Bob Sanders: Never enough respect for arrangers

The pour old arranger never gets much credit. Even big band lovers, of which there are many (witness the Auburn Knights reunions), seldom remember that somebody had to write every note on those sheets, a different sheet for each instrument, and make them blend and come out together. And that’s just the physical part.
There needs to be something uniquely creative in there, too. Example: Vaughn Monroe took a plain little melody like “Let it Snow” and made a nice, if pedestrian, record of it. Ralph Burns took that same melody, and with the fabulous musicians of Woody Herman’s First Herd, made a classic of it.

Stan Kenton had as his right hand man in the glory years, Pete Rugulo.

Duke Ellington had Billy Strayhorn. Benny Goodman’s early band’s sound was shaped mainly by Fletcher Henderson.

Then in the ’40s, he broughtin Eddie Sauter to do a new book for him. Pianist Mel Powell also made significant contributions. Sauter later wrote for the wonderful and oft-overlooked Ray McKinley band of the late ’40s.

Glen Miller had two of the hardest working arrangers (three radio shows a week, etc.) in Bill Finegan and Jerry Gray. Finegan later wrote for Tommy Dorsey, and then teamed up with Sauter for the Sauter-Finegan band. And Dorsey brought in Sy Oliver to write for his band.

Gil Evans wrote some extraordinary beautiful things for Claude Thornhill, and then for Miles Davis.

Oh, what lovely music they made.

Count Basie used many arrangers, as long as they fitted into the swinging Basie mode, and in the ’60s, he recorded some Neal Hefti (who had been with the First Herd) charts that almost brought back the big band era. Ray Connif, who became hugely financially successful with many choral group albums, had been a very fine arranger for many bands, especially Glen Gray and Artie Shaw.

Frank Sinatra offers a perfect example of an arranger’s importance.

As a singer with Tommy Dorsey, and later on Columbia, Axel Stordahl fashioned some sweet, simple arrangements for him that perfectly framed Sinatra as a sweet, sensitive, vulnerable young man.

When that phase petered out, Frank re-invented himself as a hip, swinging, “with it” guy with arrangements by Nelson Riddle and Billy May. Neither type necessarily better, just different.

Close to home, Marion Evans once wrote many arrangements for the Auburn Knights.

He then went on to write for many famous bands and singers.

Remember, the sound you hear from a band was created by some usually unrecognized music master called an arranger.

Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.