Vic Schoen
He furnished music for some of the most successful persons 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 well-known artists such 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, whose self-taught approach to arranging possibly made him compatible with the Andrews Sisters—only LaVerne could read music—became their closest creative partner, and was an essential part of the trio's sound during their biggest years.
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."
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
"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.
The album featured two full big bands, with a total of eight trumpets, seven trombones, ten saxes, guitar, piano, bass, drums, and a percussionist.
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.
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.
In June 1960 Schoen moved back to Los Angeles after finishing work on The Big Record with Patti Page and The Dave King Show.
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 struggled with alcoholism 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 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.
Schoen arranged music for Glenn Miller Remembered, a PBS production video taped in Seattle, 1984, starring Tex Beneke and Marion Hutton.
Schoen was asked by Nico Snel (conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra 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.
