Robert Frederick Graettinger (31 October 1923 - 12 March 1957) was an American composer, best known for his work with Stan Kenton

Stan Kenton

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

.

Early life and work

Graettinger grew up in Ontario, California

Ontario, California

Ontario is a city located in San Bernardino County, California, United States, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire region, it lies just east of the Los Angeles county line and is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area...

, learning to play the saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

 in high school. While at school he also began arranging music. In the 1940s he played alto sax with Benny Carter

Benny Carter

Bennett Lester Carter was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King...

 among others. Around this time he focused more on composing.

Stan Kenton period

In 1947 he offered a short composition, "Thermopylae", to Stan Kenton, who decided to record it.
Graettinger then came up with "City of Glass", a four-part tone poem. At this time he was studying composition under Russell Garcia

Russell Garcia (composer)

Russell Garcia, QSM was a composer and arranger who wrote a wide variety of music for screen, stage and broadcast....

.

Graettinger's radical polystylistic soundworld, with its polyphonic density and bracing atonality, while drawing on ideas previously explored by the likes of Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

, Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

 and even Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, still remains truly distinctive. He died aged only 33, of lung cancer.

Discography

Capitol

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

 Recordings by Stan Kenton:

• "Thermopylae" (78) 1947
• "Everything Happens To Me" (78) 1947
• A Concert in Progressive Jazz (includes "Thermopylae")
• Innovations in Modern Music (includes "Incident in Jazz") 1950
• Kenton Presents (includes "House of Strings") 1950
• City of Glass (10") 1951
• The Kenton Era (includes "Modern Opus" and "You Go to My Head") 1952
• City of Glass/This Modern World 1953

The Ebony Big Band:

• City of Glass: Robert Graettinger 1994
• The Ebony Big Band: Live at the Paradiso - Robert Graettinger 1998

Further reading

Robert Badgett Morgan: The Music and Life of Robert Graettinger, University of Illinois, 1974.

Irwin Chusid: "Songs in the Key of Z" (ISBN 1-901447-11-1), chapter 18

W.F. Lee: Stan Kenton: Artistry in Rhythm, Los Angeles, 1980.