Jazz
Billy May was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1916. At school he learned to play the brass bass (tuba), trombone and trumpet, and performed not only in several of the school bands but also with outside groups. At first, his regular instrument was the trombone but gradually he gave preference to the trumpet. On completing his education, he simply increased his involvement in music and earned some extra money by transcribing from records the arrangements of tunes played by the popular bands of the day. In doing this, he learned the basics of arranging for a dance band and began to make arrangements for the bands for whom he was playing.
Let's Go to Town with Billy May & His Orchestra is a double-disc, 46-track overview of his pop hits recorded in the '40s. This anthology includes songs with vocal appearances by Peggy Lee, Willie Smith, Sherry Kay and Margaret Whiting, and soothing instrumental versions of "All of Me," "When Your Lover Has Gone," "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" and "Perfidia." While this is a decent sampler, the difficult to find The Best of Billy May on Aero Space is the better purchase.
--- Al Campbell, All Music Guide
Billy May
Active Decades: '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s and '90s
Born: Nov 10, 1916 in Pittsburgh, PA
Died: Jan 22, 2004 in San Juan Capistrano, CA
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Big Band, Orchestral Pop, Instrumental Pop, Swing, Traditional Pop
The last of the great arrangers who wrote regularly for Frank Sinatra, Billy May had several varied careers in and out of jazz. His first notable gig was as an arranger/trumpeter with Charlie Barnet (1938-1940), for whom he wrote the wah-wah-ing hit arrangement of Ray Noble's "Cherokee." Later, he worked in the same capacities for Glenn Miller (1940-1942) and Les Brown (1942) before settling into staff jobs, first at NBC studios, then at Capitol Records, where he led his own studio big band from 1951 to 1954. His arrangements for Sinatra, beginning with Come Fly With Me (1957) and ending with Trilogy (1979), are often in a walloping, brassy, even taunting swing mode, generating some of the singer's most swaggering vocals. May also did extensive scoring for television, film, and commercials. Although May was largely inactive in the '80s and '90s , he unexpectedly surfaced in 1996 with some typically bright big band charts for comic Stan Freberg's The United States of America, Vol. 2 (Rhino), 25 years after his contributions to Vol. 1. The veteran arranger died quietly at home on January 22, 2004 at the age of 87.
---Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide |
