Vic Schoen
Encyclopedia
Victor "Vic" Schoen was an American bandleader
, arranger
, and composer
whose career spanned from the 1930s until his death in 2000. He furnished music for some of the greatest names in show business including Benny Goodman
, Glenn Miller
, Count Basie
, Tommy Dorsey
, Harry James
, Les Brown
, Woody Herman
, Gene Krupa
, George Shearing
, Jimmie Lunceford
, Ray McKinley
, Benny Carter
, Louis Prima
, Russ Morgan
, Guy Lombardo
, Carmen Cavallaro
, Carmen Miranda
, Gordon Jenkins
, Joe Venuti, Victor Young
, Arthur Fiedler
and the Boston Pops, and his own The Vic Schoen Orchestra.
Schoen arranged and recorded with such luminaries as The Andrews Sisters
, Bing Crosby
, Bob Hope
, Danny Kaye
, Rosemary Clooney
, Irving Berlin
, Marion Hutton
, Betty Hutton
, Perry Como
, Dick Haymes
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Al Jolson
, Maurice Chevalier
, Enzo Stuarti
, Lauritz Melchior
, Mary Martin
, Bob Crosby
, The Weavers
, Burl Ives
, Eddie Fisher
, Mildred Bailey
, Peggy Lee
, Patti Page
, the McGuire Sisters, the Sherman Brothers
, and Kay Starr
.
Schoen wrote TV specials for Jack Carson
Show, The Dave King Show, Ethel Merman
, The Big Record with Patti Page, The Dinah Shore Show
, Shirley Maclaine
, Shirley Temple
, Andy Williams
, and Pat Boone
. He is probably best remembered as the musical director and arranger for the Andrews Sisters.
, New York
. He is one of the very few composer-arrangers who was self-taught. Early in his life, he learned to play trumpet
and would bring music into his high school classes, which annoyed his teachers. Upon noticing that Schoen was not paying attention in class and writing music, his chemistry teacher stopped by his desk and said, “Someone needs this chair more than you do.” He eventually dropped out of high school and started playing in nightclubs in New York City
and in the bands of Leon Belasco
, Gene Kardos
, and Billy Swanson. He also learned how to write big band
arrangements at this time by “trial and error.” During this time Schoen met George Gershwin
at a party in New York City in the mid 1930s.
Schoen also wrote many of Count Basie
’s earlier arrangements in the mid 1930s. He commented on the time when Basie paid him for some of his arrangements: “He owed me some money one night after a gig. I had written several arrangements for him and he paid me one hundred dollars in single dollar bills. I walked out of that Harlem
club with the biggest wad of cash in my pocket. I had never been so scared in my life.”
Schoen was also extremely impressed with the sound of the Basie band, “There was quite a large difference in the way that the white bands played versus the black bands. When I would show up to Basie’s rehearsals to hear my arrangements sometimes I didn’t even realize they were playing one of my charts. The unique way they played and phrased was so different than what I was used to hearing.”
while playing trumpet in Leon Belasco
’s society orchestra in 1936. The sisters made only one 78 side with Belasco, early in 1937, which was not well received. The girls were packing their bags to go back home to Minneapolis when Schoen, who was then with Billy Swanson’s orchestra, invited them to sing on a radio program in New York City. Decca Records
A&R vice president Dave Kapp heard the broadcast and invited the sisters to his office. After a short audition he signed them to a contract. They made their first recording for Decca in October 1937 with Schoen arranging for their musical backup. Schoen described the earlier arrangements he wrote for the Andrews Sisters as having a quasi Dixieland
feel.
Schoen was backstage at a Yiddish Theatre
in New York looking through a large crate of sheet music. He found the song Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
written by Sholom Secunda with Yiddish lyrics by Jacob Jacobs
. Schoen was attracted to the song because he liked that his “name was part of the title”. After adding his own English lyrics, Schoen arranged the song for the Andrews Sisters and soon they had their first number one hit earning them a Gold Record, the first ever to a female vocal group. Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
, a novelty tune, was originally recorded as a B-side. After the success of the record’s release, the Andrews Sisters were asked to sign autographs outside a record store in New York. When Schoen arrived to join in, he noticed lyricist
Sammy Cahn
next to them also signing his name on the newly released record. Schoen was puzzled and asked a Decca Records producer why Cahn was present. The response was, “We figured that if we put his name down as the lyricist
then we’d sell a few more copies.”
After the enormous success of the Andrews Sisters, many songwriters sought out Schoen. Don Raye
and Hughie Prince were able to convince Schoen to arrange Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar
and after the success of that, they followed with a new song Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
. Schoen remembered that the first draft of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
was “a total mess. The harmonies were bad, the song had wrong notes in it. So I re-wrote part of it to make it work.” Since Schoen played the trumpet in his orchestra
he arranged the song so he could play the iconic opening trumpet solo that heralds off the arrangement. After Schoen became more involved as the conductor
, he appeared as a trumpeter less frequently. Bobby Hackett
was later hired as the lead trumpet player.
When Schoen was auditioning new band members in the late 1930s for his backup band to the Andrews Sisters, he needed a new drummer. Someone had highly recommended a young man who was new in New York City by the name of “Buddy”. Schoen gave the kid a chance at a rehearsal to see if he could play his arrangements. The rehearsal quickly became a disaster after it was obvious that the new drummer could not read music. Schoen was nice enough to meet with the young man afterwards to teach him how to read music. This meeting became very tense and the drummer “ran out of the room.” Schoen later commented that “Buddy Rich
was terrified about learning to read music.” Throughout his lifelong career as a drummer, Buddy Rich
never learned to read music.
Schoen once commented that none of the famous big band singers with whom he worked could read music. “They were more known as entertainers than singers. Not one of them could read a note of music.” When he worked with the Andrews Sisters, he would sit and play “arranger’s piano” next to them. Schoen played the chords
on the piano
, and the trio matched the chords
in three-part harmony
. One of the Andrews Sisters’ favorite singers to collaborate with was Bing Crosby, with whom they released 47 singles. Patty suggested to Bing that they all should learn how to read music. Bing replied, “What are you crazy? You wanna ruin our careers?”
In the later years, Schoen wanted to add one more trombone
and a harp
to the band. The record producers at the time objected, as they did not want the sound to change. He had commented that, “Many producers were afraid of change. If something was successful, why change it? Why modify it?” He eventually convinced the producers, and was able to add a few more instruments to his orchestra, which in his opinion improved the sound. Apple Blossom Time starts out with a harp
solo. By the early 1940s, the arrangements matured, along with the voices and phrasing of the Andrews Sisters.
Although the Andrews Sisters would occasionally record with established bands and, particularly in their later years at Decca, with Gordon Jenkins
, Schoen became the arranger and conductor with whom they most often worked. He formed his own orchestra in 1938 and backed them on stage and on screen, as well as in the studio, for the next decade. Schoen, whose self-taught approach to arranging possibly made him compatible with the Andrews Sisters - none of whom could read music - became their closest creative partner, and was an essential part of the trio’s sound during their biggest years. Even on songs that he reportedly didn’t appreciate, such as Beer Barrel Polka
, his arrangements were successful, while on numbers like Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
, which captured his interest, Schoen was downright inspired, even ascending to brilliance. His record of success with the Andrews Sisters quickly established Schoen as a much sought-after arranger and conductor, and the ‘40s were extremely busy years for him. His band flourished until the early 1950s. William Studwell, author of the Big Band Reader, said, "For years, the Vic Schoen Orchestra played music that at least approached the beauty and variety of a rainbow, but historically, the ensemble is about as elusive as that phenomenon in the sky."
Schoen scored two animated
films for Walt Disney
: Little Toot
(1948) and Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet (1954). Both cartoons used the Andrews Sisters to narrate-sing the storylines.
The concept behind The Andrews Sisters arrangements was a simple formula that Schoen used many times. Whenever the trio was singing in harmony
Schoen did not have the big band interfere by playing harmony
in the background (e.g. saxes
, or trombones). Instead he would arrange for the band to play unison
lines. If the Andrews Sisters were singing in unison
, then the background musicians would play harmony
. Using harmony
in the trio as well as the big band caused a lack of clarity in the music. Although there were exceptions to the rule, this basic concept gave his arrangements a coherence, lucidity, and “punch” that was subsequently copied by many big band vocal groups in later years.
In most melodies, there are moments of space. Schoen cleverly used these areas in the song to add a quick fill in the big band between the phrases that the Andrews Sisters sang - never simultaneously with the melody
(he felt it would interfere). Schoen also never wrote below the lowest G in the double bass (even though the instrument could play a full fifth of an interval below). To his ears, the double bass in that register “sounded too muddy, tubby, . . . unclear.” Schoen would also write out all of his bass parts and never put chords
over them. He used repeated notes in the bass (which was popular in the 30s) instead of the constant walking bass, which came later in 40s big band music.
After the Andrews Sisters settled in California
they owned a house in Brentwood. Their parents had moved out to California to live with them. The father built a side room onto to the house which stored all of their awards, memorabilia, and Schoen’s arrangements. In the 1960s a fire came and burned down the house. All of the Andrews Sisters arrangements have been lost (except for transcriptions that were made from recordings). (Incidentally a similar thing happened to the Les Brown
Band in the 1960s. When the band was not touring, all of the music was kept at the band manager’s house. The band manager was going through a bitter divorce at the time and his wife called the garbage company to come and take all of the “garbage out of the basement”. Schoen contributed many arrangements to Les Brown
’s library and those are lost to this day.)
The partnership between Schoen and the Andrews Sisters lasted for twenty years. He scored and conducted most of their recordings, including such hits as the aforementioned Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
and Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
, as well as Rum and Coca Cola, Apple Blossom Time, I Can Dream Can’t I, and I Wanna Be Loved
. He also served as their musical director on several films, most notably Buck Pirates, and on television specials and concerts, including the group’s concert at the London Palladium
. Schoen and the Andrews Sisters met Queen Elizabeth
after this concert.
and throughout those years was music director in residence for Decca Records, Kapp Records
, RCA Records
, Liberty Records
, and Mainstream Records
. He was musical director for Universal Pictures
for three years, Paramount Pictures
for four years, and was with ABC
, NBC
, and CBS
for eleven years.
Schoen arranged songs for many of the Andrews Sisters movies and Abbott and Costello
comedies including Argentine Nights (1940), Buck Privates
(1941), In the Navy
(1941), Hold That Ghost
(1941), What's Cookin'?
(1942), Private Buckaroo
(1942), Give Out, Sisters (1942), How's About It (1943), Always a Bridesmaid (1943), Swingtime Johnny (1943), Moonlight and Cactus (1944), Follow the Boys
(1944), Hollywood Canteen (1944), Her Lucky Night (1945), and Make Mine Music
(1946).
He wrote several arrangements for Bob Hope
and Bing Crosby
’s TV specials and movies, including, among others the Road to Zanzibar
(1941), Road to Morocco
(1942) - Schoen arranged the title song as well as Moonlight Becomes You
for Bing Crosby, and Road to Rio
(1947). He also provided musical backing for the Donald O'Connor
– Peggy Ryan
musicals.
Walter Schumann
called Schoen in 1942 and asked him “Would you like to stay out of the army?” Irving Berlin
was writing songs for the movie This Is the Army
, and Schumann was asked to gather additional arrangers for the movie-musical
. Schoen arranged the film’s most famous song, “This Is the Army Mr. Jones.”
