Billy May RTS4297 : Jazz CD Reviews - 2017 MusicWeb International

Billy May was a jazz-pop trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1916 and began his music career playing the tuba. Billy’s first professional gig was with Gene Olsen’s Polish-American Orchestra in 1933. He also performed with other bands in the Pittsburgh area, including those led by Barron Elliot, Al Howard and Lee River, before Charlie Barnet hired him in 1938 as a trumpeter and arranger. Billy joined Glenn Miller’s band in 1940 and stayed until they broke up in 1942. During the rest of the 1940’s Billy arranged music for Les Brown, Alvino Rey, Phil Harris, Ozzie Nelson, NBC studios, and the Capitol studio orchestra. In 1951 he started his own studio band, with vocalists Peggy Barrett and the Encores. Billy was a prolific music arranger and worked with many other musicians during his career; including Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine, Billy Eckstine, Vic Damone, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Rosemary Clooney, Anita O’Day, Jack Jones and Dinah Shore to name a few. He also wrote music for television and film scores during the 1950’s. This 2-disc set has 52 songs from his career between 1939 and 1961.

Billy was known for writing tight arrangements with bold and elaborate brass parts and quick tempos. One of Billy’s trademark sounds was the “slurping saxophones’ riff that he created while arranging Ray Noble’s tune Cherokee for Charlie Barnet’s band. The song was originally recorded in July 1939 on Bluebird records. Billy composed Long Tall Mama in 1941 and performed it with Glenn Miller in November, 1941 on Victor records with a tight, swinging arrangement featuring Billy on trumpet, Glenn playing trombone, and a brass-heavy rhythm section. Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster wrote Memphis In June, a slow, breezy ballad sung by Hoagy accompanied by Billy and his orchestra. The song appeared in the 1945 movie Johnny Angel, starring George Raft, and was recorded for the Decca label in December 1947. Billy wrote Lean Baby in 1951 and recorded it for Capitol Records in August 1951. The tune is a wailing swing number that rocks like an easy chair, led by a marvelous brass section that alternates the lead between the trumpets, trombones and saxophones. Kay Starr sings a lively version of the country-swing dance tune Honky-Tonk Hardwood Floor, enhanced by Billy’s big-band brass arrangement, recorded for Capitol in October, 1951. Billy recorded the album Big Fat Brass for Capitol Records in May 1958. His band was also called Big Fat Brass, and featured six trumpets, four trombones, four French horns, and two tubas, along with piano, guitar and percussion. The combination of these instruments created a marvelously rich, dynamic sound, and Billy’s arrangements were lively and explosive, performed by a group of first-rate musicians. Four numbers from that album are on Disc Two, including Billy’s own compositions Ping Pong and Solving The Riddle. Ella Fitzgerald joined Billy and his Orchestra in the Verve Records studio in January, 1961 and created a beautiful rendition of Over The Rainbow, written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg. The arrangement also features alto saxophonist Benny Carter and a 20-piece string accompaniment.

This is an outstanding collection of music from Billy’s long tenure in the music business, and is representative of the many facets of his career. He was truly the man with the golden touch as a music arranger. This collection was compiled by Ray Crick. Martin Haskell performed the audio restoration and re-mastering. Digby Fairwater supplied the liner notes and commentary for the 16-page booklet included with the discs. The sound quality is excellent.

Bruce McCollum