(BOOKS and RECORDS to CONSIDEI*' Friend, So Intimate Are the Details, So Friendly Is the Style
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VOLUME LXXXIV BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 (BOOKS AND RECORDS TO CONSIDEI*' friend, so intimate are the details, so friendly is the style. As anyone would if writing to a friend, observa MEMOIRS OF A FAMOUS COMPOSER- tions are made about people Earle Hagen worked with, NOBODY EVER HEARD OF such as Ethel Merman, Paul Whiteman, Tommy Dorsey, Earle Hagen Sheldon Leonard, Oscar Levant, Victor Young, Dick Van Dyke, Jack Teagarden, J.J. Johnson, Ray Bolger, This autobiography of a former Big Band trombone Don Knotts, Bill Cosby and dozens of others. There’s player with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey also an observation about the changes in the network entertainment outlook between those early days and the present day pertaining to the increase in the lack of human involvement in decision making; it’s all done with synthesizers, numbers and research results now. Not a Big Band book as such, but about an accom plished composer/arranger who got his start with the bands. Most entertaining if you have any interest in how music develops, and how it works in television. Available directly from the publisher: Xlibris Corpo ration - Phone (888) 795-4274 Extension 276. About $25.00 in soft cover including shipping. Andy Griffith and Earl Hagen Hagen Williams concentrates most on his post Big Band Era career as a composer of music for movies and then television BING CROSBY - CROONER OF THE CENTURY programs, but his insights into the music business are Richard Grudens - Celebrity Profiles Publishing enlightening. The book is an absorbing if informal remembrance of Earle Hagen’s emergence as a trom This is, in our opinion, the best of the “celebrity” books bone player, a player so good Tommy Dorsey asked by Grudens, who has devoted a big chunk of his life to him to sub for him during some Dorsey time off, and interviewing celebrities and writing about them; he is then his decision to devote the rest of his life to an occasional contributor to interviews used in this composing and arranging, rather than playing. The newsletter. In this book he draws upon conversations most recalled Earle Hagen composition is HARLEM with those who knew Crosby, creating a patchwork of NOCTURNE followed by the rural sound of the whis- information from all angles of Crosby’s life. In her tl ing theme for the long-running ANDY GRIFFITH generous foreword, Bing’s second wife Kathryn Crosby SHOW, but Hagen composed the mood setting music writes that she wrote only of her personal relationship for three thousand television programs. with her husband but, "Richard, on the other hand, covers every aspect of Bing’s public career." The reason for the title of the book is, of course, because the work Earle Hagen did is so much a part of There are lists of Bing Crosby’s most popular record television history, but his name is not. He was the one ings, a bibliography of books about Bing, a list of his who composed the theme and backgrounds for MAKE movies with liberal poster reproductions and random ROOM FOR DADDY, THE DICK VAN DYKE Crosbyana in many areas. There are comments and SHOW, THAT GIRL, I SPY, and some TV programs anecdotes from people in every walk of life who worked that never made it past one year or the pilot stage. with Crosby, including Connie Haines, Joe Franklin, Phil Harris, Herbert Mills of the Mills Brothers, Mary The book is put together almost as if it’s composed of Martin, Mel Torme, Fred Astaire, Les Paul, Rosemary a series of personal letters from the author to a good Clooney, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Jack Benny and.