Ebony Big Band / Robert F. Graettinger - Live At The Paradiso
SKU
15-CCS 13198
Robert F. Graettinger was one of the strangest, most adventurous and little known composers and arrangers of the mid 20th century.
He was visible as one of Stan Kenton's arrangers circa 1948-1953, when Kenton had to let him go because his music was so unpopular.
His complete recorded work for Stan Kenton (about an hour) was all reissued on a (now out of print) CD called "City Of Glass", which I would highly recommend.
Graettinger was a tall thin man, born in 1923 who was famous among the Kentonites for his diet of booze, speed, cigarettes, vitamins and scrambled eggs. He was also known for his unique, early, color / graphic scores, which he would later turn into regular musical scores. He died in 1957 of lung cancer. There are no known interviews with him that survive, but his most famous quote about his work is: “I live above the timberline where nothing grows”.
This fantastic release collects all of his previously unrecorded (and in some cases unfinished) works, both from the Kenton days and later. The material ranges from nearly normal arrangements of good standards to insane arrangements of good standards [Everything Happens To Me] to 'Suite For String Trio and Windquartet'.
- LabelChannel Classics
- UPC0723385131984