In 1945 Schoen arranged Ella Fitzgerald
’s famous scat recording of Flying Home
and would later be described by The New York Times
as "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade."
Throughout the late 1930s and into the 1940s Schoen wrote an enormous number of stock arrangements for young high school (non-professional) bands to perform. These “stocks” published by Edward B. Marks, Leeds Music Corp., Harms Music
, Clarence Williams Music, and American Academy of Music. During this time, Johnny Warrington, Jack Mason, and Vic Schoen dominated this field. This was easy for Schoen because of the speed with which he wrote. “These type of arrangements had to be kept simple and easy for the high school bands to play, they were kind of vanilla and safe,” he remarked.
for The Weavers
.
For three years (1951–54) he arranged and conducted the Dinah Shore TV series and recordings, and was also was the bandleader for the enormously successful Colgate Comedy Hour in 1954. During a live broadcast of the Dinah Shore TV Show, he arrived 20 minutes late. Two of the show’s producers greeted him backstage as he arrived. The first producer greeted him at the door, nodded, and said “Mr. Schoen.” The second producer also nodded and said, “Mr. Schoen.” After a brief pause the first producer said, “That’s going to be $22,000 off of your salary.” After that, Schoen remarked that he was never late for anything ever again. One of Schoen’s background singers in the Dinah Shore Show was a young woman by the name of Virginia “Ginny” O’Connor. Schoen recalled, “A young Henry Mancini
was pursuing her at the time. He used to hang out backstage waiting for her.” Mancini and O'Connor eventually married. In 1991 Dinah Shore was asked about working with Vic Schoen on her television show, she commented, “I was very lucky to have him as my musical director during those years. He was one of the most sought after arrangers of the time.”
Schoen worked with Irving Berlin
on the 1954 movie White Christmas
where he arranged the songs Count Your Blessings
and White Christmas
. The White Christmas film was the highest grossing film of 1954 by a wide margin.
Schoen wrote for Maurice Chevalier
’s first American tour in 1955 and also arranged for Chevalier's television specials.
Vic Schoen composed and arranged for Danny Kaye’s 1956 movie The Court Jester
– a hugely successful musical-comedy. Film composer Elmer Bernstein
was hired as the assistant musical director to Schoen for the film. The Court Jester was an enormous challenge for Schoen at the time because it was his first feature film. He was not officially trained on the mechanisms of how music was synchronized to film. Most of the earlier films he worked on needed vocal arrangements (different than background score) which were recorded before the shooting of the film. Schoen learned on the job how to synchronize 100 minutes of background score and vocal arrangements. Sammy Cahn and Sylvia Fine
, who was Danny Kaye’s wife, were asked to provide seven songs for the picture. Some pieces in the film (also known as ‘cues’) were very long and required a great deal of hours for Schoen to finesse. One piece that Schoen was most proud of in his career was the chase music he wrote toward the end of the movie when Danny Kaye’s character engages in a sword fight. Schoen wrote a mini piano concerto
for this scene.
A pleasant surprise happened during the recording session of The Court Jester
. The red “recording in progress” light was illuminated to ensure no interruptions, so Schoen started to conduct a cue but noticed that the entire orchestra had turned to look at Igor Stravinsky
, who had just walked into the studio. Schoen said, “The entire room was astonished to see this short little man with a big chest walk in and listen to our session. I later talked with him after we were done recording. We went and got a cup of coffee together. After listening to my music Stravinsky had told me ‘You have broken all the rules’. At the time I didn’t understand his comment because I had been self-taught. It took me years to figure out what he had meant."
In the late late 1950s Schoen arranged and conducted music for Danny Kaye at the New York Palace Theatre on Broadway. He arranged "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts", "Anatole of Paris", "The Peony Bush", Madam, I Love Your Crepe Suzette", "I Belong To Glasgow", "Good Old 149", and "Tschaikowsky."
At the height of his fame in the late 1940s and early 1950s, various producers approached Schoen about making him a “TV personality.” This was unappealing to him, as it meant he would have less time to devote to writing his music. The producers suggested that he hire another arranger-orchestrator to help write his music, but Schoen, who orchestrated all of his own compositions
and arrangements, always declined. He orchestrated all of his own music for The Court Jester
, which was unusual at the time because most film composers
used an orchestrator to help speed up the process due to the enormous time constraints and amount of music to write.
In the 1950s Schoen arranged music for an album that was released on Decca called “Music For A Rainy Night”. Johnny Green
was so upset about Schoen’s arrangement of his 1933 song I Cover the Waterfront
(which appeared on the album) that he never spoke with Schoen again. Green felt that the arrangement was a disgrace to his song.
In 1956 Schoen became the musical director for Patti Page producing a long string of hits that included Mama from the Train
, Allegheny Moon
, Old Cape Cod
, Belonging To Someone
, and Left Right Out of Your Heart
. Page and Schoen’s most challenging project was a new recording of Gordon Jenkins narrative tone poem Manhattan Tower (recorded September 1956). The album was a tremendous success, both artistically and commercially, reaching No. 18 on the Billboard LP chart, the highest ranking of any album she ever made. Schoen’s arrangements were far more lively and jazzy than the original Jenkins arrangements. Schoen recalled, “Patti was an alto
, but I pushed her to reach notes higher than she had sung before for this album. We always enjoyed working together.”
In 1957 Schoen moved to New York City to become the musical director for “The Big Record” (1957–58), a variety series on CBS hosted by Patti Page. Schoen recalled, “Virtually all of the most famous singers and big bands of the time performed on this show.”
Schoen also composed and arranged music for numerous Las Vegas
productions at the Desert Inn
, the Stardust
, The Lido in Las Vegas as well as The Lido in Paris
(including three world tours).
“Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands” was first conceived in early 1958 when Vic was musical director for The Big Record TV series hosted by Patti Page. Several bands appeared as guests on The Big Record, but it wasn’t until Les Brown, an old friend, was booked that Vic decided to fulfill a long-term desire to write a work for two bands. It turned out to be the finale of the show, and the mail reaction more than justified the battle Vic had experienced to get as much as six minutes for the production. This initial essay was “Ballet In Brass,” included in this album. Later in the year, Vic wrote the rest of the work but it was many months before Les Brown’s peripatetic band was in New York long enough for the recording to take place. Les, absorbed by the challenge from the beginning, worked hard with Vic in making this set come alive. In fact, Les made his participation in this date a prior condition of his new contract with another label.
The men of both bands were also continuously intrigued at being part of this new experience, instead of wandering outside for a break, they stayed in the studio, listening intently to the playback. Some actually sacrificed more lucrative assignments to be there.
Beginning with “Ballet In Brass,” Vic’s love for antiphonal interplay becomes evident as does his pleasure in building climaxes by using very clear-cut unpretentious patterns. The trumpets are Dick Collins of the Brown band and Jimmy Nottingham
of Vic’s.
On “Four Score and Seven,” there are the bass of Arnold Fishkin, flutist Alan Ross, and one of the most tantalizing fades on record.
“109 Station Road” (part of Mr. Schoen’s address in Great Neck, NY) is notable for section cohesion again.
In “The Sorcerer and the Latin,” Vic uses even more variegated colors. The tenor saxophone
is Boomie Richman with incisive piccolo
by Alan Ross. There’s a trombone duel between Chauncey Welsch and Dick Kenney of the Brown band, and an ending during which your wall may seem ablaze with brass
.
In “Oh, Those Martian Blues,” the pianist
is Les Brown’s Donn Trenner
. The preaching tenor saxophone solo is by Boomie Richman. Dick Collins again jousts for Brown while the trumpets on the right hand side are represented by Joe Wilder
and then by Jimmy Nottingham up high.
On “Pipe Dreams,” note the relaxed, flowing section work. The precision skill of these men – working for the first time in this challenging full-length context – is impressive throughout.
“The Fire and the Flame” includes an alto saxophone
solo by Sam Marowitz and those legions of brass instruments align again.
“The Strange and Stirring Romance of the Inebriated Owl and the Insubordinate Teacup” underlines the timpani
wit of Bobby Rosengarden
and Vic’s humour, which has been evident many other times in the work.
“Symphonie Pour L’Orchestre Americain” features the legitimate clarinet
of Alan Ross and indicates more of Vic’s diversity approach.
This album, I expect will do a lot toward convincing listeners of just how much more you can hear in stereo. There’s certainly bursting excitement in the monophonic version, but in stereo
, Vic’s conception takes on intensely vivid life and becomes a new recording experience.
As Les Brown said at the end of the date, “This one rates a special award!”
Nat Hentoff, Co-Editor, The Jazz Review
Les Brown and His Band of Renown
Vic Schoen and His All Star Band
Rhythm Section for Both Bands
Recording Studio: Ballroom Studio of Fine Recording, New York
Recording Dates: February 23–24, 1959
Producer: Michael Kapp
Engineer: C.R. Fine
Schoen had a relationship with David Kapp
(from Decca Records) who released the album on his newly formed label Kapp Records. 1959 saw the release of Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands: The Les Brown
Band and Vic Schoen and His Orchestra. Schoen composed and arranged nine compositions for the album, which was groundbreaking at the time. The album featured two full big bands, with a total of eight trumpets, seven trombones, ten saxes, guitar
, piano, bass, drums, and a percussionist.
Schoen’s concept for the album was to demonstrate the exciting “ping pong effect” of early stereo
recording, which was becoming popular in the 1950s. At that time, there was no album that featured two bands playing together. However, Schoen arranged the music in such a way that two bands would alternate playing rather than perform the same music simultaneously, as he felt that the sound would be too loud, distorted, and overbearing. Instead, he composed the music so that Les Brown
’s band would play a musical idea on the left, and his own band would respond on the right, either answering the idea or introducing a whole new idea (and vice-versa). So innovative and exciting was this project that some of the musicians turned down an offer to play on another, better-paying recording just a few miles away.
After the release of Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands, the album quickly became sold out in a particular store in Los Angeles that Dragnet
actor Jack Webb
could not find a copy. Webb
called Schoen on the phone asking how he could receive a copy. Schoen mailed him one.
Count Basie
called Schoen and asked him to re-arrange “109 Station Road” as a one-band version for the Basie Band. This piece was named after Schoen’s former address in Great Neck, New York.
For many years after the release of Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands, Les Brown
tried on many occasions to persuade Schoen to compose more music for a second album. Schoen finally agreed in the mid-1990s, and new music was premiered on November 26, 1995 at the Orange County Musicians' Union's 25th annual 'Bash' scholarship benefit at the Red Lion Hotel in Costa Mesa, CA with the Les Brown
Band and the Bill Tole Orchestra. The concert featured "Ballet In Brass II", "Smoky Lune", "Cries and Whispers", "Classical Jazz" and some of the original music from the 1959 album.
Of the nine pieces on the 1959 album, the original scores and parts currently exist for only five, the reason being that Schoen would let many people borrow his music over the years, which he sometimes never received back. The album was re-issued on LP four times, sometimes even without Schoen’s knowledge. “I was surprised to see it in the record store with a new cover every time they would re-issue it,” he remarked. Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands was by far one of Schoen’s most successful and famous yet fulfilling recording endeavors.
In 1961 Schoen orchestrated on the film All Hands On Deck and was musical director for Shirley Temple's Storybook
which aired on NBC from 1958-61.
