Bill Holman (musician)
Willis Leonard Holman (born May 21, 1927),[1] known professionally as Bill Holman, is an American composer, arranger, conductor, saxophonist, and songwriter working in jazz and traditional pop.[2] His career is over seven decades long, having started with the Charlie Barnet orchestra in 1950.
Bill Holman
Willis Leonard Holman
May 21, 1927
Olive, California, United States
Arranger, composer, bandleader, orchestrator
1951–present
1944–1946
Early life[edit]
Bill Holman was born in Olive, California, United States.[1] His family moved to Orange, east of Anaheim, then Santa Ana. He started playing the clarinet in junior high school. While attending Orange High School he played the tenor saxophone and formed a band. Although his family had no musical background, Holman was influenced by Count Basie and Duke Ellington while constantly listening to the radio.[2][3] He was drafted at the later end of World War II and served in the U.S. Navy from 1944 to 1946. Through the Navy, he studied mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado and then studied at UCLA.
In the late 1940s, he started to concentrate on music instead of engineering. He enrolled at the Westlake College of Music,[1] and studied with Dave Robertson and Alfred Sendrey. He studied privately with composer and arranger Russ Garcia and Lloyd Reese on the saxophone.[2] He was influenced by the African-American jazz musicians on Central Avenue in Los Angeles. He heard live music while living nearby and attending Westlake College. He got his first professional start with Ike Carpenter's dance band, and then with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra in 1950 as a tenor saxophonist.[1] He continued with that band for about three years.[1] Early commercial work as an arranger came in 1951–52 when he wrote charts for band leader and producer Bob Keane for the album, Dancing on the Ceiling.
Big band writing[edit]
Holman wrote for other big bands.[1] Examples of Holman's work for Woody Herman are "Mulligan Tawny" and "Blame Boehm" that were recorded for Columbia in 1954. Probably the most well known arrangement for the Herman band is Holman's up tempo chart on "After You've Gone" from the Grammy nominated album Woody Herman '64. The band used three tenor saxes and a baritone sax (no alto saxes). The association and the writing for the Woody Herman continued off and on up through the 1980s; this included four Grammy nominated albums Holman's work is recorded on.
In 1965, drummer Buddy Rich started a touring big band. Rich's familiarity with Holman's writing came through playing on Harry James' group from earlier in the decade. Holman was one of the first writers to write for Rich's big band book;[1] Rich was looking for updated material of contemporary pop hits that also featured himself (Rich) on drums. Holman became the primary 'go to' composer and arranger helping to create an appeal Rich was to have with much younger audiences at a time, when big bands had fallen out of fashion. Drum features and pop/rock tunes Holman wrote greatly helped Rich to achieve a new sound, that aided the band to gain a younger listening audience. Holman's writing is featured on several Buddy Rich big band albums from 1966 through 1985 to include Grammy nominated LPs Big Swing Face and Buddy & Soul. Holman's arrangement of the Beatles "Norwegian Wood" was a commercial success, and prominently featured on numerous live television performances, creating a high profile early on for Rich's band. His composition "Ruth" is a good example of contemporary big band writing during that time of the late 1960s.
One of the most notable jazz albums Holman wrote was I Told You So, commissioned by the Count Basie Orchestra and recorded at RCA studios, New York City in January 1976 (for Norman Granz and Pablo Records). Other important groups and big bands he has written and recorded for include names such as Louie Bellson, Maynard Ferguson, Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band, Harry James, Terry Gibbs, The Airmen of Note and Chicago Jazz Orchestra.[1]
West Coast work[edit]
Holman became an important figure in what was to become the West Coast jazz scene, starting in the 1950s. Through Holman's associations to personnel from Central Avenue, Stan Kenton, and Woody Herman he assembled small jazz groups and participated in those of others. These include Carmen McRae, Bob Cooper, Shorty Rogers, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, The Tonight Show Band, Manhattan Transfer, Diane Schuur, J.J. Johnson, Jack Sheldon, Charlie Shoemake, Howard Roberts, Ann Richards, Anita O'Day, Lighthouse All-Stars, June Christy, Mel Torme, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Lennie Niehaus, Conte Candoli, Dave Pell, Shelly Manne and Terry Gibbs. He recorded for several labels and performed often at The Lighthouse, Basin Street West, and Donte's.
Holman worked with The Wrecking Crew, The 5th Dimension,[1] The Association, The Sandpipers, and The Monkees. Each of these four pop groups had award-winning hits and platinum selling records containing Holman's work as an arranger. This roster includes Burt Bacharach, Pearl Bailey, Tony Bennett, Les Brown, Michael Bublé, Bobby Darin, Johnny Desmond, The Four Freshmen, Jackie & Roy, Eartha Kitt, Mario Lanza, Steve Lawrence, Peggy Lee, Seals & Crofts, Bobby Sherman, Tak Shindo, The Turtles, Randy VanWarmer and Si Zentner.
Holman's television credits include Academy Awards, Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show, The Bing Crosby Show, The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Ed Sullivan Show. He wrote film scores for Swamp Women (1956), Get Out of Town (1959), and Three on a Couch (1966), Glengarry Glen Ross, The Wrecking Crew, Luv, Harper, The Marrying Man and Sharky's Machine.
Bill Holman Big Band[edit]
He formed a big band in the 1950s which recorded several albums in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These albums included In a Jazz Orbit (1958), The Fabulous Bill Holman (1958) and Bill Holman's Great Big Band (1961). The group also recorded several albums under Holman's name backing Jackie & Roy, Mark Murphy and David Allen. The most notable album of these was with singer Anita O'Day in 1960/61 entitled Incomparable! for Verve Records. By the late 1960s Holman had de-emphasized the group due to his busy schedule, the commercial viability of a big band, and partly because of the departure of drummer Mel Lewis moving back to New York City.
Starting in 1975, nearly 13 years after his last big band recording, Holman began rehearsing, writing and recording with his own big band again,[1] which has won two Grammys. His first recording with the new group in 1988 was Bill Holman Band: World Class Music (JVC). Pulling in Los Angeles studio musicians who admired and appreciated his work, Holman has been able to release a list of acclaimed CDs, including Brilliant Corners, which featured arrangements of tunes written by Thelonious Monk, that won a Grammy in 1997. Holman's band is one of the few regularly rehearsing big bands that meets on a weekly basis. The group has been featured at numerous jazz venues and festivals over the last 30 years, that include The Jazz Bakery, the Reno Jazz Festival, Elmhurst Jazz festival, Monterey Jazz Festival and many times at the Los Angeles Jazz Institute's Big Band Bash that happens every May.
Work with European musicians[edit]
Holman's writing for large jazz ensemble has had a tremendous impact outside of the United States. He has conducted and recorded with well-known jazz orchestras such as the WDR Big Band in Cologne, the BBC Big Band in London, SWR Big Band in Stuttgart, Germany, the hr-Bigband in Frankfurt, Germany, RIAS Big Band Berlin, the Klaus Weiss Big Band, Vic Lewis, the Norwegian Radio Big Band, BuJazzO, and the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam. Musical scores and recording for Bill Holman are archived in over 20 major countries' national libraries around the world.[7]
Personal life[edit]
Holman's marriage to jazz singer and pianist Jeri Southern ended in divorce. They had one daughter.[11]