The Beau Hunks
Encyclopedia
The Beau Hunks are a Dutch
revivalist
music ensemble who have performed and recorded the vintage works of composer
s Leroy Shield
, Raymond Scott
, Edward McDowell, Ferde Grofé
, and others. They have been referred to as a "documentary orchestra," because they perform note-perfect renditions of music which is obscure and often commercially unavailable. For some projects for which no sheet music was known to exist, they had to reconstruct charts from original recordings extracted from films.
For various projects they have been reconfigured as The Beau Hunks Sextette, The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette, The Beau Hunks Saxophone Quartet, and The Beau Hunks Orchestra. They have recorded for the labels Movies Select Audio, EigenWijs (a division of the VPRO
, the Dutch public broadcasting network), Basta Audio-Visuals, and Koch Screen
.
themes from Hal Roach
film studio comedies of the 1930s, including those of Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang
, The Little Rascals, Charley Chase
, Thelma Todd
and the Taxi Boys. The group (whose name derives from a 1931 Laurel and Hardy film Beau Hunks
) gave what was intended to be their only public performance on 18 January 1992, at the Oliver Hardy
Centennial
in Amsterdam
. However, based on the success of the performance, the band decided to expand to a full orchestra and record their repertoire for commercial CD release.
The Roach film music, composed mostly by Leroy Shield (without screen credit), with additional songs and cues by T. Marvin Hatley, was publicly familiar, but had never been commercially released, and the original recordings and scores were presumed lost. In the mid-1980s, Piet Schreuders, a Dutch graphic designer
and radio programmer, began assembling a tape library of Hal Roach comedy themes transferred directly from the soundtrack of VHS tapes
. Because the films contain dialogue and sound effects which occasionally obscure the music, Schreuders isolated fragments of themes without dialogue or sound effects and edited them into complete, uninterrupted versions. Using these reconstructed recordings, Schreuders worked closely with transcribers
and arrangers
Peter Stöve, Jan Robijns, Robert Veen, and Menno Daams to perfect written charts to accurately reflect the music heard in the films. Recreations of these themes had been attempted by others, including Robert Crumb
and his Cheap Suit Serenaders (1970s), Ronnie Hazlehurst
(1980s), and Vince Giordano
(1990s). The Beau Hunks, however, finally gave the stock music
of Shield its due in a series of albums released between 1992 and 2000. The most popular of the releases was The Beau Hunks Play the Little Rascals Music (1995).
In 2000, the Beau Hunks collaborated with the Metropole Orchestra to re-create the soundtrack to the 1936 Laurel and Hardy comedy Our Relations
. A collection of original sheet music from Hal Roach films had been discovered in a Los Angeles archive in 1994 and 1995. This collection yielded Leroy Shield's notes for the score of Our Relations.
Piet Schreuders studied the sheet music, identified dozens of individual themes and compared them with titles and lead sheets found in the Music Division of the Library of Congress
. Using the 1936 film soundtrack as a reference, Beau Hunks arrangers transcribed themes for which no written parts could be found. As a result of this work, about 95% of the original film score could be reconstructed. Schreuders subsequently discovered that much of Shield's score for this film never made it into the released version, having ended up on the cutting room floor during post-production
. Deleted were elements such as the overture
, musical transitions, musical effects, and variations which unified the score as a whole. The Beau Hunks recording represents the first time in history the original Our Relations film score could be heard as Shield composed it.
Orchestra's symphonic 1937-38 "Chesterfield
Arrangements" of Quintette repertoire); Ferde Grofé (Broadway At Night; Mississippi Suite
; Three Shades of Blue; and Metropolis); Edward McDowell (Woodland Sketches); and various American pioneers of the jazz saxophone.
The Beau Hunks have also recorded an album with legendary jazz saxophonist Al Gallodoro.
player and producer
, serves as bandleader, session contractor, and recording producer. Schreuders serves as researcher, project developer, liner note annotator, package designer, and occasional co-producer.
As the Beau Hunks Sextette:
As the Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette:
As the Beau Hunks Saxophone Quartet:
The Beau Hunks with the Metropole Orchestra:
Al Gallodoro with The Beau Hunks:
Ronald Jansen Heijtmajer with The Beau Hunks:
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
revivalist
Revivalist artist
A revivalist artist or revivalist band is a musical group, singer, or musician dedicated to reviving interest in a musical genre from an earlier era....
music ensemble who have performed and recorded the vintage works of 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...
s Leroy Shield
Leroy Shield
Leroy Shield was an American film score and radio composer.-Career:A native of Waseca, Minnesota, Shield was an employee of RCA Victor's National Broadcasting Company, for which he composed and conducted on-air musical pieces...
, Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott was an American composer, band leader, pianist, engineer, recording studio maverick, and electronic instrument inventor....
, Edward McDowell, Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...
, and others. They have been referred to as a "documentary orchestra," because they perform note-perfect renditions of music which is obscure and often commercially unavailable. For some projects for which no sheet music was known to exist, they had to reconstruct charts from original recordings extracted from films.
For various projects they have been reconfigured as The Beau Hunks Sextette, The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette, The Beau Hunks Saxophone Quartet, and The Beau Hunks Orchestra. They have recorded for the labels Movies Select Audio, EigenWijs (a division of the VPRO
VPRO
The VPRO was established in the Netherlands in 1926 as a religious broadcasting organization. Falling under the Protestant pillar, it represented the Liberal Protestant current...
, the Dutch public broadcasting network), Basta Audio-Visuals, and Koch Screen
Koch Records
E1 Music , the primary subsidiary of E1 Entertainment LP, is the largest independent record label in the United States. It is also distributed by the Universal Music Group in Europe under the name E1 Universal...
.
Hal Roach Film Music Projects
The Beau Hunks Orchestra was originally a quintet organized to perform soundtrackSoundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
themes from Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
film studio comedies of the 1930s, including those of Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang
Our Gang
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
, The Little Rascals, Charley Chase
Charley Chase
Charley Chase was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roach short film comedies...
, Thelma Todd
Thelma Todd
Thelma Alice Todd was an American actress. Appearing in about 120 pictures between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films like Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers, a number of Charley Chase's short comedies, and co-starring with Buster Keaton and Jimmy...
and the Taxi Boys. The group (whose name derives from a 1931 Laurel and Hardy film Beau Hunks
Beau Hunks
Beau Hunks is a 1931 movie starring Laurel and Hardy and directed by James W. Horne. Beau Hunks is a reference to Beau Geste. At 37 minutes long—four reels—it is the longest L&H short.-Plot:...
) gave what was intended to be their only public performance on 18 January 1992, at the Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy was an American comic actor famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted nearly 30 years, from 1927 to 1955.-Early life:...
Centennial
Century
A century is one hundred consecutive years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages .-Start and end in the Gregorian Calendar:...
in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
. However, based on the success of the performance, the band decided to expand to a full orchestra and record their repertoire for commercial CD release.
The Roach film music, composed mostly by Leroy Shield (without screen credit), with additional songs and cues by T. Marvin Hatley, was publicly familiar, but had never been commercially released, and the original recordings and scores were presumed lost. In the mid-1980s, Piet Schreuders, a Dutch graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
and radio programmer, began assembling a tape library of Hal Roach comedy themes transferred directly from the soundtrack of VHS tapes
Videocassette recorder
The videocassette recorder , is a type of electro-mechanical device that uses removable videocassettes that contain magnetic tape for recording analog audio and analog video from broadcast television so that the images and sound can be played back at a more convenient time...
. Because the films contain dialogue and sound effects which occasionally obscure the music, Schreuders isolated fragments of themes without dialogue or sound effects and edited them into complete, uninterrupted versions. Using these reconstructed recordings, Schreuders worked closely with transcribers
Transcription (music)
In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. Further examples include ethnomusicological notation of oral traditions of folk music, such as Béla Bartók's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' collections of the national...
and arrangers
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...
Peter Stöve, Jan Robijns, Robert Veen, and Menno Daams to perfect written charts to accurately reflect the music heard in the films. Recreations of these themes had been attempted by others, including Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
and his Cheap Suit Serenaders (1970s), Ronnie Hazlehurst
Ronnie Hazlehurst
Ronald "Ronnie" Hazlehurst was an English composer and conductor who, having joined the BBC in 1961, became its Light Entertainment Musical Director....
(1980s), and Vince Giordano
Vince Giordano
Vince Giordano is a musician, arranger, and leader of the New York-based Nighthawks Orchestra. Giordano specializes in the jazz styles of the 1920s and early 1930s. Giordano and the Nighthawks have contributed to a number of films and he is especially noted for orchestrations featured in the...
(1990s). The Beau Hunks, however, finally gave the stock music
Production music
Production music is the name given to recorded music produced and owned by production music libraries and licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media.-Introduction:...
of Shield its due in a series of albums released between 1992 and 2000. The most popular of the releases was The Beau Hunks Play the Little Rascals Music (1995).
Our Relations
Our Relations is a 1936 feature film starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, produced by Laurel for Hal Roach Studios.-Plot:Laurel and Hardy star as both their famous Stan and Ollie characters and as Stan and Ollie's twin brothers Bert and Alf...
. A collection of original sheet music from Hal Roach films had been discovered in a Los Angeles archive in 1994 and 1995. This collection yielded Leroy Shield's notes for the score of Our Relations.
