SAUTER FINEGAN ORCHESTRA: New York 4 A.M.

Bobby Nichols plays trumpet. Eddie Sauter: Born 2 December 1914, Brooklyn, New York. Died 21 April 1981, New York City, New York . Bill Finegan: Born 3 April 1917, Newark, New Jersey. Died 4 June 2008, Bridgeport, Connecticut . Considered two of the best arrangers of the big band era, Sauter and Finegan joined forces in 1952 to form a group whose unusual instrumentation, arrangements, and material set it apart from just about everything else at the time--yet also ultimately led to its commercial downfall. Yet in the recordings of the Sauter-Finegan orchestra, you can hear the roots of a style that would burst forth a few years later in the stereo spectaculars of Esquivel, Enoch Light, and others. Sauter and Finegan followed parallel but separate paths for the first two decades of their professional lives. Sauter started on drums and then switched to trumpet and began playing with dance bands in his late teens. He joined vibraphonist Red Norvo's band in 1935 and soon became the lead arranger for Norvo and his wife, singer Mildred Bailey. In 1939, Benny Goodman hired him away and Sauter's arrangements of current hits as well as original compositions like "Benny Rides Again," and "Clarinet ala King" provided Goodman with some of his biggest hits. In the 1940s, Sauter worked for Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and Ray McKinley, and reunited with Goodman to arrange for one of the very first 12" LPs released by Columbia, 1951. Finegan also started out playing in various big bands, but his big break came when he was hired as a staff arranger by Glenn Miller in 1941, when the Miller band was hitting its commercial zenith. Although Miller was notorious for being a humorless and strictly business-minded bandleader, he was so impressed by Finegan's abilities that he soon gave him the freedom to write and arrange whatever material he wanted. After Miller's death in 1944, the Miller band was kept together, but it fell back onto recycling old material, and Finegan moved on to work as a freelancer through the late 1940s. In 1950, tired of the decline in success and innovation in the big bands, he moved to France and enrolled in music study at the Paris Conservatory. By that time, however, he and Sauter had struck up a friendship and were corresponding and sharing musical ideas. When Sauter wrote him a letter on the back of a rejection slip from a hack bandleader, Finegan replied by suggesting that if things were getting that bad, they'd better form their own band. They quickly produced a volley of original compositions and arrangements, and through Sauter's contacts with RCA, they got a recording contract for a few singles. They pulled together a number of top sidemen, including Ralph Burns (who would later become a successful arranger himself) and Kai Winding and cut a series of sides that were received enthusiastically. Many of their numbers were adaptations of existing material, but they looked to unusual places for their sources: American folk songs like "Yankee Doodle" and classical compositions by Profokiev, Rossini, and others. They also used unusual instrumentations, including recorders, piccolos and oboes, English horns, and--later a favorite of stereo spectacular arrangers--tuneable drums.

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• FINEGAN
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• trumpet
• jazz
• Eddie Sauter
• Bill Finegan
• nyc
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• Bobby Nichols

[lovellevelliloqui]

Who is the trumpet player, Bobby Nichols?

[ramoburg]

@lovellevelliloqui Bobby Nichols plays trumpet here.

[ramoburg]

I 'll put more in the future.

[ramoburg]

The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra has been one of my favorites.

[lovellevelliloqui]

September´s Sorrow is other great ballad.

[rmo52]

I talked to Bill Finegan on his final birthday. He said to me "I feel great, I can still write, that's what matters". That says it all. He is one of my absolute heroes.

[fromthesidelines]

The "problem" with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra was that it was "just for listening", not dancing. You could have the most brilliant conductors, arrangers and sidemen- but if you didn't appeal to dancers in the '50s, you just didn't "have it".

[Gefreiter44]

Beautiful! Inside Sauter Finegan remains one of my all time favorite records. It's available on CD now after all these decades! One of the greatest musical organizations of all time.

[MarkSchildberg]

Eddie and Bill were the best. What a phenomenal band this was.

[1948BigCy]

@nemo227 : Right on!! Arrangers are very underappreciated by the public (most of them don't know what an arranger does, and wouldn't even if you explained it to them). Very true, arrangers can very much help vocalists, and vocalists know this. Peter Matz (Streisand), Dick West (Darin), Billy May (countless...) added so much to the vocalists' performance...

[mtalaba]

Thank you for putting this up on YouTube! I was very young when I first heard the Sauter-Finigan orchestra, but I never forgot their great sound. Do you happen to have a cut of 'Lonesome Bugle Boy' that you can post? I think it was on the "Inside Sauter-Finigan" album.