George Dale Williams

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George Dale "The Fox" Williams (born November 5, 1917 in New Orleans , † April 17, 1988 ) was an American arranger , pianist and composer who worked with numerous band leaders in the swing era .

Life

He grew up in Oakland , California and studied at Chico State College in Northern California. He was a multi-instrumentalist and at times a professional baseball player (with the Oakland Acorns) before playing the piano in nightclubs and with the Merle Howard Orchestra. In 1939 he was in the Bob Astor Band in Los Angeles and began arranging for his friend Jimmie Lunceford . In 1940 he began to arrange for Lionel Hampton's band and to build up the band library. Then he worked as a pianist in the big band of Sonny Dunham and moved to the East Coast, where he spent nine months for Glenn Miller arranged until the dissolution of the band at the beginning of World War II. From 1943 to 1946 he was in the Navy and after the war again arranger for well-known big bands, such as those of Gene Krupa , Ray Anthony (for whom he worked from 1951 to 1953), Harry James , Roy Eldridge , Charlie Ventura and Vaughn Monroe . He also arranged for Benny Goodman , Tommy Dorsey , Tony Bennett (musical director on his tours), Buddy Morrow , Ralph Flanagan , Hal McIntyre , Tommy Dorsey, Les Brown , Les Elgart , Charlie Spivak , Art Mooney , Eddy Duchin , Count Basie or Vincent Lopez . He also worked with the singers Johnny Desmond , Ray Kellogg , Tommy Mercer , Jane Morgan , Anita O'Day , Frank Rosolino , Lena Horne and Dinah Washington and for Bobby Hackett ( Serenade in Blue ), whom he accompanied on tours as musical director.

For Glenn Miller he wrote Whamboogie and It Must Be Jelly , for Gene Krupa Gene's Boogie , for Lionel Hampton Hamp's Boogie and for Ray Anthony Lackawanna Local , The Fox and The Bunny Hop .

In 1954 he founded his own orchestra, mainly for studio recordings; the single Saturday Night Function was released on Coral Records . With them he released his album Beautiful Music in 1956 , Swing Classics in Stereo in 1959 and Put on Your Dancing Shoes in 1960 .

He composed and arranged Happy Days Are Here Again for Barbra Streisand in 1962 (who brought Streisand her first gold record ) and arranged the strings for the TV show by Jackie Gleason , with whose show he moved to Florida in 1968.

Web link / source

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In his studio orchestra played u. a. Barry Galbraith , Bernie Glow , Charlie Shavers , Conte Candoli , Hal McKusick , Hank Jones , Jimmy Cleveland , Jimmy Crawford , Milt Hinton , Nick Travis and Sol Schlinger
personal data
SURNAME Williams, George Dale
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Williams, The Fox (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pianist, composer and arranger
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH New Orleans
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1988