Piet Schreuders studied the sheet music, identified dozens of individual themes and compared them with titles and lead sheets found in the Music Division of the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. Using the 1936 film soundtrack as a reference, Beau Hunks arrangers transcribed themes for which no written parts could be found. As a result of this work, about 95% of the original film score could be reconstructed. Schreuders subsequently discovered that much of Shield's score for this film never made it into the released version, having ended up on the cutting room floor during post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
. Deleted were elements such as the overture
Overture
Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...
, musical transitions, musical effects, and variations which unified the score as a whole. The Beau Hunks recording represents the first time in history the original Our Relations film score could be heard as Shield composed it.
Other projects
Following the commercial and critical success of their 1992-93 Shield restorations, the Beau Hunks undertook recording projects involving forgotten but, in their estimation, historic works by American composers. These include Raymond Scott (particularly his 1937-39 six-man "Quintette," and the Paul WhitemanPaul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
Orchestra's symphonic 1937-38 "Chesterfield
Chesterfield (cigarette)
Chesterfield is a brand of cigarette made by Altria. It was one of the most recognized brands of the early 20th century, but sales have declined steadily over the years. It was named for Chesterfield County, Virginia. Chesterfield is still being made today; it is still popular in Europe, but has...
Arrangements" of Quintette repertoire); Ferde Grofé (Broadway At Night; Mississippi Suite
Mississippi Suite
The Mississippi Suite is an orchestral suite in four movements by Ferde Grofé, depicting scenes along a journey down the Mississippi River from its headwaters of Minnesota down to New Orleans.-History:...
; Three Shades of Blue; and Metropolis); Edward McDowell (Woodland Sketches); and various American pioneers of the jazz saxophone.
The Beau Hunks have also recorded an album with legendary jazz saxophonist Al Gallodoro.
Founders/Project Coordinators
The co-founders of the Beau Hunks are Piet Schreuders and Gert-Jan Blom, both of Amsterdam. Blom, a bassBass (instrument)
Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...
player and producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, serves as bandleader, session contractor, and recording producer. Schreuders serves as researcher, project developer, liner note annotator, package designer, and occasional co-producer.
Discography
As the Beau Hunks Orchestra:- The Beau Hunks Play the Original Laurel & Hardy Music, Vol. 1 (Movies Select Audio, 1992; Basta 1995)
- The Beau Hunks Play the Original Laurel & Hardy Music, Vol. 2 (Movies Select Audio, 1993; Basta 1995)
- Gangway Charlie (Movies Select Audio, 1993)
- The Beau Hunks Play the Little Rascals Music (Koch Screen, 1995)
- On to the Show: The Beau Hunks Play More Little Rascals Music (Basta, 1995)
- Edward McDowell's Woodland Sketches (Basta, 1997)
- Modern American Music of Ferde Grofé (Basta, 1998)
As the Beau Hunks Sextette:
- Celebration on the Planet Mars: A Tribute to Raymond Scott (EigenWijs, 1994, band identified as The Wooden Indians; 1996, Basta, as The Beau Hunks Sextette )
- Manhattan Minuet: The Music of Raymond Scott (Basta, 1996)
As the Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette:
- The Beau Hunks Saxophone Soctette (Basta, 1998)
- Contrasts (Basta, 2003)
As the Beau Hunks Saxophone Quartet:
- Styles and Chuckles (Basta, 2010)
The Beau Hunks with the Metropole Orchestra:
- Leroy Shield's Our Relations: The Lost Laurel & Hardy Music (Basta, 2000)
- Raymond Scott: The Chesterfield Arrangements, 1937-38 (Basta, 1999)
Al Gallodoro with The Beau Hunks:
- Out of Nowhere (Basta, 1999)
Ronald Jansen Heijtmajer with The Beau Hunks:
- Fingerbustin': Novelty & Swing for the Saxophone (EigenWijs, 1995; Basta 1996)
External links
- Official Website of The Beau Hunks
- The Beau Hunks rehearsal footage
- The Beau Hunks perform Leroy Shield music in concert
- Mix Magazine article about the founding of the Beau Hunks Orchestra and the re-creation of Leroy Shield scores
- New York Times article about the Beau Hunks, August 11, 1994
- The Beau Hunks' Leroy Shield music restoration projects chronicled at Laurel-and-Hardy.com
- Tribute to the Beau Hunks by Elvis CostelloElvis CostelloElvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
- [ The Beau Hunks] at AllMusic.com
- The Beau Hunks at Answers.com
Related links
- Leroy Shield at the Internet Movie Database
- Kellie Strøm artwork for The Chesterfield Arrangements CD