Claus Ogerman
Encyclopedia
Claus Ogerman is a German
musical arranger
/ orchestrator
, conductor, and composer
, best known for his works with Antonio Carlos Jobim
, Frank Sinatra
and Diana Krall
.
, Upper Silesia
, Ogerman began his career with the piano
. He is definitely one of the most prolific 20th century arrangers and has worked in the Top 40, Rock
, Pop
, Jazz
, R&B, Soul
, Easy listening
, Broadway
and Classical music
fields. The exact number of recording artists for whom Ogerman has either arranged or conducted during his career has still not yet been determined.
In the 1950s, Ogerman worked in Germany as an arranger-pianist with Kurt Edelhagen
, Max Greger, and Delle Haensch. Claus (then Klaus) also worked as a part-time vocalist and recorded several 45 rpms under the pen name of "Tom Collins", duetting with Hannelore Cremer - and he also recorded a solo vocal with the Delle Haensch Jump Combo as well. In 1959, he moved to the United States and joined the producer Creed Taylor
at Verve Records
, working on recordings with Antonio Carlos Jobim
, Bill Evans
, Wes Montgomery
, Kai Winding
and Cal Tjader
- among countless others. Verve was sold to MGM in 1963. Claus Ogerman, by his own admission in Gene Lees' Jazzletter publication, arranged some 60-70 albums for Verve under Creed Taylor's direction from 1963-1967. In 1966 Ogerman arranged and conducted Bill Evans Trio With Symphony Orchestra (Verve Records). In 1967 he joined Creed Taylor on the A&M/CTi label.
Ogerman arranged and conducted Diana Krall's
2001 album The Look of Love, and conducted on her DVD "Live in Paris". He also served as arranger and conductor for Krall's 2009 album Quiet Nights
. He won the 2010 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)" for “Quiet Nights.”
Ogerman also arranged and conducted the orchestra on George Benson
's 1976 album, Breezin'
, as well as on two other Benson albums.
Among Ogerman's most remarkable albums there are: Gate Of Dreams (WB 1977), from the music of the ballet Some Times; Cityscape with Michael Brecker (1982 Warner-Pioneer); Claus Ogerman Featuring Michael Brecker (GRP 1991). All include original compositions centered around the juxtaposition of jazz instruments and rhythm sections with classical music orchestra.
, a work for saxophone and orchestra Cityscape, for Michael Brecker
, a song cycle Tagore-Lieder after poems by Rabindranath Tagore
that was recorded by Judith Blegen
and Brigitte Fassbaender
, a Concerto for violin and orchestra, Lirico and a Sarabande-Fantasie for violin and orchestra recorded by Aaron Rosand
, 10 Songs for Chorus A-Capella After Poems by Georg Heym that was recorded by the Cologne Radio Chorus, a work for violin and orchestra Preludio and Chant recorded by Gidon Kremer
. In July 2008, he released an album of compositions with jazz pianist Danilo Perez
entitled Across The Crystal Sea.
Ogerman's major influences as a composer remain Max Reger
and Alexander Scriabin
. He steadfastly maintains that he is not primarily concerned with "modernism" per se stating that his goal is to evoke an emotional response in the listener.
(1967), the first of two recordings that Frank Sinatra
made with Jobim. Ogerman also arranged and conducted Jobim's The Composer of Desafinado, Plays
(1963), A Certain Mr. Jobim
(1967), Wave
(1967), Jobim
(1972), Urubu
(1976) and Terra Brasilis
(1980), on which he also played the piano. On the Jobim and Urubu albums, Ogerman was also the producer.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
musical arranger
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
/ orchestrator
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
, conductor, and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, best known for his works with Antonio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim , was a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
and Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
.
Life and work
Born in Ratibor (Racibórz)Racibórz
Racibórz is a town in southern Poland with 60,218 inhabitants situated in the Silesian Voivodeship , previously in Katowice Voivodeship...
, Upper Silesia
Province of Upper Silesia
The Province of Upper Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia created in the aftermath of World War I. It comprised much of the region of Upper Silesia and was eventually divided into two administrative regions , Kattowitz and Oppeln...
, Ogerman began his career with the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. He is definitely one of the most prolific 20th century arrangers and has worked in the Top 40, Rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, Pop
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, R&B, Soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, Easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
, Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
and Classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
fields. The exact number of recording artists for whom Ogerman has either arranged or conducted during his career has still not yet been determined.
In the 1950s, Ogerman worked in Germany as an arranger-pianist with Kurt Edelhagen
Kurt Edelhagen
Kurt Edelhagen, born 5 June 1920 in Herne, died 8 February 1982 in Köln, was a major European big band leader throughout the 1950s.After having studied clarinet and piano in Essen, he set up his multicultural big band, which over the years would include many big names in jazz in Europe, including...
, Max Greger, and Delle Haensch. Claus (then Klaus) also worked as a part-time vocalist and recorded several 45 rpms under the pen name of "Tom Collins", duetting with Hannelore Cremer - and he also recorded a solo vocal with the Delle Haensch Jump Combo as well. In 1959, he moved to the United States and joined the producer Creed Taylor
Creed Taylor
Creed Taylor is an American record producer, best known for his work with CTI Records, which he founded in 1968. Taylor’s career also included work at Bethlehem Records, ABC-Paramount, Verve, and A&M Records...
at Verve Records
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
, working on recordings with Antonio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim , was a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
, Kai Winding
Kai Winding
Kai Chresten Winding was a popular Danish-born American trombonist and jazz composer. He is well known for a successful collaboration with fellow trombonist J. J. Johnson.-Biography:...
and Cal Tjader
Cal Tjader
Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. a.k.a. Cal Tjader was a Latin jazz musician, though he also explored various other jazz idioms. Unlike other American jazz musicians who experimented with the music from Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he never abandoned it, performing it until his...
- among countless others. Verve was sold to MGM in 1963. Claus Ogerman, by his own admission in Gene Lees' Jazzletter publication, arranged some 60-70 albums for Verve under Creed Taylor's direction from 1963-1967. In 1966 Ogerman arranged and conducted Bill Evans Trio With Symphony Orchestra (Verve Records). In 1967 he joined Creed Taylor on the A&M/CTi label.
Ogerman arranged and conducted Diana Krall's
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
2001 album The Look of Love, and conducted on her DVD "Live in Paris". He also served as arranger and conductor for Krall's 2009 album Quiet Nights
Quiet Nights (Diana Krall album)
Quiet Nights is the ninth studio album by Canadian jazz singer-songwriter and pianist Diana Krall, released on March 31, 2009 by Verve Records. The album marks Krall's first work with arranger Claus Ogerman since 2002's Live in Paris, and her first studio work with Ogerman since 2001's The Look of...
. He won the 2010 Grammy Award for "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)" for “Quiet Nights.”
Ogerman also arranged and conducted the orchestra on George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
's 1976 album, Breezin'
Breezin'
Breezin' is an album by jazz/soul guitarist George Benson.The album marked the beginning of Benson's most successful period commercially. Breezin topped the Pop, Jazz and R&B album charts in Billboard and spun off two hit singles, the title song and "This Masquerade," which was a top ten pop and...
, as well as on two other Benson albums.
Among Ogerman's most remarkable albums there are: Gate Of Dreams (WB 1977), from the music of the ballet Some Times; Cityscape with Michael Brecker (1982 Warner-Pioneer); Claus Ogerman Featuring Michael Brecker (GRP 1991). All include original compositions centered around the juxtaposition of jazz instruments and rhythm sections with classical music orchestra.
Classical compositions
Ogerman has devoted himself almost exclusively to composing since the 1970s, his commissions including a ballet score for the American Ballet Theatre, Some Times, a work for jazz piano and orchestra Symbiosis for Bill EvansBill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, a work for saxophone and orchestra Cityscape, for Michael Brecker
Michael Brecker
Michael Leonard Brecker was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz...
