V O LU M E 127 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MARCH-APRIL, 2010

Dean Martin, as well as his wife June Hutton who had been the female voice with a later edition of the Pied Pipers. In the late 1950s he was musical director of the television program “Startime.” He released instru­ mental albums under his own name for Dot, Decca and Capi­ tol, but was never as prominent as he was working with Sinatra. Frank & Axel In 1961 Sinatra and Stordahl worked together one more time on the singer’s last Capitol album, “Point Of No Return.” By that time Axel Stordahl was fighting cancer, a fight he lost in 1963. He was fifty years old.

In issue number 128 - May-June, 2010 , arranger Pete Rugolo

BOOKS & RECORDS TO CONSIDER

THE GIFT OF MUSIC- Sammy Nestico

This is an autobiogra­ Stordahl with him as his music director resulting in the phy every music fan string-filled sound that so effectively presented the should consider hav­ Sinatra sound. Stordah l was arranger and conductor for ing in his collection, well over 200 of the nearly 300 sides cut by Sinatra at for it covers the au­ Columbia as well as providing orchestral backing for thors work with solid hundreds of songs performed by Sinatra on various swing bands, but the radio programs. He also arranged the music for the more generalized Academy Award- winning motion picture, “Anchors work with singers and Aweigh” starring Sinatra and Gene Kelly. television. Sammy Nestico is one of those The story ofAxelStordahl’scollaboration in writing his arrangers whose first hit was told as part of the “Sammy Cahn Legacy” name is not well- program. It seems Stordahl, fellow Dorsey arranger known but whose Paul Weston and lyricist Sammy Cahn were rooming work has been heard together when the three of them came up with DAY in one form or another BY DAY. The success of that song so excited Stordahl most of the population and Weston they went to work to turn out I SHOULD of the United States Bookcover CARE. and much ofthe world. There are stories about the author’s association with The Sinatra-Stordahl association ended after Sinatra’s such luminaries as Quincy Jones and Count Basie, his first session for Capitol Records. By the early fifties arranging and conducting for the Air Force Airmen of Stordahl was working with such vocal luminaries as Note and the Marine Band and his accompaniment for Doris Day, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee and singers Toni Tennille, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and

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