In 1962 Schoen served as music director for the Andy Williams
TV Show and the Pat Boone
TV Show.
In 1966, he composed for The Lone Ranger (animated TV series)
and commented that he had “received royalty checks for many years from countries he had never even heard of.”
In the 1960s Schoen was working on a show in Las Vegas with Shirley Temple
. He was injured in a car accident. When Danny Kaye heard about the accident, he immediately flew his own plane (Kaye was an avid pilot) to McCarran Airport to pick up Schoen and bring him back to Los Angeles to guarantee the best medical attention.
Kapp Records approached Schoen about a new album called “The Sound of Top Brass: The Peter London Orchestra.” Michael Kapp had felt that Vic Schoen’s name was so ubiquitous in the public by the early 1960s that they decided to create “Peter London,” - Schoen’s pseudonym.
Although his work slowed down in the 1960s, he still continued to compose and arrange. Schoen arranged two “space age-lounge” albums for Bobby Shad’s Mainstream label, “Corcovado Trumpets” and “Girls with Brass,” which were not as commercially successful as his earlier work from the 1950s.
Schoen decided in the late 1960s (after the public’s musical tastes had changed) that he would like to start teaching at USC
in Los Angeles. The school would not let him teach music unless he held a bachelor’s degree. He started taking classes at a local Junior College in order to obtain the necessary degree, but he later remarked, “I only lasted a few months at the school, it wasn’t for me.”
From 1965-78 Schoen served as the musical director for Laguna Beach’s Pageant of the Masters
, an annual production in which famous works of art are recreated in live tableaux. One show was based on the works of Norman Rockwell
. Schoen commented that he greatly enjoyed composing
music to accompany his paintings.
and other demons and found it increasingly difficult to get jobs in the studio world (even selling some rights to his work in order to survive). He finally quit drinking in the mid 1970s and joined Alcoholics Anonymous
. He attended meetings regularly until the late 1980s and helped many struggling alcoholics by recounting his anecdotes, funny stories, and life lessons he had learned throughout the years.
In the 1970s Schoen composed a four movement piano concerto entitled The Journey. He wrote the music to serve as a veritable musical journey around the world. Only a recording exists. The music is lost because Schoen thought the work would never be performed again - he tossed the score. Schoen had written so many arrangements throughout his life that he felt it was too much of a chore to store them - he had thrown out or lost almost all of the music he had written. He mentioned that after moving from country to country, coast to coast, it was too big of a job to lug the massive amount of music he had written. He once had a flood in his garage that ruined a huge amount of his library. Often, after a concert was over, Schoen would dispose of the scores and parts (he felt the music would never be played again). In his later years, however, he made more of an effort to hold on to his scores and albums. He began to search record stores and different venues to find his arrangements and recordings.
In 1974 Schoen provided some of the arrangements for the Sherman Brothers
Broadway musical Over Here!
. The opening night cast included Patty and Maxene Andrews (of the Andrews Sisters) and newcomers John Travolta
, Treat Williams
, Marilu Henner
, Samuel E. Wright
, and Ann Reinking
, all of whom went on to achieve successful careers. It opened at the Schubert Theatre
on March 6, 1974 and ran for 341 performances.
Although he was both an arranger and composer, Schoen moved into the direction of composing in his later years, finding it more rewarding. In 1981 due to financial pressures he and his wife Marion Hutton moved from Irvine, California
to Kirkland, WA
(a suburb of Seattle). While Schoen worked at home Hutton directed Residence XII, a drug addiction wing at a Kirkland hospital to help alcoholics and addicts (learning from her own experience as a recovered alcoholic).
After establishing himself in Seattle, he arranged and conducted the annual Evening of Pops show in 1982. This was a fundraiser for the drug rehab center Residence XII. In 1983 he arranged and conducted The Most Happy Fella
for the Seattle Civic Light Opera. Schoen arranged music for Glenn Miller Remembered, a PBS
production video taped in Seattle, 1984, starring Tex Beneke
and Marion Hutton. A year later a television interview was aired on Schoen discussing his affiliation with Glenn Miller.
In 1984 Schoen composed “Ballet In Brass II” for two jazz band as well as “Suite For Two Jazz Bands and Concert Piano.” The works were premiered at the North Seattle Community College
.
In 1985, Schoen composed music for a Boeing Company
special show as it celebrated the 50th anniversary of its B-17 Flying Fortress. That same year he arranged and conducted Holiday Reunion, a fund-raiser for the Special Olympics
performed at the Seattle Opera House.
Patti Page and Vic Schoen reunited for a 1986 stage show in Las Vegas.
Schoen was asked by Nico Snel (conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic and Port Angeles Symphony) to write many arrangements for his pops concerts. In 1987 he wrote an arrangement for the Seattle Philharmonic combining the famous Claude Debussy
piano piece Clair de Lune with Jerome Kern
’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
. He called the piece Smoky Lune.
In the mid 1980s Frank Sinatra
, Dean Martin
, and Sammy Davis Jr. were performing in a traveling show. Upon arriving in Seattle, Sinatra
heard that Schoen and Marion Hutton
were living in Seattle, and invited them to socialize on the bus after the concert.
In 1988 Schoen and Maxene Andrews reunited. Schoen arranged music for her stage show that was performed nationally and abroad.
In 1989 the Seattle Philharmonic commissioned Schoen for an orchestral work to celebrate the centennial of the state of Washington. His work “Centennial” was premiered with the Seattle Philharmonic and pianist Joel Salsman. The piece was composed in a rhapsodic style for piano and orchestra. Schoen also re-orchestrated the work for the Tacoma Concert Band.
In 1990 he wrote an evening’s worth of jazz arrangements for the Seattle Philharmonic and a full big band to perform at the same time. During this time he was asked to arrange and conduct music for one of George Shearing
’s concerts in Los Angeles. Shearing was a blind jazz pianist. There was a fermata in the middle of an arrangement where Shearing played a small cadenza
. Schoen said to Shearing, “After you finish, I’ll look over and nod, then we’ll continue.” After a brief pause Shearing said, “Actually, why don’t I nod.”
During his Seattle years Schoen wrote programs and fundraisers for the PBS station KCTS-TV
as well as many works for the Seattle Philharmonic, Port Angeles Symphony, Everett Symphony, Tacoma Concert Band, Seattle Men's Chorus
(Christmas TV special on KTZZ, with interview), Bellevue Community College
, Northwest Winds Quintet, Harry James Band (based in Seattle, ran by Fred Radke), and Shoreline Community College
.
After Schoen’s wife Marion Hutton died in 1987, he married Sally-Jan Calbeck, an artist from Los Angeles. She moved to Seattle and after two years, they decided to move back to Los Angeles, finally settling in Corona del Mar. He participated in the Los Angeles musical scene and also attended ASMAC meetings.
Schoen met film composer John Williams
backstage at a concert in Los Angeles in the 1990s, and Williams commented to him, “I was a big fan of your music when I was a kid.”
In 1999 Schoen reunited with Patti Page to record a CD for a Chinese label. One of Schoen’s favorite singers to work with was Patti Page. She and Schoen had remained close friends and spoke regularly until his death.
Vic Schoen’s only protégé is Los Angeles composer-arranger Kevin Kaska http://www.kevinkaska.com
Although his gigs were less frequent, Schoen never fully retired from music. “His music would never leave him alone to do that,” remarked his fourth wife, Sally-Jan. He was proud of his ability to work in a wide variety of styles and joked that he could “write big band falling out of bed.”
Vic Schoen died of pneumonia in Corona del Mar, California, in 2000.
In the 1960s, Vic Schoen’s closest personal friends were Pete Rugolo
and Milton Berle
. They spent a great deal of time together going to many parties and enjoying the social scene in Los Angeles.
as an arranger. He bought a house in cash for $90,000.
Schoen once commented that in the 1960s he paid over $80,000 in income tax.
“On Monday and Tuesday you do the interviews for the media that make you seem like a big star. On Thursday you take out the trash.”
“There’s no need to keep your anger about someone, it does you more damage than them.”
“I can write big band
falling out of bed.”
His publishing
company was Grand Banque Publications.
Arthur Fiedler
from the Boston Pops commissioned Schoen for two arrangements of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
and Undecided
. Schoen’s impression, along with many others at the time, was that Fiedler
was “very feisty”.
One of Schoen’s favorite composers was Dmitri Shostakovich
, and in particular was a fan of his symphonies.
When Schoen was musical director for a very big production in New York he asked the trumpet section from the Tommy Dorsey
band to perform in his show for the week. The only trumpet player that he didn’t need, after all the spots were filled, was a young Doc Severinsen
“Doc was so disappointed, I don’t think he ever wanted to speak with me again after that,” Schoen had remarked.
Schoen met an avid fan during one of his European tours with Danny Kaye. The young man had been biking all over Europe following the tour and attending each show. Schoen was so impressed with this fan’s dedication and knowledge of his work that he asked the man if he wanted to ride on the train with him and Kaye for the remainder of the tour. The fan enthusiastically accepted.
Schoen mentioned that singer-actor Danny Kaye despised drinking. Sometimes Kaye would throw parties and not even show up to his own party. All of the biggest names in Hollywood would attend. During his parties Kaye would sometimes lock himself in his bedroom and later in the evening would come out and talk to a few people and then go right back into his bedroom. Schoen said, “He was an amazing talent, yet he was very insecure. Danny thought that his career would be over next week, if not, then next month. One time when he came out of his bedroom, Danny noticed that Humphrey Bogart
had shown up to his party completely drunk. Danny went over to him, picked him up, and threw him out the front door of his house. Bogart
fell backwards and landed on the pavement. The entire room was astonished.”
Lyricist Johnny Mercer
was a fan of Schoen’s work. Schoen commented, “During a rehearsal of a musical he liked to come and sit next to me in the orchestra pit as I conducted and listen to the orchestra right up close. We talked about writing songs together but we never got around to doing it.”
Vic Schoen had an incredible inner ear
for a composer-arranger. He could sit at a desk and write music
without ever using a piano (basically hearing all of the music in his head). Schoen also had perfect pitch that he developed later in life, especially after working with so many singers. Whenever someone asked him why he never used a piano to compose he would respond, “Does a painter need a painting to paint? Does an architect need a building to do a blueprint?” He remembered working on a show where the producer moved the entire second act in front of the first act. “I had to re-write all of the arrangements in one day sitting at a desk on the set. There was no piano and I sat there writing as they were banging the hammers right next to me re-building the set.”
In the 1980s Schoen commented on the current music of the day, “I don’t understand how these rock stars take two years to come out with a record. In the 40s we did an album every week.”
Schoen was a member of ASCAP. At the time, ASCAP required that each applicant have two sponsors who were already members of the organization. Bandleader Les Brown
and record producer David Kapp agreed to be Schoen’s sponsors.
Vic Schoen’s only son, David Schoen (b.1944), is an accomplished photographer http://www.davidschoen.com
Bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
, 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...
, 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...
whose career spanned from the 1930s until his death in 2000. He furnished music for some of the greatest names in show business including Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, Harry James
Harry James
Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...
, Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
, Woody Herman
Woody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...
, Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...
, George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
, Jimmie Lunceford
Jimmie Lunceford
James Melvin "Jimmie" Lunceford was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era.-Biography:...