, a song cycle Tagore-Lieder after poems by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
that was recorded by Judith Blegen
Judith Blegen
Judith Blegen is an American soprano, particularly associated with light lyric roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.-Life and career:Blegen was raised and attended high school in Missoula, Montana...
and Brigitte Fassbaender
Brigitte Fassbaender
Brigitte Fassbaender , is a mezzo-soprano opera singer, a stage director and since 1997 Intendant of the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck, Austria...
, a Concerto for violin and orchestra, Lirico and a Sarabande-Fantasie for violin and orchestra recorded by Aaron Rosand
Aaron Rosand
Aaron Rosand is an American violinist.Born in Hammond, Indiana, he studied with Leon Sametini at the Chicago Musical College and with Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he has taught since 1981...
, 10 Songs for Chorus A-Capella After Poems by Georg Heym that was recorded by the Cologne Radio Chorus, a work for violin and orchestra Preludio and Chant recorded by Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...
. In July 2008, he released an album of compositions with jazz pianist Danilo Perez
Danilo Pérez
Danilo Pérez is a Panamanian pianist and composer.-Early life:Danilo Pérez was born in Panama in 1965. He is considered one of the finest contemporary pianists and jazz composers of our era....
entitled Across The Crystal Sea.
Ogerman's major influences as a composer remain Max Reger
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...
and Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
. He steadfastly maintains that he is not primarily concerned with "modernism" per se stating that his goal is to evoke an emotional response in the listener.
Work with Antonio Carlos Jobim
Ogerman arranged and conducted Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos JobimFrancis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim is a 1967 studio album by Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim.The tracks were arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman and his orchestra....
(1967), the first of two recordings that Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
made with Jobim. Ogerman also arranged and conducted Jobim's The Composer of Desafinado, Plays
The Composer of Desafinado, Plays
The Composer of Desafinado, Plays is the debut album by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was released in 1963.-Track listing:All songs written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, lyricists indicated....
(1963), A Certain Mr. Jobim
A Certain Mr. Jobim
-Personnel :* Antonio Carlos Jobim – piano* Claus Ogerman – arranger/conductor* Dom Um Romão – drums* George Lee and Ray Gilbert – producers...
(1967), Wave
Wave (Jobim album)
Wave is the third album by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was released on 1967. It is known as Jobim's most successful album to date,...
(1967), Jobim
Jobim (album)
Jobim is the self-titled seventh album by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was released in 1973. Released as Matita Perê in Brazil without the additional English version of Águas de Março .-Track listing:...
(1972), Urubu
Urubu
Urubu is the tenth album by Antonio Carlos Jobim. "Urubu" means "vulture" in Portuguese, hence the cover picture. It was released on 1976.-Track listing:# "Bôto " –6:09# "Ligia" –4:13...
(1976) and Terra Brasilis
Terra Brasilis
Terra Brasilis is the eleventh album by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was released on 1980.-Track listing:# "Vivo Sonhando" –3:00# "Canta Mais " –4:32# "Olha Maria " –4:04...
(1980), on which he also played the piano. On the Jobim and Urubu albums, Ogerman was also the producer.
Filmography as composer
- Looking For Love (1964)
- The Playgirls and the Bellboy (1962)
- Ein Sommer, den man nie vergißt (1959)
- $100 a Night (1959)
- Mit Eva fing die Sünde an (1958)
- Rivalen der Manege (1958)
- Seine Hoheit war ein Mädchen (1958)
- Die Prinzessin von St. Wolfgang (1957)
- Die Unschuld vom Lande (1957)
- Ich war ihm hörig (1957)
- Liebe, wie die Frau sie wünscht (1957)
- Eine Verrückte Familie (1957)
- Weißer Holunder (1957)
External links
- "The Work of Claus Ogerman" - a comprehensive site, dedicated to Ogerman