Everything about Woody Herman totally explained
Woodrow Charles Herman (
May 16 1913 –
October 29 1987), better known as
Woody Herman, was an
American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano
saxophonist,
singer, and
big band leader.
Beginnings
Herman was born Woodrow Charles Thomas Herman in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 16, 1913. [Lees4] His parents were Ray and Myrtle Herrman. [Lees5] As a child he worked as a singer in
vaudeville, then became a professional
saxophone player at age 15. In 1931, he met Charlotte Neste, an aspiring actress. [Clancy13] They later married. Woody Herman joined the Tom Gerun band and his first recorded vocals were "Lonesome Me" and "My Heart's At Ease". [Clancy15]
Herman also performed with the
Harry Sosnick orchestra [Clancy16] and
Gus Arnheim and
Isham Jones. [Clancy17] Isham Jones wrote many popular songs, including "It Had To Be You"
(External Link
) and at some point was tiring of the demands of leading a band. Jones wanted to live off the residuals of his songs. "While we were with Jones, we discussed the possibilities of [Woodybeing the leader] after we heard Isham was going to quit." [Clancy20] Woody Herman eventually acquired the remains of Jones' orchestra after Isham Jones decided to retire.
The Band That Plays The Blues and the First Herd 1936-1946
Woody Herman's first band became known for its orchestrations of the
blues and was sometimes billed as "The Band That Plays The Blues". "The numbering of the early Herman bands has caused much confusion among fans and musicians. A few individuals consider Woody's first band or 'The Band That Plays The Blues,' the 'First Herd,' but among the majority of music critics and writers, the 'First Herd' refers to the band of 1944-1946." [Clancy53]
"At the end of 1944 [...] Woody signed a contract with Columbia records. He said later that he liked the sound the company's engineers got in Liederkrantz Hall in New York City [...]." [Lees108] Liederkrantz Hall was a "former church and had a very high ceiling." [Lees108] The Columbia contract coincided with a change in the band's repertoire. The First Herd's music was heavily influenced by
Duke Ellington and
Count Basie. Its lively, swinging arrangements, combining
bop themes with
swing rhythm parts, were greatly admired. As of February, 1945 the personnel included
Sonny Berman,
Pete Candoli,
Billy Bauer (later replaced by
Chuck Wayne),
Ralph Burns,
Davey Tough and
Flip Phillips. [Lees109] On February 26, 1945 in New York City, the Woody Herman band recorded "Caldonia". [Clancy68] "Ralph [Burns] caught
Louis Jordan [singing"Caldonia"] in an act and wrote the opening twelve bars and the eight bar tag." [Clancy68] "But the most amazing thing on the record was a soaring eight bar passage by trumpets near the end." These eight measures have wrongly been attributed to a Dizzy Gillespie solo, but were in fact originally written by Neal Hefti.
[Lees109]
In 1946 the band won
Downbeat,
Metronome,
Billboard and
Esquire polls for best band, nominated by their peers in the big band business.[Clancy90] Along with the high acclaim for their jazz and blues performances, classical composer
Igor Stravinsky wrote the
Ebony Concerto, one in a series of compositions commissioned by Woody with solo clarinet, for this band. Woody Herman would record this work in the
Belock Recording Studio at Bayside New York in 1959, and released in January 1959 as SDBR 3009. The recording has been released on a CD by Everest EVC 9049.
Woody Herman said about the
Concerto: "What we were doing then, the First Herd [...] were heavy, strong, jazz things, with lots of open brass and so forth [...]. [...] [
EbonyConcerto is a] very delicate and a very sad piece." [Clancy88] Stravinsky felt that the jazz musicians would have a hard time with the various time signatures. Saxophonist Flip Philips said "during the rehearsal [...] there was a passage I'd to play there and I was playing it soft, and Stravinsky said 'Play it, here I am!' and I blew it louder and he threw me a kiss!'" [Clancy89]
Ebony Concerto opened March 25, 1946 at Carnegie Hall.
(External Link)
Despite the Carnegie Hall success and other triumphs, Herman was forced to disband the orchestra in
1946 at the height of its success. This was his only financially successful band; he left it to spend more time with his wife and family. During this time, he and his family had just moved into the former Hollywood home of
Humphrey Bogart and
Lauren Bacall. One reason Herman may have disbanded was his wife Charlotte's growing problems with alcoholism and pill addiction. "[AfterWoody Herman broke up his band] Charlotte joined Alcoholics Anonymous. [...] Charlotte gave up even wine[...].[...] Woody said, laughing, 'I went to an AA meeting with Charlotte and my old band was sitting there.'" [Lees147] Many critics cite December of 1946 as the actual date the big band era ended and eight other bands in addition to Herman's, called it quits. [Lees147]
The Second Herd and Other Bands 1947-1987
In
1947 Herman organized the Second Herd. This band was also known as "The Four Brothers Band". This derives from the song recorded December 27, 1947 for Columbia records, "
Four Brothers", written by Jimmy Giuffre. [Clancy120] "The 'Four Brothers' chart is based on the chord changes of '
Jeepers Creepers', and features the three-tenor, one-baritone saxophone section[...]." [Clancy121] The order of the saxophone solos is
Zoot Sims,
Herbie Steward,
Serge Chaloff and
Stan Getz. [Clancy121] Some of the notable musicians of this band were also
Al Cohn,
Gene Ammons,
Lou Levy,
Oscar Pettiford,
Terry Gibbs, and
Shelly Manne. Among this band's hits were "Early Autumn," and "The Goof and I".
Herman and his band appeared in the movie
New Orleans in 1947 with
Billie Holliday and
Louis Armstrong.
(External Link)
Herman's other bands include the Third Herd (1950-1956) and various editions of the New Thundering Herd (1959-1987). In the 1950s, the Third Herd went on a successful European tour. [Clancy192] He was known for hiring the best young musicians and using their arrangements. His band's book in the sixties consequently came to be heavily influenced by
rock and roll. [Clancy275] "In 1968 Woody started to use an electronic rhythm section with electric piano and bass, combined with the traditional big band instrumentation [...] producing the fusion of a rock beat with the timbre of horns." [Clancy271] He was also known too feature brass and woodwind instruments not traditionally associated with jazz, such as the bassoon, oboe or French horn.
In 1974, Woody Herman and his "Young Thundering Herd" appeared with
Frank Sinatra for his television special
The Main Event and subsequent album,
The Main Event – Live. Both were recorded on October 13 1974 at
Madison Square Garden in New York City. [Clancy291] On November 20, 1976, a reconstituted Woody Herman band played at Carnegie Hall in New York City, celebrating Herman's fortieth anniversary as a bandleader. [Clancy299] By the
1980s, Herman had returned to straight forward jazz, dropping some of the newer rock and fusion approaches. [Clancy312-313] Circa 1980, Woody Herman signed a recording contract with Concord Records, now the Concord Music Group. [Wilson,1981] On March 15, 1981,
John S. Wilson wrote in
The New York Times of one of Herman's first Concord recordings "Woody Herman Presents a Concord Jam, Vol. I": "[Thisrecording] takes him back to the days before his high pressure First Herd of 1944 and 1945, to the more relaxed feeling of his original band of the late 1930s, 'the band that plays the blues [...]."
Last years
Herman continued to perform into the
1980s, after the death of his wife and his health declining, chiefly to pay back taxes caused by an incompetent manager in the
1960s. "[Inthe mid nineteen-sixties] the Internal Revenue Service sent Woody a letter ordering him to appear in person in its office. He arrived with Abe [Turchen]. [...] He was handed a tax bill for $750,000. With interest and penalties, the amount was $1.6 million." [Lees272] With the added stress, Herman still kept performing. In a December 5, 1985 review of the band at the Blue Note jazz club for
The New York Times, John S. Wilson pointed out: "In a one-hour set, Mr. Herman is able to show off his latest batch of young stars — the baritone saxophonist Mike Brignola, the bassist Bill Moring, the pianist Brad Williams, the trumpeter Ron Stout — and to remind listeners that one of his own basic charms is the dry humor with which he shouts the blues." Wilson also spoke about arrangements by Bill Holman and John Fedchock for special attention. Wilson spoke of the continuing influence of Duke Ellington on the Woody Herman bands from the nineteen forties to the nineteen eighties. [Wilson1985]
Before his death in
1987 he delegated most of his duties to leader of the reed section,
Frank Tiberi(External Link). Tiberi leads the current version of the Woody Herman orchestra.
(External Link) Frank Tiberi said at the time of Herman's death "I wouldn't play anyone else's arrangements [...] We're going to remain with what [WoodyHerman] was doing." [Clancy397] Woody Herman's funeral and "Requiem Mass, conducted by Monsignor George J. Parnassus, began at 10 am on the morning of November 2, 1987 at St. Victor's Catholic Church, in West Hollywood [California] [...]." [Lees368]
Concord Music Group's website mentions these awards won by the various Woody Herman orchestras: "Voted best swing band in 1945 Down Beat poll; Silver Award by critics in 1946 and 1947 Esquire polls; won Metronome poll, band division, 1946 and 1953; won NARAS Grammy Award for Encore as best big band jazz album of 1963; won NARAS Grammy Award for Giant Steps as best big band jazz album of 1973."
(External Link) Woody Herman was awarded the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987
(External Link).
Works Cited
- Clancy, William. Woody Herman: Chronicles of the Herds. Schirmer, New York, 1995.
- Concord Music Group. n.d. "Woody Herman." February 5, 2007.
http://concordmusicgroup.com/artists/bio/?id=1127
- Lees, Gene. Leader of the Band: The Life of Woody Herman. Oxford University Press, New York, 1995
- Wilson, John S. December 5, 1985. "Jazz: Woody Herman's Band." February 2, 2007. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E2DD163BF936A35751C1A963948260.
- March 15, 1981. "Woody Herman: Jamming As Of Old". February 2, 2007. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E7DD1239F936A25750C0A967948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1.
- Verve Music Group. n.d. "Woody Herman". February 4, 2007. http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist.aspx?ob=per&src=prd&aid=2841.
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