Stan Freeman

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风格: #摇摆乐　#波普　#冷爵士
地区: 欧美

艺人介绍

by Bruce EderAlthough he only released a handful of recordings of his own, Stan Freeman was a near-omnipresent fixture on the New York jazz scene as a soloist, accompanist, and session musician for much of the 1950s and early 60s. Additionally, he attracted attention as a composer, comic writer, and raconteur, and also served as an arranger from the 1960s thru the 1980s for Marlene Dietrich and Michael Feinstein. And for a time in the early 1950s, he helped spearhead a momentary and unexpected revival of the harpsichord as a popular instrument. Born in Waterbury, CT, in 1920, Stan Freeman studied classical piano and later graduated from the University of Hartford. He played in Glenn Millers U.S. Army Air Force Band during World War II and moved on to Tex Benekes band after the war. He recorded duets with pianist Cy Walker, in addition to recording with Lee Wiley and Mabel Mercer as an accompanist. During the early 50s, he became a successful nightclub entertainer in his own right, as much for his comical asides and commentary as his piano playing. Freemans first taste of recognition outside of the professional music world came in 1951 when he played a session with Rosemary Clooney where an unusual novelty record was cut — the result, Come On-A My House, was an international smash and a career-maker for Clooney, and Freemans accompaniment on the harpsichord made him into enough of a celebrity that Columbia Records released an album of his work entitled Come On-A Stans House that same year. The harpsichord became a particular specialty of his over the next few years and Freeman brought the instrument to the music of Percy Faith, among other band leaders, on various recordings during the first half of the 1950s. During the 1960s, he cut one album, Fascination, for Enoch Lights Project 3 label and kept busy as an accompanist. He became the successor to Burt Bacharach as Marlene Dietrichs musical director and collaborated in the composing of a pair of Broadway musicals. He was a favorite composer of special musical material for television as well, particularly for Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore, and won an Emmy Award for his work as composer of Hi-Hat, a Fred Astaire parody that was done with Burnett. His activities scarcely slackened in the 1970s and the 1980s, when he became an arranger for Michael Feinstein. He also indulged his lifelong admiration for George Gershwin and his interpreter Oscar Levant, writing a tribute to Levant, a well-known raconteur as well as musician, entitled At Wits End. As late as 1997, when he was in his late eighties, Freeman took on the new role of theatrical performer (as well as being the music director) in an off-Broadway revue entitled Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know.