, Ray McKinley
Ray McKinley
Ray McKinley was an American jazz drummer, singer, and bandleader.McKinley got his start working with local bands in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, before joining Smith Ballew in 1929, when he met Glenn Miller. The two formed a friendship which lasted from 1929 until Miller's death in 1944....
, 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...
, Louis Prima
Louis Prima
Louis Prima was a Sicilian American singer, actor, songwriter, and trumpeter. Prima rode the musical trends of his time, starting with his seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then successively leading a swing combo in the 1930s, a big band in the 1940s, a Vegas lounge act in the...
, Russ Morgan
Russ Morgan
Russ Morgan was a big band orchestra leader and musical arranger in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life:...
, Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
, Carmen Cavallaro
Carmen Cavallaro
Carmen Cavallaro was an American pianist. He established himself as one of the most accomplished and admired light music pianists of his generation.-Music career:...
, Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's...
, Gordon Jenkins
Gordon Jenkins
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer and pianist who was an influential figure in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s, renowned for his lush string arrangements...
, Joe Venuti, Victor Young
Victor Young
Victor Young was an American composer, arranger, violinist and conductor. He was born in Chicago.-Biography:...
, Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...
and the Boston Pops, and his own The Vic Schoen Orchestra.
Schoen arranged and recorded with such luminaries as The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...
, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
, Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...
, Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
, Marion Hutton
Marion Hutton
Marion Hutton was a United States singer and actress.-Biography:Born as Marion Thornburg, the elder sister of actress Betty Hutton, their father abandoned their family when they were both young: he later committed suicide. Their mother worked a variety of jobs to support the family until she...
, Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...
, Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
, Dick Haymes
Dick Haymes
Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
, Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...
, Enzo Stuarti
Enzo Stuarti
Enzo Stuarti was an Italian American tenor and musical theater performer. After a performing on Broadway under the stage names Larry Laurence and Larry Stuart, he changed his name again and began a recording career in which he released several successful albums...
, Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
, Mary Martin
Mary Martin
Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...
, Bob Crosby
Bob Crosby
George Robert "Bob" Crosby was an American dixieland bandleader and vocalist, best known for his group the Bob-Cats.-Family:...
, The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
, Burl Ives
Burl Ives
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....
, Eddie Fisher
Eddie Fisher (singer)
Edwin Jack "Eddie" Fisher , was an American entertainer. He was one of the world's most famous and successful singers in the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show. His divorce from his first wife, Debbie Reynolds, to marry his best friend's widow, Elizabeth Taylor, garnered...
, Mildred Bailey
Mildred Bailey
Mildred Bailey was a popular and influential American jazz singer during the 1930s, known as "The Rockin' Chair Lady" and "Mrs. Swing"...
, Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...
, Patti Page
Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler , known by her professional name Patti Page, is an American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records...
, the McGuire Sisters, the Sherman Brothers
Sherman Brothers
The Sherman Brothers are an American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....
, and Kay Starr
Kay Starr
Kay Starr is an American pop and jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1940s and 50s. She is best remembered for introducing two songs that became #1 hits in the 1950s, "Wheel of Fortune" and "The Rock And Roll Waltz"....
.
Schoen wrote TV specials for Jack Carson
Jack Carson
John Elmer "Jack" Carson was a Canadian-born U.S.-based film actor.Jack Carson was one of the most popular character actors during the 'golden age of Hollywood', with a film career spanning the 1930s, '40s and '50s...
Show, The Dave King Show, Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
, The Big Record with Patti Page, The Dinah Shore Show
The Dinah Shore Show
The Dinah Shore Show is an American variety show which was broadcast by NBC from November 1951 to January 1956, sponsored by General Motors' Chevrolet division...
, Shirley Maclaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
, Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
, Andy Williams
Andy Williams
Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...
, and Pat Boone
Pat Boone
Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...
. He is probably best remembered as the musical director and arranger for the Andrews Sisters.
Early Years - 1930s
Vic Schoen was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He is one of the very few composer-arrangers who was self-taught. Early in his life, he learned to play trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
and would bring music into his high school classes, which annoyed his teachers. Upon noticing that Schoen was not paying attention in class and writing music, his chemistry teacher stopped by his desk and said, “Someone needs this chair more than you do.” He eventually dropped out of high school and started playing in nightclubs in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and in the bands of Leon Belasco
Leon Belasco
Leon Belasco was a Russian-American musician and actor who had a 60-year career in film and television from the 1920s to the 1980s, appearing in more than 100 films.-Musical career:Belasco attended St...
, Gene Kardos
Gene Kardos
Gene Kardos was leader of an outstanding jazz and dance orchestra starting in 1931 and running through 1938. He first recorded for Victor in 1931-32 and thereafter recorded for ARC's labels through 1938.Among his musicians were Mike Doty and Joel Shaw...
, and Billy Swanson. He also learned how to write big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
arrangements at this time by “trial and error.” During this time Schoen met George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
at a party in New York City in the mid 1930s.
Schoen also wrote many of Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
’s earlier arrangements in the mid 1930s. He commented on the time when Basie paid him for some of his arrangements: “He owed me some money one night after a gig. I had written several arrangements for him and he paid me one hundred dollars in single dollar bills. I walked out of that Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
club with the biggest wad of cash in my pocket. I had never been so scared in my life.”
Schoen was also extremely impressed with the sound of the Basie band, “There was quite a large difference in the way that the white bands played versus the black bands. When I would show up to Basie’s rehearsals to hear my arrangements sometimes I didn’t even realize they were playing one of my charts. The unique way they played and phrased was so different than what I was used to hearing.”
The Andrews Sisters
Schoen met The Andrews SistersThe Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...
while playing trumpet in Leon Belasco
Leon Belasco
Leon Belasco was a Russian-American musician and actor who had a 60-year career in film and television from the 1920s to the 1980s, appearing in more than 100 films.-Musical career:Belasco attended St...
’s society orchestra in 1936. The sisters made only one 78 side with Belasco, early in 1937, which was not well received. The girls were packing their bags to go back home to Minneapolis when Schoen, who was then with Billy Swanson’s orchestra, invited them to sing on a radio program in New York City. Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
A&R vice president Dave Kapp heard the broadcast and invited the sisters to his office. After a short audition he signed them to a contract. They made their first recording for Decca in October 1937 with Schoen arranging for their musical backup. Schoen described the earlier arrangements he wrote for the Andrews Sisters as having a quasi Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
feel.
Schoen was backstage at a Yiddish Theatre
Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and...
in New York looking through a large crate of sheet music. He found the song Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
"Bei Mir Bistu Shein" is a popular Yiddish song composed by Jacob Jacobs and Sholom Secunda for a 1932 Yiddish musical, I Would If I Could , that closed after one season...
written by Sholom Secunda with Yiddish lyrics by Jacob Jacobs
Jacob Jacobs
Jacob Jacobs , Yiddish theater and vaudeville director, producer, lyricist, songwriter, coupletist, character actor, comic born in Risk, Hungary...
. Schoen was attracted to the song because he liked that his “name was part of the title”. After adding his own English lyrics, Schoen arranged the song for the Andrews Sisters and soon they had their first number one hit earning them a Gold Record, the first ever to a female vocal group. Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
"Bei Mir Bistu Shein" is a popular Yiddish song composed by Jacob Jacobs and Sholom Secunda for a 1932 Yiddish musical, I Would If I Could , that closed after one season...
, a novelty tune, was originally recorded as a B-side. After the success of the record’s release, the Andrews Sisters were asked to sign autographs outside a record store in New York. When Schoen arrived to join in, he noticed lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
Sammy Cahn
Sammy Cahn
Sammy Cahn was an American lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premiered by recording companies in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
next to them also signing his name on the newly released record. Schoen was puzzled and asked a Decca Records producer why Cahn was present. The response was, “We figured that if we put his name down as the lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
then we’d sell a few more copies.”
After the enormous success of the Andrews Sisters, many songwriters sought out Schoen. Don Raye
Don Raye
Don Raye , born Donald MacRae Wilhoite, Jr., in Washington, D.C., was an American vaudevillian and songwriter, best known for his songs for the Andrews Sisters such as "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar", "The House of Blue Lights", "Just For A Thrill" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."While known for...
and Hughie Prince were able to convince Schoen to arrange Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar
Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar
"Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" is a song written in 1940 by Don Raye, with credit given to Ray McKinley. It follows the American boogie-woogie tradition of syncopated piano music. The song was first recorded in 1940 by the Will Bradley orchestra, with Freddie Slack on piano...
and after the success of that, they followed with a new song Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was a major hit for The Andrews Sisters and an iconic World War II tune. This song can be considered an early jump blues recording...
. Schoen remembered that the first draft of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was a major hit for The Andrews Sisters and an iconic World War II tune. This song can be considered an early jump blues recording...
was “a total mess. The harmonies were bad, the song had wrong notes in it. So I re-wrote part of it to make it work.” Since Schoen played the trumpet in his orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
he arranged the song so he could play the iconic opening trumpet solo that heralds off the arrangement. After Schoen became more involved as the conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, he appeared as a trumpeter less frequently. Bobby Hackett
Bobby Hackett
Robert Leo "Bobby" Hackett was an US jazz musician who played trumpet, cornet and guitar with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late thirties and early forties.-Biography:...
was later hired as the lead trumpet player.
When Schoen was auditioning new band members in the late 1930s for his backup band to the Andrews Sisters, he needed a new drummer. Someone had highly recommended a young man who was new in New York City by the name of “Buddy”. Schoen gave the kid a chance at a rehearsal to see if he could play his arrangements. The rehearsal quickly became a disaster after it was obvious that the new drummer could not read music. Schoen was nice enough to meet with the young man afterwards to teach him how to read music. This meeting became very tense and the drummer “ran out of the room.” Schoen later commented that “Buddy Rich
Buddy Rich
Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...
was terrified about learning to read music.” Throughout his lifelong career as a drummer, Buddy Rich
Buddy Rich
Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...
never learned to read music.
Schoen once commented that none of the famous big band singers with whom he worked could read music. “They were more known as entertainers than singers. Not one of them could read a note of music.” When he worked with the Andrews Sisters, he would sit and play “arranger’s piano” next to them. Schoen played the chords
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
on 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...
, and the trio matched the chords
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
in three-part harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
. One of the Andrews Sisters’ favorite singers to collaborate with was Bing Crosby, with whom they released 47 singles. Patty suggested to Bing that they all should learn how to read music. Bing replied, “What are you crazy? You wanna ruin our careers?”
In the later years, Schoen wanted to add one more trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
and a harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
to the band. The record producers at the time objected, as they did not want the sound to change. He had commented that, “Many producers were afraid of change. If something was successful, why change it? Why modify it?” He eventually convinced the producers, and was able to add a few more instruments to his orchestra, which in his opinion improved the sound. Apple Blossom Time starts out with a harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
solo. By the early 1940s, the arrangements matured, along with the voices and phrasing of the Andrews Sisters.
Although the Andrews Sisters would occasionally record with established bands and, particularly in their later years at Decca, with Gordon Jenkins
Gordon Jenkins
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer and pianist who was an influential figure in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s, renowned for his lush string arrangements...
, Schoen became the arranger and conductor with whom they most often worked. He formed his own orchestra in 1938 and backed them on stage and on screen, as well as in the studio, for the next decade. Schoen, whose self-taught approach to arranging possibly made him compatible with the Andrews Sisters - none of whom could read music - became their closest creative partner, and was an essential part of the trio’s sound during their biggest years. Even on songs that he reportedly didn’t appreciate, such as Beer Barrel Polka
Beer Barrel Polka
Beer Barrel Polka, also known as Roll Out the Barrel, is a song which became popular worldwide during World War II. The music was composed by the Czech musician Jaromír Vejvoda in 1927. Eduard Ingriš wrote the first arrangement of the piece, after Vejvoda came upon the melody and sought Ingriš's...
