Claus Ogerman
Claus Ogerman ( born April 29, 1930 in Ratibor; actually Klaus Ogermann ) is a German American composer and arranger.
Biography
Klaus was Ogermann (today Racibórz, Poland) was born in the Upper Silesian Ratibor. The anglifizierten Claus Ogerman name he gave himself until later in the USA. After the end of World War II, he moved with his family to the American occupation zone near Nuremberg. The family had like millions of other German expellees and refugees lost everything, how Ogerman once remarked in an interview to his great CD album The Man Behind the Music.
In the fifties, he worked as an arranger and pianist, including with Kurt Edelhagen and Max Greger. In 1954, he appeared with Chet Baker in the TV studio of the SWF in Baden -Baden. He also worked as a film composer.
In October 1959 Ogerman emigrated to New York / USA. There he met, among others on Don Costa, who Ogerman introduced her to Quincy Jones. Jones (then head of A & R at Mercury Records ) presented as an arranger Ogerman and charged him with a number of arrangements, including 1963 by Lesley Gore 's No. 1 hit It's My Party. Quickly Ogerman made a name and worked for the next twenty years with various well-known stars of jazz and popular music together. Ogerman developed at this time, new forms of arrangements, which strongly oriented towards classic elements. His distinctive type and language, especially for strings, have left a lasting impression on the listener. Especially his work with artists such as Gidon Kremer also shows its innovative force with string textures to achieve new heights.
In 1962, when the bossa nova reached the United States, Ogerman met Antônio Carlos Jobim. With him and other representatives of the Bossa Nova is a long-standing joint work developed.
The productions under Tommy LiPuma in the seventies zeitigten the greatest success in terms of its popularity and in terms of its commercial career as an arranger and composer. In particular, the collaboration with jazz guitarist George Benson was extremely successful. With albums like Breezin 1976, 1978 Inflight and Living Inside Your Love 1979 ( for the arrangement of the title Soulful Strut, he received a Grammy ), Ogerman occupied for years top positions in the sales and radio lists. As a work in this genre also has its own ballet adaptation Gate of Dreams is to mention (premiered July 14, 1974 at Lincoln Center in New York City / USA with the American Ballet Theatre ), which in 1976 under his own name and renamed Orchestra (original title 1974 Sometimes ) was again produced by Tommy LiPuma for the Warner Brothers label. Ogerman was artists like George Benson, Joe Sample, Dave Sanborn, Michael Brecker, Peter Maunu, John Guerin, Chuck Domanico, Larry Bunker, Chino Valdes, Ralph Grierson win for this production.
In 1974, he wrote with a Symbiosis today widely acclaimed piano concert for the jazz pianist Bill Evans, among other things, the in which classical pianist and Bach interpreter Glenn Gould enthusiasm aroused.
1979 Ogerman pulled out of the commercial music business dedicated to keeping only the composition and arrangement of classical works, including Michael Brecker, Bill Evans, as well as for the mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender.
In this creative period, he rejected the offers well-known musicians like Prince, Ella Fitzgerald, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, among others from to produce for her albums and arrange. It was only in 2001 succeeded the producer Tommy LiPuma with the Canadian jazz pianist Diana Krall to move Ogerman to return to the commercial music business. Ogerman orchestrated and arranged first for Diana Krall album The Look of Love, and later her held in the style of bossa nova recordings of the 60s album Quiet Nights, which was won a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement with vocal accompaniment.
Work
In the decades of his work Ogerman developed a very successful, highly influenced by classical elements style of orchestration and arrangement. New arrangements of popular tunes that are now used for background music in elevators, hotels and shopping centers ( Muzak ), often based on the concepts Ogermans.
Ogerman was a total of sixteen times nominated for the Grammy. He won the trophy in 1980 for his arrangement of George Benson Songs Soulful Strut. A total of 37 more albums, where Ogerman was involved, were also nominated for the Grammy.
Ogerman worked from 1959 to 1979 with many famous musicians and orchestrated, arranged and produced their albums. Be mentioned here ( random selection ): Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Joao Gilberto, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Cal Tjader, Oscar Peterson, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Frank Sinatra (with a perceived as sensational bossa nova album with Antônio Carlos Jobim ), Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr. and Michael Brecker.
Ogermans best-known classic -oriented work are:
- Symbiosis, a work for orchestra, classical and jazz piano together with Bill Evans.
- Cityscape and Symphonic Dances for Saxophone and classical orchestra with Michael Brecker,
- Ballet music for the American Ballet Theatre, as well as recordings of the mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender.