Claude Thornhill

Claude Thornhill ( born August 10, 1909 in Terre Haute, Indiana, † July 1, 1965 in New York City, New York ) was an American arranger and bandleader and pianist Claude Thornhill Orchestra, the jazz versions of popular dance and entertainment pieces in Swing, bebop and cool jazz playing.

Life and work

Claude Thornhill was already playing piano as a child and studied at the Conservatory in Cincinnati and at the Curtis Institute of Music. His music career began in the band of Austin Wylie, where he also met Artie Shaw; he then arranged 1928-1931 at Hal Kemp; 1935/36, he also served as Noble as an arranger and pianist in the band Ray. He then worked until 1939 when Bing Crosby, but also for Benny Goodman, John Kirby, Paul Whiteman and Maxine Sullivan, for whom he arranged the Scottish folk song Loch Lomond. He also appeared as a pianist / arranger on recordings by Billie Holiday with which he accompanied on You Go to My Head in May 1938. 1937/38, made ​​his first recordings under his own name and he went on tour with Maxine Sullivan.

In the summer of 1939, after a lengthy stay on the West Coast, where he musical director of the band was Skinnay Ennis and had come through the Hiterfolg of Gone With the Wind by Maxine Sullivan to prominence, Thornhill founded his own orchestra. They played a few gigs in California for 1940-42, as in Glen Iceland Casino in March 1941; in Thornhill's band played at that time musicians like the clarinetist Irving Fazola, the trumpeter Conrad Gozzo and Rusty Diedrick and the trombonist Tasso Harris and Bob Jenney. From this band records were committed, as the title Where or When, Sleeppy Serenade, Snowfall, their signature tune and arrangements of classical music like reverie and the Hungarian Dance No. 5 towered Among the instrumental pieces have the piece Portrait of a Guinea Farm by humorous arrangement out.

In the summer of 1942, the Thornhill orchestra played again in Glen Iceland casino. Meanwhile, the band had grown; belonged to her - in addition to their seven clarinetists - two horns and a number of singers, including Lillian Lane, Martha Wayne and Buddy Stewart. The band recorded more pieces on, inter alia, Somebody Else is Taking My Place or the Gil Evans arrangement of There 's a Small Hotel and Buster's Last Stand Since that time, however, many musicians were called up for military service, fell into the band, until even Thornhill itself was drafted in October 1942 in the Navy. After the interruption caused by the war effort - Thornhill played during his service in the Navy in the Artie Shaw band and organized shows - they moved the Thornhill Orchestra and Gil Evans, who belonged since 1941, in 1946 to New York.

There he formed a new big band in 1946, they were joined by the former members and the sometimes musicians such as Lee Konitz, Red Rodney, Tony Scott, Danny Polo, Joe Shulman, Bill Barber, Louis Mucci or Barry Galbraith seniority; Singer in the band were Fran Warren, who established himself with A Sunday Kind of Love, and Buddy Hughes. Another vocalist was Gene Williams, who later led his own bands. With Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan as arrangers since 1941, the resulting concept was further developed and carried into a swinging their context.

In addition to leading in the genre Swing Orchestra Stan Kenton Orchestra Boyd Raeburn also and Claude Thornhill were already in the 1940s in approaches to a young bebop. The other hand, extended the trained composer Thornhill orchestra to be "classical" instruments such as French horn and tuba later - which in turn were to unusual new and fuller tone, partly precursors to cool jazz, used by creative arranger Gil Evans.

In addition to Evans there was also the baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan with arrangements. When Evans 1948 split from Thornhill, because its sound conceptions him were too gloomy, the musician and music theorist George Russell became his successor. Highlights are the unusual, characterized by deep horns versions of Donna Lee, Anthropology, Yardbird Suite, and Lover Man, which originated in 1947. This sound took by Evans, Mulligan and Konitz 1948-50 impact on the historic Miles Davis Nonet with the Birth of the Cool recordings at Capitol.

In 1948, when the big-band boom was already over, after the recording of For Heaven 's Sake and Let's Call it A Day, Thornhill broke up the band. A few months later he had a show with Hal McKusick, Tony Scott, Nick Travis, Gene Quill and Bob Brookmeyer; its activities in the jazz scene but were less. After a nervous breakdown in the 1950s Thornhill formed between longer phases of the disease occasionally new big bands, so 1956 for a gig at Birdland, then worked with some semi-professional and smaller groups later. Around 1965 he lived in New Jersey; on the night of July 1, 1965, he died after two heart attacks.

His band was " gentle and yet powerful, delicate and yet strong, fine and yet radiant, funny and yet profound ," she characterized George T. Simon in his work on the big-band era.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Snowfall (Hep Records 1940 /41)
• Buster 's Last Stand (Hep, 1941-47 )
• The Transcriptions Performances 1947 (Hep, 1947)
• The 1948 Transcriptions Performances ' (Hep, 1948)
• The Crystal Gazer - the Later Recordings ( Sounds of Yesteryear, 1946-56 )