, his arrangements were successful, while on numbers like Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was a major hit for The Andrews Sisters and an iconic World War II tune. This song can be considered an early jump blues recording...
, which captured his interest, Schoen was downright inspired, even ascending to brilliance. His record of success with the Andrews Sisters quickly established Schoen as a much sought-after arranger and conductor, and the ‘40s were extremely busy years for him. His band flourished until the early 1950s. William Studwell, author of the Big Band Reader, said, "For years, the Vic Schoen Orchestra played music that at least approached the beauty and variety of a rainbow, but historically, the ensemble is about as elusive as that phenomenon in the sky."
Schoen scored two animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
films for Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
: Little Toot
Little Toot
Little Toot is a children's story written and illustrated by Hardie Gramatky in 1939. It tells the story of Little Toot, an anthropomorphic tugboat child, who thought that work was a joke, and preferred to play around making figure 8s, and other games, that irritate the other tugboats, who call him...
(1948) and Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet (1954). Both cartoons used the Andrews Sisters to narrate-sing the storylines.
The concept behind The Andrews Sisters arrangements was a simple formula that Schoen used many times. Whenever the trio was singing in harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
Schoen did not have the big band interfere by playing harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
in the background (e.g. saxes
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...
, or trombones). Instead he would arrange for the band to play unison
Unison
In music, the word unison can be applied in more than one way. In general terms, it may refer to two notes sounding the same pitch, often but not always at the same time; or to the same musical voice being sounded by several voices or instruments together, either at the same pitch or at a distance...
lines. If the Andrews Sisters were singing in unison
Unison
In music, the word unison can be applied in more than one way. In general terms, it may refer to two notes sounding the same pitch, often but not always at the same time; or to the same musical voice being sounded by several voices or instruments together, either at the same pitch or at a distance...
, then the background musicians would play harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
. Using harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
in the trio as well as the big band caused a lack of clarity in the music. Although there were exceptions to the rule, this basic concept gave his arrangements a coherence, lucidity, and “punch” that was subsequently copied by many big band vocal groups in later years.
In most melodies, there are moments of space. Schoen cleverly used these areas in the song to add a quick fill in the big band between the phrases that the Andrews Sisters sang - never simultaneously with the melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
(he felt it would interfere). Schoen also never wrote below the lowest G in the double bass (even though the instrument could play a full fifth of an interval below). To his ears, the double bass in that register “sounded too muddy, tubby, . . . unclear.” Schoen would also write out all of his bass parts and never put chords
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
over them. He used repeated notes in the bass (which was popular in the 30s) instead of the constant walking bass, which came later in 40s big band music.
After the Andrews Sisters settled in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
they owned a house in Brentwood. Their parents had moved out to California to live with them. The father built a side room onto to the house which stored all of their awards, memorabilia, and Schoen’s arrangements. In the 1960s a fire came and burned down the house. All of the Andrews Sisters arrangements have been lost (except for transcriptions that were made from recordings). (Incidentally a similar thing happened to the Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
Band in the 1960s. When the band was not touring, all of the music was kept at the band manager’s house. The band manager was going through a bitter divorce at the time and his wife called the garbage company to come and take all of the “garbage out of the basement”. Schoen contributed many arrangements to Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
’s library and those are lost to this day.)
The partnership between Schoen and the Andrews Sisters lasted for twenty years. He scored and conducted most of their recordings, including such hits as the aforementioned Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was a major hit for The Andrews Sisters and an iconic World War II tune. This song can be considered an early jump blues recording...
and Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen
"Bei Mir Bistu Shein" is a popular Yiddish song composed by Jacob Jacobs and Sholom Secunda for a 1932 Yiddish musical, I Would If I Could , that closed after one season...
, as well as Rum and Coca Cola, Apple Blossom Time, I Can Dream Can’t I, and I Wanna Be Loved
I Wanna Be Loved
"I Wanna Be Loved" is a popular song with music by Johnny Green and lyrics by Edward Heyman and Billy Rose, published in 1933.The song is a standard, with many recorded versions.Grant Green plays on the song on his album Am I Blue....
. He also served as their musical director on several films, most notably Buck Pirates, and on television specials and concerts, including the group’s concert at the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...
. Schoen and the Andrews Sisters met Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
after this concert.
1940s
From 1940-57 Schoen lived in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and throughout those years was music director in residence for Decca Records, Kapp Records
Kapp Records
Kapp Records was an independent record label started in 1954 by David Kapp, brother of Jack Kapp . David Kapp founded his own label after stints with Decca Records and RCA Victor Records. Kapp licensed its records to London Records for release in the UK.In 1967, David Kapp sold his label to MCA Inc...
, RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
, Liberty Records
Liberty Records
Liberty Records was a United States-based record label. It was started by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Al Bennett as president and Theodore Keep as chief engineer. It was reactivated in 2001 in the United Kingdom and had two previous revivals.-1950s:...
, and Mainstream Records
Mainstream Records
Mainstream Records was an American record label, which released jazz, rock music, and soundtracks during the 1970s.It was founded in 1964 by Bob Shad, and in its early history reissued material from Commodore Records and Time Records in addition to some new jazz material...
. He was musical director for Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
for three years, Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
for four years, and was with ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, and CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
for eleven years.
Schoen arranged songs for many of the Andrews Sisters movies and Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello
William "Bud" Abbott and Lou Costello performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work on stage, radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 1950s...
comedies including Argentine Nights (1940), Buck Privates
Buck Privates
Buck Privates is the 1941 comedy/World War II film that turned Bud Abbott and Lou Costello into bonafide movie stars. It was the first service comedy based on the peacetime draft of 1940. The comedy team made two more service comedies before the United States entered the war...
(1941), In the Navy
In The Navy (film)
-Plot:Popular crooner Russ Raymond abandons his career at its peak and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halstead. However, Dorothy Roberts , a reporter, discovers his identity and follows him in the hopes of photographing him and revealing his identity to the world.Aboard the battleship...
(1941), Hold That Ghost
Hold That Ghost
Hold That Ghost is a 1941 comedy horror film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello and featuring Joan Davis, Evelyn Ankers, and Shemp Howard....
(1941), What's Cookin'?
What's Cookin'?
What's Cookin'? is a 1942 American musical film starring The Andrews Sisters, Jane Frazee, Robert Paige and Gloria Jean. The film was directed by Edward F. Cline and is based on the story Wake Up and Dream written by Edgar Allan Woolf.-Plot:...
(1942), Private Buckaroo
Private Buckaroo
Private Buckaroo is a 1942 American Musical film directed by Edward F. Cline and starring The Andrews Sisters, Dick Foran, Harry James, Shemp Howard, Joe E...
(1942), Give Out, Sisters (1942), How's About It (1943), Always a Bridesmaid (1943), Swingtime Johnny (1943), Moonlight and Cactus (1944), Follow the Boys
Follow the Boys
Follow the Boys , also known as Three Cheers for the Boys, is a musical film made by Universal Pictures as an all-star cast morale booster to entertain the troops abroad and the civilians at home. The film was directed by A. Edward "Eddie" Sutherland and produced by Charles K. Feldman...
(1944), Hollywood Canteen (1944), Her Lucky Night (1945), and Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series....
(1946).
He wrote several arrangements for Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
and Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
’s TV specials and movies, including, among others the Road to Zanzibar
Road to Zanzibar
Road to Zanzibar is a 1941 Paramount Pictures comedy film starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour, and marked the second picture in the popular "Road to …" series made by the trio....
(1941), Road to Morocco
Road to Morocco
Road to Morocco is an 1942 American comedy film about two fast-talking guys tossed up on a desert shore and sold into slavery to a beautiful princess...
(1942) - Schoen arranged the title song as well as Moonlight Becomes You
Moonlight Becomes You (song)
Moonlight Becomes You is a popular song, composed by Jimmy Van Heusen with lyrics by Johnny Burke. The song was written for the Paramount Pictures release Road to Morocco and published in 1942 in connection with the film...
for Bing Crosby, and Road to Rio
Road to Rio
Road to Rio is a 1947 comedy film, directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Bing Crosby as Scat Sweeney, Bob Hope as "Hot Lips" Barton, and Dorothy Lamour as Lucia Maria de Andrade. It was the fifth of the "Road to …" series.-Plot:...
(1947). He also provided musical backing for the Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
– Peggy Ryan
Peggy Ryan
Margaret O'Rene "Peggy" Ryan was an American dancer, best known for starring in a series of movie musicals at Universal Pictures with Donald O'Connor and Gloria Jean....
musicals.
Walter Schumann
Walter Schumann
Walter Schumann was an American composer for film, television, and the theater. His notable works include the score for The Night of the Hunter and the Dragnet Theme...
called Schoen in 1942 and asked him “Would you like to stay out of the army?” Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
was writing songs for the movie This Is the Army
This Is the Army
This Is the Army is a 1943 American wartime motion picture produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, and a wartime musical designed to boost morale in the U.S. during World War II, directed by Sgt. Ezra Stone...
, and Schumann was asked to gather additional arrangers for the movie-musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
. Schoen arranged the film’s most famous song, “This Is the Army Mr. Jones.”
In 1945 Schoen arranged Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
’s famous scat recording of Flying Home
Flying Home
"Flying Home" is a 32-bar AABA jazz composition most often associated with Lionel Hampton, written by Benny Goodman, Eddie DeLange, and Hampton....
and would later be described by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as "one of the most influential vocal jazz records of the decade."
Throughout the late 1930s and into the 1940s Schoen wrote an enormous number of stock arrangements for young high school (non-professional) bands to perform. These “stocks” published by Edward B. Marks, Leeds Music Corp., Harms Music
Warner/Chappell Music
Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. is an American music publishing company, and a division of the Warner Music Group. The company traces its origins back to 1811 and the founding of Chappell & Company, a music publishing company and instrument shop on London’s Bond Street that, in 1929, began a rapid...
, Clarence Williams Music, and American Academy of Music. During this time, Johnny Warrington, Jack Mason, and Vic Schoen dominated this field. This was easy for Schoen because of the speed with which he wrote. “These type of arrangements had to be kept simple and easy for the high school bands to play, they were kind of vanilla and safe,” he remarked.
1950s
In 1951 Vic Schoen arranged On Top of Old SmokyOn Top of Old Smoky
"On Top of Old Smoky" is a traditional folk song and a well-known ballad of the United States which, as recorded by The Weavers, reached the pop music charts in 1951....
for The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
.
For three years (1951–54) he arranged and conducted the Dinah Shore TV series and recordings, and was also was the bandleader for the enormously successful Colgate Comedy Hour in 1954. During a live broadcast of the Dinah Shore TV Show, he arrived 20 minutes late. Two of the show’s producers greeted him backstage as he arrived. The first producer greeted him at the door, nodded, and said “Mr. Schoen.” The second producer also nodded and said, “Mr. Schoen.” After a brief pause the first producer said, “That’s going to be $22,000 off of your salary.” After that, Schoen remarked that he was never late for anything ever again. One of Schoen’s background singers in the Dinah Shore Show was a young woman by the name of Virginia “Ginny” O’Connor. Schoen recalled, “A young Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...
was pursuing her at the time. He used to hang out backstage waiting for her.” Mancini and O'Connor eventually married. In 1991 Dinah Shore was asked about working with Vic Schoen on her television show, she commented, “I was very lucky to have him as my musical director during those years. He was one of the most sought after arrangers of the time.”
Schoen worked with Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
on the 1954 movie White Christmas
White Christmas (film)
White Christmas is a 1954 Technicolor musical film starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye that features the songs of Irving Berlin, including the titular "White Christmas"...
where he arranged the songs Count Your Blessings
Count Your Blessings (Irving Berlin song)
"Count Your Blessings " is a popular song written by Irving Berlin for the 1954 movie White Christmas.The best-known recordings were made by Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby — who appeared in the film — as well as separate recordings by Eddie Fisher, and the Ray Conniff Singers...
and White Christmas
White Christmas (song)
"White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide.Accounts vary as...
. The White Christmas film was the highest grossing film of 1954 by a wide margin.
Schoen wrote for Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...
’s first American tour in 1955 and also arranged for Chevalier's television specials.
Vic Schoen composed and arranged for Danny Kaye’s 1956 movie The Court Jester
The Court Jester
The Court Jester is a 1956 musical-comedy film starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, and Angela Lansbury. The movie was co-written, co-directed, and co-produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama...
– a hugely successful musical-comedy. Film composer Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
was hired as the assistant musical director to Schoen for the film. The Court Jester was an enormous challenge for Schoen at the time because it was his first feature film. He was not officially trained on the mechanisms of how music was synchronized to film. Most of the earlier films he worked on needed vocal arrangements (different than background score) which were recorded before the shooting of the film. Schoen learned on the job how to synchronize 100 minutes of background score and vocal arrangements. Sammy Cahn and Sylvia Fine
Sylvia Fine
Sylvia Fine was an American lyricist, composer, producer and the wife of the comedian Danny Kaye...
, who was Danny Kaye’s wife, were asked to provide seven songs for the picture. Some pieces in the film (also known as ‘cues’) were very long and required a great deal of hours for Schoen to finesse. One piece that Schoen was most proud of in his career was the chase music he wrote toward the end of the movie when Danny Kaye’s character engages in a sword fight. Schoen wrote a mini piano concerto
Piano concerto
A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
for this scene.
A pleasant surprise happened during the recording session of The Court Jester
The Court Jester
The Court Jester is a 1956 musical-comedy film starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, and Angela Lansbury. The movie was co-written, co-directed, and co-produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama...
. The red “recording in progress” light was illuminated to ensure no interruptions, so Schoen started to conduct a cue but noticed that the entire orchestra had turned to look at Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, who had just walked into the studio. Schoen said, “The entire room was astonished to see this short little man with a big chest walk in and listen to our session. I later talked with him after we were done recording. We went and got a cup of coffee together. After listening to my music Stravinsky had told me ‘You have broken all the rules’. At the time I didn’t understand his comment because I had been self-taught. It took me years to figure out what he had meant."
In the late late 1950s Schoen arranged and conducted music for Danny Kaye at the New York Palace Theatre on Broadway. He arranged "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts", "Anatole of Paris", "The Peony Bush", Madam, I Love Your Crepe Suzette", "I Belong To Glasgow", "Good Old 149", and "Tschaikowsky."
At the height of his fame in the late 1940s and early 1950s, various producers approached Schoen about making him a “TV personality.” This was unappealing to him, as it meant he would have less time to devote to writing his music. The producers suggested that he hire another arranger-orchestrator to help write his music, but Schoen, who orchestrated all of his own compositions
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...
and arrangements, always declined. He orchestrated all of his own music for The Court Jester
The Court Jester
The Court Jester is a 1956 musical-comedy film starring Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, and Angela Lansbury. The movie was co-written, co-directed, and co-produced by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama...
, which was unusual at the time because most film composers
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
used an orchestrator to help speed up the process due to the enormous time constraints and amount of music to write.
In the 1950s Schoen arranged music for an album that was released on Decca called “Music For A Rainy Night”. Johnny Green
Johnny Green
Johnny Green was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, and conductor. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger. His most famous song was one of his earliest, "Body and Soul"...
was so upset about Schoen’s arrangement of his 1933 song I Cover the Waterfront
I Cover the Waterfront
I Cover the Waterfront is a 1933 film, based on the book of the same name by Max Miller. The film was directed by James Cruze and stars Ben Lyon, Claudette Colbert, Ernest Torrance, and Hobart Cavanaugh.-Synopsis:...
(which appeared on the album) that he never spoke with Schoen again. Green felt that the arrangement was a disgrace to his song.
In 1956 Schoen became the musical director for Patti Page producing a long string of hits that included Mama from the Train
Mama from the Train
"Mama From the Train" — also known as Mama From the Train — is a popular song. written by Irving Gordon and published in 1956....
, Allegheny Moon
Allegheny Moon
Allegheny Moon is a popular song written by Al Hoffman and Dick Manning and published in 1956.The song is best known in a 1956 recording by Patti Page. This recording was released by Mercury Records as catalog number 70878, with the flip side The Strangest Romance. It first reached the Billboard...
, Old Cape Cod
Old Cape Cod
"Old Cape Cod" is a song, written by Claire Rothrock, Milton Yakus, and Allan Jeffrey, and published in 1957.The recording by Patti Page was released by Mercury Records as catalog number 71101; flip side "Wondering." It first reached the Billboard magazine charts on June 3, 1957...
, Belonging To Someone
Belonging to Someone
"Belonging to Someone" is a popular song, written by Al Hoffman and Dick Manning and published in 1958.It was popularized by Patti Page in 1958. The Page recording was released by Mercury Records as catalog number 71247. It first reached the Billboard magazine charts on February 10, 1958...
, and Left Right Out of Your Heart
Left Right out of Your Heart
"Left Right Out Of Your Heart" is a popular song.The music was written by Mort Garson, the lyrics by Earl Shuman. The song was published in 1958....
. Page and Schoen’s most challenging project was a new recording of Gordon Jenkins narrative tone poem Manhattan Tower (recorded September 1956). The album was a tremendous success, both artistically and commercially, reaching No. 18 on the Billboard LP chart, the highest ranking of any album she ever made. Schoen’s arrangements were far more lively and jazzy than the original Jenkins arrangements. Schoen recalled, “Patti was an alto
Alto
Alto is a musical term, derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" in Italian, that has several possible interpretations.When designating instruments, "alto" frequently refers to a member of an instrumental family that has the second highest range, below that of the treble or soprano. Hence,...
, but I pushed her to reach notes higher than she had sung before for this album. We always enjoyed working together.”
In 1957 Schoen moved to New York City to become the musical director for “The Big Record” (1957–58), a variety series on CBS hosted by Patti Page. Schoen recalled, “Virtually all of the most famous singers and big bands of the time performed on this show.”
Schoen also composed and arranged music for numerous Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
productions at the Desert Inn
Desert Inn
The Desert Inn was a Paradise, Nevada, hotel/casino that operated from April 24, 1950, to August 28, 2000. Designed by noted New York architect Jac Lessman, it was the fifth resort to open on the Las Vegas Strip. The property included an 18-hole golf course. Locals nicknamed the resort "The D.I."...
, the Stardust
Stardust Resort & Casino
The Stardust Resort & Casino was a casino resort located on along the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada.The Stardust opened in 1958, although most of the modern casino complex was built in 1991. At its March 13, 2007 demolition it was the youngest undamaged high-rise building to ever be...
, The Lido in Las Vegas as well as The Lido in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(including three world tours).
Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands (1959)
The following is from the original liner notes:“Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands” was first conceived in early 1958 when Vic was musical director for The Big Record TV series hosted by Patti Page. Several bands appeared as guests on The Big Record, but it wasn’t until Les Brown, an old friend, was booked that Vic decided to fulfill a long-term desire to write a work for two bands. It turned out to be the finale of the show, and the mail reaction more than justified the battle Vic had experienced to get as much as six minutes for the production. This initial essay was “Ballet In Brass,” included in this album. Later in the year, Vic wrote the rest of the work but it was many months before Les Brown’s peripatetic band was in New York long enough for the recording to take place. Les, absorbed by the challenge from the beginning, worked hard with Vic in making this set come alive. In fact, Les made his participation in this date a prior condition of his new contract with another label.
The men of both bands were also continuously intrigued at being part of this new experience, instead of wandering outside for a break, they stayed in the studio, listening intently to the playback. Some actually sacrificed more lucrative assignments to be there.
Beginning with “Ballet In Brass,” Vic’s love for antiphonal interplay becomes evident as does his pleasure in building climaxes by using very clear-cut unpretentious patterns. The trumpets are Dick Collins of the Brown band and Jimmy Nottingham
Jimmy Nottingham
Jimmy Nottingham was an American jazz trumpeter.Nottingham's first professional job was with Cecil Payne in 1943. He served in the Navy in 1944-45, where he played in Willie Smith's band. Following this he worked with Lionel Hampton , Charlie Barnet, Lucky Millinder, Count Basie , and Herbie Fields...
of Vic’s.
On “Four Score and Seven,” there are the bass of Arnold Fishkin, flutist Alan Ross, and one of the most tantalizing fades on record.
“109 Station Road” (part of Mr. Schoen’s address in Great Neck, NY) is notable for section cohesion again.
In “The Sorcerer and the Latin,” Vic uses even more variegated colors. The tenor saxophone
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
is Boomie Richman with incisive piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
by Alan Ross. There’s a trombone duel between Chauncey Welsch and Dick Kenney of the Brown band, and an ending during which your wall may seem ablaze with brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
.
In “Oh, Those Martian Blues,” the pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
is Les Brown’s Donn Trenner
Donn Trenner
Donald "Donn" Trenner is an American jazz pianist and arranger born in New Haven, Connecticut.He began his career playing with Ted Fio Rito from 1943-45, and followed this with a slot in Buddy Morrow's orchestra in 1947...
. The preaching tenor saxophone solo is by Boomie Richman. Dick Collins again jousts for Brown while the trumpets on the right hand side are represented by Joe Wilder
Joe Wilder
Joe Wilder is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He best known for his beautiful tone and lyrical style.Wilder was awarded the Temple University Jazz Master's Hall of Fame Award in 2006...
and then by Jimmy Nottingham up high.
On “Pipe Dreams,” note the relaxed, flowing section work. The precision skill of these men – working for the first time in this challenging full-length context – is impressive throughout.
“The Fire and the Flame” includes an alto saxophone
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
solo by Sam Marowitz and those legions of brass instruments align again.
“The Strange and Stirring Romance of the Inebriated Owl and the Insubordinate Teacup” underlines the timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
wit of Bobby Rosengarden
Bobby Rosengarden
Robert Marshall Rosengarden was a jazz drummer, percussionist and bandleader. A native of Elgin, Illinois, he was a solid and versatile contributor on countless recording sessions and playing in TV network orchestras and talk-show bands.Rosengarden began playing drums when he was 12, and later...
and Vic’s humour, which has been evident many other times in the work.
“Symphonie Pour L’Orchestre Americain” features the legitimate clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
of Alan Ross and indicates more of Vic’s diversity approach.
