Claus Ogerman

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Claus Ogerman (actually Klaus Ogermann, born April 29, 1930 in Ratibor ; † March 8, 2016 in Munich ) was a German-American composer and arranger .

Life

Klaus Ogermann was born in Ratibor in Upper Silesia , today's Racibórz, Poland . He only gave himself the Anglicized name Claus Ogerman later in the USA. His parents were Johann (Hans) Ogerman and his wife Emma, ​​née Wrazidlo. After the end of the Second World War , he and his family moved to the American occupation zone near Nuremberg . The family, like millions of other German expellees and refugees, had lost everything, as Ogerman once remarked in an interview on his big CD album The Man Behind the Music .

In the 1950s he worked as an arranger and pianist, among others with Kurt Edelhagen , Max Greger and Delle Haensch . Under the name "Tom Collins" he also recorded a few singles as a singer, both as a soloist and in a duet with Hannelore Cremer . On December 6, 1955, he appeared with Chet Baker in the TV studio of Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden . He also worked as a film composer.

In October 1959, Ogerman moved to New York City . There he met Don Costa , the Ogerman u. a. met Quincy Jones . Jones (then head of A&R at Mercury Records) hired Ogerman as arranger and commissioned him with a number of arrangements, including a. 1963 Lesley Gore's # 1 hit It's My Party .

Ogerman quickly made a name for himself and worked with various well-known stars of jazz and popular music over the next twenty years. During this time, Ogerman developed new forms of arrangement that were strongly based on classical elements. His unmistakable style and language, especially for strings, left a formative impression on the listener. Especially his cooperation with artists like Gidon Kremer shows his innovative power to reach new spheres with string textures. On the other hand, his work from this period later met with considerable criticism because of its commercial orientation. Canadian journalist Gene Lees wrote derogatory of Ogerman in his work Singers and the Song that he would give Quincy Jones the "shit" he would ask for people like Gore, and that Ogerman could "cut out garbage as needed."

In 1962, when the bossa nova reached the USA, Ogerman met Antônio Carlos Jobim . With him and other representatives of bossa nova, a long-term collaborative work developed.

The productions under Tommy LiPuma in the seventies produced the greatest success in terms of his popularity as well as in terms of his commercial career as an arranger and composer. In particular, the collaboration with jazz guitarist George Benson was extremely successful. With albums such as Breezin 1976, Inflight 1978 and Living Inside Your Love 1979 (for the arrangement of the title Soulful Strut he received a Grammy ), Ogerman occupied top positions in the sales and radio lists for years.

His own ballet adaptation Gate of Dreams should also be mentioned as an independent work from this genre (premiered July 14, 1974 at Lincoln Center in New York City / USA with the American Ballet Theater), which was renamed in 1976 under its own orchestra name and renamed (original title 1974 Some Times ) was also produced again by Tommy LiPuma for the Warner Brother label. Ogerman was able to win artists like George Benson, Joe Sample , Dave Sanborn , Michael Brecker , Peter Maunu , John Guerin , Chuck Domanico , Larry Bunker , Chino Valdes , Ralph Grierson for this production.

In 1974 he wrote Symbiosis, a widely acclaimed piano concerto for the jazz pianist Bill Evans . a. aroused enthusiasm in the classical pianist and Bach interpreter Glenn Gould .

In 1979 Ogerman withdrew from the commercial music business and then devoted himself exclusively to composing his own works, including a. for Michael Brecker, Gidon Kremer and for the mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender .

During this creative period, he turned down offers from well-known musicians such as Prince , Ella Fitzgerald , Dee Dee Bridgewater , Wynton Marsalis , Tony Bennett , Till Brönner and others to produce and arrange albums for them.

It was not until 2001 that producer Tommy LiPuma and Canadian jazz pianist Diana Krall succeeded in persuading Ogerman to return to the commercial music business. Ogerman initially orchestrated and arranged the album The Look of Love for Diana Krall , and later also her album Quiet Nights , which was held in the style of the bossa nova recordings of the 1960s and won a Grammy in 2010 in the category Best Instrumental Arrangement with Vocal Accompaniment .

plant

In the decades of his work, Ogerman developed a very successful style of orchestration and arrangement that was strongly influenced by classical elements. New arrangements of well-known melodies, which are used today for music sprinkling in elevators, hotels and shopping centers ( muzak ), are often based on the concepts of Ogerman.

Ogerman worked with many well-known musicians from 1958 to 1979, arranging and producing their albums. Be mentioned Stan Getz , Astrud Gilberto , Joao Gilberto , and Sammy Davis Jr. These albums:

Ogerman's best-known classically oriented albums with original compositions are:

Film music (selection)

Awards

Ogerman has been nominated for a Grammy sixteen times. He won the 1980 trophy for his arrangement of the George Benson song Soulful Strut , released on the album Living Inside Your Love (1979).

A total of 37 other albums that Ogerman has worked on were also suggested for the Grammy.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Christoph Dallach: Legendary musician Claus Ogerman: The Prussian of Bossa Nova . Spiegel Online , July 29, 2011, accessed October 19, 2016.
  2. ^ Marc Myers: Claus Ogerman (1930-2016) . Obituary for JazzWax, October 17, 2016, accessed October 19, 2016.
  3. ↑ Claus Lochbihler, Veil made of violins , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 19, 2016 ( online )
  4. ↑ An Upper Silesian jazz musician whose life began in Ratibor and led to the United States
  5. ^ The Work of Claus Ogerman
  6. ↑ TV broadcasts by the jazz editorial team. (JPG; 136 kB) (No longer available online.) City of Darmstadt, archived from the original on October 24, 2014 ; accessed on October 19, 2016 (jazz broadcasts from Südwestfunk).
  7. ^ Gene Lees: Singers and the Song . Oxford University Press 1999, p 315 in Google Book Search
  8. ↑ LiPuma was able to persuade Ogerman that his company would publish symphonic works by the composer in return. See Ogerman portrait. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 3, 2010. In addition to the Two Concertos (as Claus Ogermann), Decca published Works for Violin & Piano with Yue Deng and Jean-Yves Thibaudet in 2007
  9. ↑ Discogs
personal data
SURNAME Ogerman, Claus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ogermann, Klaus (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American composer and arranger
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Ratibor
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 2016
Place of death Munich