My first arranging lesson, actually, my first awareness that a piece of music could be "arranged," that you could do things to it, occurred in 1966: My father, to broaden my listening from just the Animals and Paul Revere and the Raiders, bought me a compilation called "The Swing Years." This was on it. Six months later Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had one of their last hits with a blues shuffle version of this tune. A lightbulb went off over my head. I have never recovered. @heysonjason If you have a link to something, send it to me, I'd be interested to see it. @VA24541 Actually, as I understand it, during, not after. Whenever he made a western for the "race" audience, he changed his last name to "Jeffrey," to avoid confusion with his singing career. He was promoted as a sort of black Gene Autry, and I believe he is the only American of African descent to be inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. @baalbuster No offense, but you've got to clean out your ears. The harmonic sophistication of this tune, especially at the time it was a hit, is breathtaking.
My first arranging lesson, actually, my first awareness that a piece of music could be "arranged," that you could do things to it, occurred in 1966:
My father, to broaden my listening from just the Animals and Paul Revere and the Raiders, bought me a compilation called "The Swing Years." This was on it.
Six months later Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had one of their last hits with a blues shuffle version of this tune. A lightbulb went off over my head. I have never recovered.
@heysonjason
If you have a link to something, send it to me, I'd be interested to see it.
@VA24541
Actually, as I understand it, during, not after. Whenever he made a western for the "race" audience, he changed his last name to "Jeffrey," to avoid confusion with his singing career. He was promoted as a sort of black Gene Autry, and I believe he is the only American of African descent to be inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
@baalbuster
No offense, but you've got to clean out your ears.
The harmonic sophistication of this tune, especially at the time it was a hit, is breathtaking.