This album, I expect will do a lot toward convincing listeners of just how much more you can hear in stereo. There’s certainly bursting excitement in the monophonic version, but in stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
, Vic’s conception takes on intensely vivid life and becomes a new recording experience.
As Les Brown said at the end of the date, “This one rates a special award!”
Nat Hentoff, Co-Editor, The Jazz Review
Les Brown and His Band of Renown
- Reeds: Butch Stone, Billy UsseltonBilly UsseltonBilly Usselton was an American jazz reed player.Usselton was proficient on tenor saxophone, clarinet, and oboe. He began playing professionally in high school with Bubbles Becker. Although his parents wanted him to attend college in Pennsylvania, he wanted to play for a living...
, Matt Utal, Ralph La Polla, Abe AaronAbe AaronAlvin "Abe" Aaron was a jazz clarinetist and soprano saxophonist, who was born in Canada but spent most of his life performing in the United States.... - Trumpets: Mickey McMahon, Wes Hensel, Dick Collins, Jerry Kadovitz
- Trombones: Stumpy Brown, J. Hill, Roy Main, Dick Kenney
Vic Schoen and His All Star Band
- Reeds: Boomie Richman, Alan Ross, Sam Marowitz, Charlie O’Kane, Leon Cohen
- Trumpets: Bernie Privin, Joe WilderJoe WilderJoe Wilder is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He best known for his beautiful tone and lyrical style.Wilder was awarded the Temple University Jazz Master's Hall of Fame Award in 2006...
, Jimmy Maxwell, Jimmy Nottingham - Trombones: Charlie Small, Chauncey Welsch, Tommy Mitchell
Rhythm Section for Both Bands
- Piano: Donn TrennerDonn TrennerDonald "Donn" Trenner is an American jazz pianist and arranger born in New Haven, Connecticut.He began his career playing with Ted Fio Rito from 1943-45, and followed this with a slot in Buddy Morrow's orchestra in 1947...
– Bass: Arnie Fishkin – Drums: Sol Gubin – Guitar: Art Reyson – Percussion: Bobby RosengardenBobby RosengardenRobert Marshall Rosengarden was a jazz drummer, percussionist and bandleader. A native of Elgin, Illinois, he was a solid and versatile contributor on countless recording sessions and playing in TV network orchestras and talk-show bands.Rosengarden began playing drums when he was 12, and later...
Recording Studio: Ballroom Studio of Fine Recording, New York
Recording Dates: February 23–24, 1959
Producer: Michael Kapp
Engineer: C.R. Fine
Schoen had a relationship with David Kapp
Kapp Records
Kapp Records was an independent record label started in 1954 by David Kapp, brother of Jack Kapp . David Kapp founded his own label after stints with Decca Records and RCA Victor Records. Kapp licensed its records to London Records for release in the UK.In 1967, David Kapp sold his label to MCA Inc...
(from Decca Records) who released the album on his newly formed label Kapp Records. 1959 saw the release of Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands: The Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
Band and Vic Schoen and His Orchestra. Schoen composed and arranged nine compositions for the album, which was groundbreaking at the time. The album featured two full big bands, with a total of eight trumpets, seven trombones, ten saxes, guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, piano, bass, drums, and a percussionist.
Schoen’s concept for the album was to demonstrate the exciting “ping pong effect” of early stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
recording, which was becoming popular in the 1950s. At that time, there was no album that featured two bands playing together. However, Schoen arranged the music in such a way that two bands would alternate playing rather than perform the same music simultaneously, as he felt that the sound would be too loud, distorted, and overbearing. Instead, he composed the music so that Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
’s band would play a musical idea on the left, and his own band would respond on the right, either answering the idea or introducing a whole new idea (and vice-versa). So innovative and exciting was this project that some of the musicians turned down an offer to play on another, better-paying recording just a few miles away.
After the release of Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands, the album quickly became sold out in a particular store in Los Angeles that Dragnet
Dragnet (series)
Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners...
actor Jack Webb
Jack Webb
John Randolph "Jack" Webb , also known by the pseudonym John Randolph, was an American actor, television producer, director and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet...
could not find a copy. Webb
Jack Webb
John Randolph "Jack" Webb , also known by the pseudonym John Randolph, was an American actor, television producer, director and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet...
called Schoen on the phone asking how he could receive a copy. Schoen mailed him one.
Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
called Schoen and asked him to re-arrange “109 Station Road” as a one-band version for the Basie Band. This piece was named after Schoen’s former address in Great Neck, New York.
For many years after the release of Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands, Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
tried on many occasions to persuade Schoen to compose more music for a second album. Schoen finally agreed in the mid-1990s, and new music was premiered on November 26, 1995 at the Orange County Musicians' Union's 25th annual 'Bash' scholarship benefit at the Red Lion Hotel in Costa Mesa, CA with the Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
Band and the Bill Tole Orchestra. The concert featured "Ballet In Brass II", "Smoky Lune", "Cries and Whispers", "Classical Jazz" and some of the original music from the 1959 album.
Of the nine pieces on the 1959 album, the original scores and parts currently exist for only five, the reason being that Schoen would let many people borrow his music over the years, which he sometimes never received back. The album was re-issued on LP four times, sometimes even without Schoen’s knowledge. “I was surprised to see it in the record store with a new cover every time they would re-issue it,” he remarked. Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands was by far one of Schoen’s most successful and famous yet fulfilling recording endeavors.
The 1960s
In June 1960 Vic Schoen moved back to Los Angeles after finishing work on The Big Record with Patti Page and The Dave King Show.In 1961 Schoen orchestrated on the film All Hands On Deck and was musical director for Shirley Temple's Storybook
Shirley Temple's Storybook
Shirley Temple's Storybook is an American children's anthology series hosted and narrated by Shirley Temple. The series features adaptations of fairy tales and other family-oriented stories performed by well-known actors, although one episode, an adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables, was...
which aired on NBC from 1958-61.
In 1962 Schoen served as music director for the Andy Williams
Andy Williams
Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...
TV Show and the Pat Boone
Pat Boone
Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone is an American singer, actor and writer who has been a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. He covered black artists' songs and sold more copies than his black counterparts...
TV Show.
In 1966, he composed for The Lone Ranger (animated TV series)
The Lone Ranger (animated TV series)
The Lone Ranger is the central character of an American animated television series that ran 26 episodes on CBS from September 10, 1966, to September 6, 1969...
and commented that he had “received royalty checks for many years from countries he had never even heard of.”
In the 1960s Schoen was working on a show in Las Vegas with Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
. He was injured in a car accident. When Danny Kaye heard about the accident, he immediately flew his own plane (Kaye was an avid pilot) to McCarran Airport to pick up Schoen and bring him back to Los Angeles to guarantee the best medical attention.
Kapp Records approached Schoen about a new album called “The Sound of Top Brass: The Peter London Orchestra.” Michael Kapp had felt that Vic Schoen’s name was so ubiquitous in the public by the early 1960s that they decided to create “Peter London,” - Schoen’s pseudonym.
Although his work slowed down in the 1960s, he still continued to compose and arrange. Schoen arranged two “space age-lounge” albums for Bobby Shad’s Mainstream label, “Corcovado Trumpets” and “Girls with Brass,” which were not as commercially successful as his earlier work from the 1950s.
Schoen decided in the late 1960s (after the public’s musical tastes had changed) that he would like to start teaching at USC
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
in Los Angeles. The school would not let him teach music unless he held a bachelor’s degree. He started taking classes at a local Junior College in order to obtain the necessary degree, but he later remarked, “I only lasted a few months at the school, it wasn’t for me.”
From 1965-78 Schoen served as the musical director for Laguna Beach’s Pageant of the Masters
Pageant of the Masters
The Pageant of the Masters is an annual festival held by the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach, California. The event is known for its tableaux vivant or "living pictures" in which classical and contemporary works of art are recreated by real people who are made to look nearly identical to the...
, an annual production in which famous works of art are recreated in live tableaux. One show was based on the works of Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening...
. Schoen commented that he greatly enjoyed composing
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
music to accompany his paintings.
The 1970s-Later Years
Schoen struggled with alcoholismAlcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and other demons and found it increasingly difficult to get jobs in the studio world (even selling some rights to his work in order to survive). He finally quit drinking in the mid 1970s and joined Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...
. He attended meetings regularly until the late 1980s and helped many struggling alcoholics by recounting his anecdotes, funny stories, and life lessons he had learned throughout the years.
In the 1970s Schoen composed a four movement piano concerto entitled The Journey. He wrote the music to serve as a veritable musical journey around the world. Only a recording exists. The music is lost because Schoen thought the work would never be performed again - he tossed the score. Schoen had written so many arrangements throughout his life that he felt it was too much of a chore to store them - he had thrown out or lost almost all of the music he had written. He mentioned that after moving from country to country, coast to coast, it was too big of a job to lug the massive amount of music he had written. He once had a flood in his garage that ruined a huge amount of his library. Often, after a concert was over, Schoen would dispose of the scores and parts (he felt the music would never be played again). In his later years, however, he made more of an effort to hold on to his scores and albums. He began to search record stores and different venues to find his arrangements and recordings.
In 1974 Schoen provided some of the arrangements for the Sherman Brothers
Sherman Brothers
The Sherman Brothers are an American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....
Broadway musical Over Here!
Over Here!
Over Here! is a musical with a score by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman and book by Will Holt. The original Broadway production was directed by Tom Moore and choreographed by Patricia Birch, with scenic design by Douglas W. Schmidt and costumes by Carrie F...
. The opening night cast included Patty and Maxene Andrews (of the Andrews Sisters) and newcomers John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
, Treat Williams
Treat Williams
Richard Treat Williams is a Screen Actors Guild Award–nominated American actor and children's book author who has appeared on film, stage and television...
, Marilu Henner
Marilu Henner
Mary Lucy Denise "Marilu" Henner is an American actress, producer and author. She is best known for her role as Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the sitcom Taxi from 1978 to 1983.-Early life:...
, Samuel E. Wright
Samuel E. Wright
Samuel E. Wright is an American film and theater actor and singer who is best known as the voice of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid, for which he provided the main vocals to "Under the Sea", which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. He also voiced Kron in Disney's CGI film...
, and Ann Reinking
Ann Reinking
Ann Reinking is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She has worked extensively in musical theatre, both as a dancer and choreographer, as well as appearing in film.-Biography:...
, all of whom went on to achieve successful careers. It opened at the Schubert Theatre
Shubert Theatre (Broadway)
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 225 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States.Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts, it was named after Sam S. Shubert, the second oldest of the three brothers of the theatrical producing family...
on March 6, 1974 and ran for 341 performances.
Although he was both an arranger and composer, Schoen moved into the direction of composing in his later years, finding it more rewarding. In 1981 due to financial pressures he and his wife Marion Hutton moved from Irvine, California
Irvine, California
Irvine is a suburban incorporated city in Orange County, California, United States. It is a planned city, mainly developed by the Irvine Company since the 1960s. Formally incorporated on December 28, 1971, the city has a population of 212,375 as of the 2010 census. However, the California...
to Kirkland, WA
Kirkland, Washington
Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. It is a suburb of Seattle on the Eastside . The population was 48,787 at the 2010 census makes it the 9th largest city in King County and the 20th largest city in the state...
(a suburb of Seattle). While Schoen worked at home Hutton directed Residence XII, a drug addiction wing at a Kirkland hospital to help alcoholics and addicts (learning from her own experience as a recovered alcoholic).
