliday.

Career

As a youth, he was recognized as an extraordinary talent and formed a traveling duo with Danny Polo, a musical prodigy on the clarinet and trumpet from nearby Clinton, Indiana. As a student at Garfield High School in Terre Haute, he played with several theater bands.

Thornhill entered the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at age 16. That same year he and clarinetist Artie Shaw started their careers at the Golden Pheasant in Cleveland, Ohio with the Austin Wiley Orchestra. Thornhill and Shaw went to New York together in 1931.

Claude went to the West Coast in the late 1930s with the Bob Hope Radio Show, and arranged for Judy Garland in Babes in Arms.

In 1935, he played on sessions for Glenn Miller‘s first recordings under his own name, as Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. He played on Glenn Miller’s composition “Solo Hop,” which was released on Columbia Records.

After playing for Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Ray Noble, Glenn Miller, and Billie Holiday, and arranging “Loch Lomond” and “Annie Laurie” for Maxine Sullivan, in 1939 he founded his Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Danny Polo was his lead clarinet player. Although the Thornhill band was originally a sophisticated dance band, it became known for its many superior jazz musicians and for Thornhill’s and Gil Evans‘ innovative arrangements; its “Portrait of a Guinea Farm” has become a classic jazz recording.

The band played without vibrato so that the timbres of the instruments could be better appreciated, and Thornhill encouraged the musicians to develop cool-sounding tones. The band was popular with both musicians and the public; the Miles Davis Nonet was modeled in part on Thornhill’s cool sound and use of unconventional instrumentation. The band’s most successful records were “Snowfall,” “A Sunday Kind of Love” and “Love for Love.”

His most famous recording, “Snowfall,” was released in 1941 as Columbia 36268. He released the song also as a V-Disc recording, as V-Disc 271A1.

Playing at the Paramount Theater in New York for $10,000 a week in 1942, Thornhill dropped everything to enlist in the US Navy to support the war effort. As chief musician, he played shows across the Pacific Theater with Jackie Cooper as his drummer and Dennis Day as his vocalist.

In 1946, he was discharged from the Navy. Then in April, he reformed his ensemble. He kept his same stylistic lines, but added some Bop lines to it. He got his old members of Danny Polo, Gerry Mulligan, and Barry Galbraith back together, but also added new members like Red Rodney, Lee Konitz, Joe Shulman and Bill Barber. Barber was a tuba player, who was considered as a “soft brass” player rather than a bass as to not interfere with (Joe) Shulman on the bass. Their creative and immaculately clean and delicate interpretation of Evans’s arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie’s fast bop theme “Anthropology” (1947) provides a particularly noteworthy example of Thornhill’s style, which influenced Miles Davis’s recordings in 1949 for Capitol and many musicians who followed .

In the mid 1950s, Thornhill became Tony Bennett‘s musical director briefly.

He offered his big band library to Gerry Mulligan when Gerry formed the Concert Jazz Band, but Gerry regretfully declined the gift, since his instrumentation was different. A large portion of his extensive library of music is currently held by Drury University in Springfield, Missouri.

After his discharge from the Navy he continued to perform with his orchestra until his death of a heart attack at 1:30 a.m., July 2, 1965, at his home in Caldwell, New Jersey.^[3]Claude was booked at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the time, the engagement was kept in his honor with his music director in his place. He was survived by his wife, actress Ruth Thornhill, and his mother, Maude Thornhill (81 at the time), of Terre Haute, Indiana, still active at the time conducting choirs.

Compositions by Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill’s compositions included the standard “Snowfall”, “I Wish I Had You”, recorded by Billie Holiday and Fats Waller, “Let’s Go”, “Shore Road”, “Portrait Of A Guinea Farm”, “Lodge Podge”, “Rustle Of Spring”, “It’s Time For Us To Part”, “It Was A Lover And His Lass”, “The Little Red Man”, “Memory Of An Island”, and “Where Has My Little Dog Gone?”

Claude Thornill Orchestra, with Joe Shulman,Danny Polo, Lee Konitz, Louis Mucci, Barry Galbraith, Bill Barber, ca. 1947.
Photography by William P. Gottlieb.

Bert Firman

From Wikipedia

Bert Firman
Birth name	Herbert Feuerman
Born	3 February 1906 London, England
Died	9 April 1999 (aged 93) England
Genres	Easy Listening, Instrumental,Jazz, Big band
Occupations	Bandleader, Composer
Instruments	Violin
Labels	Zonophone Records

Bert Firman (3 February 1906 – 9 April 1999) was an English bandleader of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.

He was born as Herbert Feuerman in London. His mother was of Polish stock and his father was a professional musician who had settled in Britain from Austria-Hungary in the late l880’s. His three elder brothers were also musicians. He took up the violin at an early age and won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music.

Firman’s first job, at the age of thirteen, was at the Playhouse Theatre, London, where he was part of a quintet playing entr’acte music. A year later his father negotiated a position for him in the orchestra at the Victoria Hotel in Northumberland Avenue. After only three months in this job he secured the part of Sascha, a gypsy violinist in the musical Sally at the Winter Garden Theatre, Drury Lane. The production opened on 10 September 1921, running for 383 performances. During this run, at the suggestion of the producer, George Grossmith Jr, Feuerman changed his name to Bert Firman, apparently so as to make it easier to bill in lights outside the theatre. When the run of Sally finished, Firman got a job as a violinist with the Midnight Follies Orchestra at the Metropole Hotel. Shortly after beginning this job, the current bandleader was indisposed, and Firman was offered the job. He was then only sixteen, and he would thereafter claim to have been the youngest bandleader in the world.

In 1924, Firman became musical director for Zonophone Records (a subsidiary of His Master’s Voice) and in the following five years recorded over 750 sides for them. Throughout the 1920s Firman continued to lead his band from success to success, including a season in variety at the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square and the Coliseum Theatre, whilst still also directing the Midnight Follies and then later, bands at the Devonshire Restaurant and the Carlton Hotel. As well as recording with his band, Firman also produced many recordings with a smaller group called The Rhythmic Eight. The group included such prominent musicians as Sylvester Ahola, Chelsea Quealey, Frank Guarente, Arthur Lally,Danny Polo, Max Goldberg and Jack Jackson.

In 1929 Firman was given a six-month contract to be a guest conductor at N.B.C., becoming the first British bandleader to broadcast in America. He then spent some time inHollywood adding music to a large number of silent films.

Firman then formed a band in London, which he took to Les Ambassadeurs restaurant in Paris. The band included Sam Costa, a young pianist who would later become a singer and actor, as well as Freddy Gardner, a talented British saxophonist. He spent several years in France before returning to London in 1937 to form another band. During this period he broadcast regularly for the B.B.C., and had several series on Radio Luxembourg.

At the outbreak of war Firman moved to the Cafe de Paris with a band that included Ivor Mairants and George Melachrino. However, after a dispute with the management he walked out. He then joined up with the South Staffordshire Regiment. After completing his training he went to Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Persia, with Stars in Battledress, an organization dedicated to entertaining the troops. Later the party moved to Europe and crossed the Rhine with the British troops.

After the war Firman was set to lead a band in London again, but was annoyed at being asked to audition for the B.B.C. He therefore went to lead a band in Paris again, where he formed a band at the Bagatelle Club. The band, which included Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, was to be his last.

Firman finally retired from band leading, partly because the age of the big bands was coming to an end. He withdrew entirely from the music business, working on the London Metal Exchange until he opted for full retirement in 1976. He died on the 9 April 1999.