After establishing himself in Seattle, he arranged and conducted the annual Evening of Pops show in 1982. This was a fundraiser for the drug rehab center Residence XII. In 1983 he arranged and conducted The Most Happy Fella
The Most Happy Fella
The Most Happy Fella is a 1956 musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The story, about a romance between an older man and younger woman, is based on the play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard...
for the Seattle Civic Light Opera. Schoen arranged music for Glenn Miller Remembered, a PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
production video taped in Seattle, 1984, starring Tex Beneke
Tex Beneke
Gordon Lee Beneke , professionally known as Tex Beneke, was an American saxophonist, singer, and bandleader. His career is a history of associations with bandleader Glenn Miller and former musicians and singers who worked with Miller. His band is also associated with the careers of Eydie Gorme...
and Marion Hutton. A year later a television interview was aired on Schoen discussing his affiliation with Glenn Miller.
In 1984 Schoen composed “Ballet In Brass II” for two jazz band as well as “Suite For Two Jazz Bands and Concert Piano.” The works were premiered at the North Seattle Community College
North Seattle Community College
North Seattle Community College is a two-year community college in Seattle, Washington. It is one of the three colleges comprising the Seattle Community College District , and one of the 32 member colleges of the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system.Founded in 1970, NSCC is...
.
In 1985, Schoen composed music for a Boeing Company
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
special show as it celebrated the 50th anniversary of its B-17 Flying Fortress. That same year he arranged and conducted Holiday Reunion, a fund-raiser for the Special Olympics
Special Olympics
Special Olympics is the world's largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 3.1 million athletes in 175 countries....
performed at the Seattle Opera House.
Patti Page and Vic Schoen reunited for a 1986 stage show in Las Vegas.
Schoen was asked by Nico Snel (conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic and Port Angeles Symphony) to write many arrangements for his pops concerts. In 1987 he wrote an arrangement for the Seattle Philharmonic combining the famous Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
piano piece Clair de Lune with Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is a show tune written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for their 1933 operetta Roberta. It was originally recorded by Gertrude Niesen, on 13 October 1933 on the Victor label 24454. It was performed by Irene Dunne for the 1935 film adaptation,...
. He called the piece Smoky Lune.
In the mid 1980s 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...
, Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
, and Sammy Davis Jr. were performing in a traveling show. Upon arriving in Seattle, 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...
heard that Schoen and Marion Hutton
Marion Hutton
Marion Hutton was a United States singer and actress.-Biography:Born as Marion Thornburg, the elder sister of actress Betty Hutton, their father abandoned their family when they were both young: he later committed suicide. Their mother worked a variety of jobs to support the family until she...
were living in Seattle, and invited them to socialize on the bus after the concert.
In 1988 Schoen and Maxene Andrews reunited. Schoen arranged music for her stage show that was performed nationally and abroad.
In 1989 the Seattle Philharmonic commissioned Schoen for an orchestral work to celebrate the centennial of the state of Washington. His work “Centennial” was premiered with the Seattle Philharmonic and pianist Joel Salsman. The piece was composed in a rhapsodic style for piano and orchestra. Schoen also re-orchestrated the work for the Tacoma Concert Band.
In 1990 he wrote an evening’s worth of jazz arrangements for the Seattle Philharmonic and a full big band to perform at the same time. During this time he was asked to arrange and conduct music for one of George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
’s concerts in Los Angeles. Shearing was a blind jazz pianist. There was a fermata in the middle of an arrangement where Shearing played a small cadenza
Cadenza
In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....
. Schoen said to Shearing, “After you finish, I’ll look over and nod, then we’ll continue.” After a brief pause Shearing said, “Actually, why don’t I nod.”
During his Seattle years Schoen wrote programs and fundraisers for the PBS station KCTS-TV
KCTS-TV
KCTS-TV is a public television station in Seattle, Washington, that is a member of the Public Broadcasting Service , that broadcasts on digital channel 9. Its offices and broadcasting center are located at the northeast corner of Seattle Center...
as well as many works for the Seattle Philharmonic, Port Angeles Symphony, Everett Symphony, Tacoma Concert Band, Seattle Men's Chorus
Seattle Men's Chorus
Seattle Men's Chorus founded in 1979 in Seattle, Washington, bills itself as the largest community chorus in America, and the largest gay men's chorus in the world...
(Christmas TV special on KTZZ, with interview), Bellevue Community College
Bellevue Community College
Bellevue College is a public institution of higher education located in Bellevue, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. It serves 35,000 students per year, making it the second largest institution of higher education overall in Washington state...
, Northwest Winds Quintet, Harry James Band (based in Seattle, ran by Fred Radke), and Shoreline Community College
Shoreline Community College
Shoreline Community College is a community college in Shoreline, north of Seattle, Washington. It is located in a residential area east of Shoreview Park. The college contains 83 acres and continuously serves 12,000 full and part-time students....
.
After Schoen’s wife Marion Hutton died in 1987, he married Sally-Jan Calbeck, an artist from Los Angeles. She moved to Seattle and after two years, they decided to move back to Los Angeles, finally settling in Corona del Mar. He participated in the Los Angeles musical scene and also attended ASMAC meetings.
Schoen met film composer John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
backstage at a concert in Los Angeles in the 1990s, and Williams commented to him, “I was a big fan of your music when I was a kid.”
In 1999 Schoen reunited with Patti Page to record a CD for a Chinese label. One of Schoen’s favorite singers to work with was Patti Page. She and Schoen had remained close friends and spoke regularly until his death.
Vic Schoen’s only protégé is Los Angeles composer-arranger Kevin Kaska http://www.kevinkaska.com
Although his gigs were less frequent, Schoen never fully retired from music. “His music would never leave him alone to do that,” remarked his fourth wife, Sally-Jan. He was proud of his ability to work in a wide variety of styles and joked that he could “write big band falling out of bed.”
Vic Schoen died of pneumonia in Corona del Mar, California, in 2000.
Private life
Vic Schoen was married four times:- Yvette Agnes Gowdy (1943–48)
- One son: David Schoen (b. June 20, 1944) http://www.davidschoen.com
- Kay Starr (1953-)
- Marion Hutton (1954–87)
- Sally-Jan Calbeck (1944-)
In the 1960s, Vic Schoen’s closest personal friends were Pete Rugolo
Pete Rugolo
Pietro "Pete" Rugolo was an Italian-born jazz composer and arranger.-Life and career:Rugolo was born in San Piero Patti, Sicily, Italy. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920 and settled in Santa Rosa, California...
and Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
. They spent a great deal of time together going to many parties and enjoying the social scene in Los Angeles.
Salary
Was paid $4,000 a week in 1942 to work on the Road to MoroccoRoad to Morocco
Road to Morocco is an 1942 American comedy film about two fast-talking guys tossed up on a desert shore and sold into slavery to a beautiful princess...
as an arranger. He bought a house in cash for $90,000.
Schoen once commented that in the 1960s he paid over $80,000 in income tax.
Quotes
“Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, there’s a reason why they put erasers on the end of pencils.”“On Monday and Tuesday you do the interviews for the media that make you seem like a big star. On Thursday you take out the trash.”
“There’s no need to keep your anger about someone, it does you more damage than them.”
“I can write big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
falling out of bed.”
Trivia
Vic Schoen is one of the very few composer-arrangers in history who was self-taught.His publishing
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
company was Grand Banque Publications.
Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...
from the Boston Pops commissioned Schoen for two arrangements of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was a major hit for The Andrews Sisters and an iconic World War II tune. This song can be considered an early jump blues recording...
and Undecided
Undecided
"Undecided" is a popular song written by Sid Robins and Charlie Shavers and published in 1938.The first recording was made by John Kirby and The Onyx Club Boys on October 28, 1938, and released by Decca Records as catalog number 2216, with the flip side "From A Flat to C".It was also recorded by...
. Schoen’s impression, along with many others at the time, was that Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler
Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...
was “very feisty”.
One of Schoen’s favorite composers was Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, and in particular was a fan of his symphonies.
When Schoen was musical director for a very big production in New York he asked the trumpet section from the Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
band to perform in his show for the week. The only trumpet player that he didn’t need, after all the spots were filled, was a young Doc Severinsen
Doc Severinsen
Carl Hilding "Doc" Severinsen is an American pop and jazz trumpeter. He is best known for leading the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.-Early life:...
“Doc was so disappointed, I don’t think he ever wanted to speak with me again after that,” Schoen had remarked.
Schoen met an avid fan during one of his European tours with Danny Kaye. The young man had been biking all over Europe following the tour and attending each show. Schoen was so impressed with this fan’s dedication and knowledge of his work that he asked the man if he wanted to ride on the train with him and Kaye for the remainder of the tour. The fan enthusiastically accepted.
Schoen mentioned that singer-actor Danny Kaye despised drinking. Sometimes Kaye would throw parties and not even show up to his own party. All of the biggest names in Hollywood would attend. During his parties Kaye would sometimes lock himself in his bedroom and later in the evening would come out and talk to a few people and then go right back into his bedroom. Schoen said, “He was an amazing talent, yet he was very insecure. Danny thought that his career would be over next week, if not, then next month. One time when he came out of his bedroom, Danny noticed that Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
had shown up to his party completely drunk. Danny went over to him, picked him up, and threw him out the front door of his house. Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
fell backwards and landed on the pavement. The entire room was astonished.”
Lyricist Johnny Mercer
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...
was a fan of Schoen’s work. Schoen commented, “During a rehearsal of a musical he liked to come and sit next to me in the orchestra pit as I conducted and listen to the orchestra right up close. We talked about writing songs together but we never got around to doing it.”
Vic Schoen had an incredible inner ear
Inner ear
The inner ear is the innermost part of the vertebrate ear. In mammals, it consists of the bony labyrinth, a hollow cavity in the temporal bone of the skull with a system of passages comprising two main functional parts:...
for a composer-arranger. He could sit at a desk and write music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
without ever using a piano (basically hearing all of the music in his head). Schoen also had perfect pitch that he developed later in life, especially after working with so many singers. Whenever someone asked him why he never used a piano to compose he would respond, “Does a painter need a painting to paint? Does an architect need a building to do a blueprint?” He remembered working on a show where the producer moved the entire second act in front of the first act. “I had to re-write all of the arrangements in one day sitting at a desk on the set. There was no piano and I sat there writing as they were banging the hammers right next to me re-building the set.”
In the 1980s Schoen commented on the current music of the day, “I don’t understand how these rock stars take two years to come out with a record. In the 40s we did an album every week.”
Schoen was a member of ASCAP. At the time, ASCAP required that each applicant have two sponsors who were already members of the organization. Bandleader Les Brown
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
and record producer David Kapp agreed to be Schoen’s sponsors.
Vic Schoen’s only son, David Schoen (b.1944), is an accomplished photographer http://www.davidschoen.com
Recordings
- Music for a Rainy Night, Decca DL8081
- A Letter to Laura, Decca DL8132
- Great Songs from All Over the World, Kapp K-1097-S
- Brass Laced with Strings, RCA Stereo Action LSA-2344
- Stereophonic Suite For Two Bands (later re-issue: Impact! Band Meets Band), Kapp KRL-4504
- A Swingers Holiday, Liberty LST-7018
- Corcovado Trumpets, Mainstream 56036-S/6036
- Girls with Brass, Mainstream MMS 705