Posted on 10/31/2022 3:11:15 PM PDT by Twotone
Neal Hefti was born one hundred years ago - October 29th 1922, in Hastings, Nebraska, the town where (when l'il Neal was five) Kool-Aid was invented. Unlike Kool-Aid, Mr Hefti was never exactly a household name, but (as you'll know if you heard this week's Clubland Q&A) he insinuated his way into just about every household on the planet with a television set in the Sixties and Seventies. That's to say, he wrote the supergroovy theme for the film and sitcom spin-off The Odd Couple, and he wrote the ingenious theme for the Batman TV show - the one that spawned a thousand jokes: "How does Alfred call Batman in for dinner?" "Dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner Batman!"
That would be more than enough glory for one lifetime, but Hefti was a multi-talent who did a bunch of other stuff brilliantly, too. He was a marvelous film composer and a terrific arranger who played a critical role in the sound of the Count Basie band in the Fifties and Sixties. He scored just two vocal albums, but they're two of the best in the history of recorded sound: Sinatra/Basie and Sinatra And Swingin' Brass, both from 1962. And after that he figured it could only go downhill, so he quit vocal arranging and, despite innumerable offers from all the best singers right up to his death in 2008, never returned to it.
At any rate, that's the way he told it. According to others, he quit because Sinatra wouldn't give him equal billing on the Swingin' Brass album. Apparently, the arranger wanted to call it Hefti Meets The Thin One - a rather lame pun on his name, and the fact that young Frankie, way back when in the bobbysoxer days, had been famously emaciated.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
My high school stage band (jazz band) played Cute.
Hefti was best when he worked with Count Basie. His film scores were cutesy, but never made it to the level of a Bernard Herrmann or an Elmer Bernstein.
One of his sax players, Jon Clark, went on to fame as Kenny Loggins' sax and flute player. He played the tenor solo in Your Mama Don't Dance.
Everybody's Truckin'--The Modern Mountaineers (1937)
Ella Fitzgerald was Truckin' and Peckin'--dancin' up to date in '38!
A-Tisket A-Tasket--Chick Webb & His Orchestra (1938)
I agree. Herrmann and Bernstein, along with Alfred Newman were on a different level.
That would be Alfred WithouttheE Newman 🙂
Conquest--Alfred Newman & His Orchestra (1948)
That’s a fantastically interesting post you put up, TT, from Mark Steyn. Thanks!
Swingin’ Brass from ‘62 was an album I had memorized every phrase of Sinatra’s, so that to this day I can sing it note for note. I’m not a musician. I was a 10 year old kid when my oldest brother and hero Pete brought it home from SHAPE Hdqtrs in Paris where he served his 2 years in the army. He WAS Sinatra in my eyes - suave, handsome, musically gifted, lady killer. But he was dead just 11 years later. Hefti’s arrangements on that album are simply the best.
And Girl Talk had always been, for me, one of those that seemed to be on a loop, where you always wanted to keep singing it round and round. I even recorded it with my own lyrics and Basie background, just for fun, and about my sisters, which I titled Sis Talk:
They meet in Mesa, Dublin, LA, and the Windy Town
Pour out their hearts until defenses start to tumble down
Their men, their kids, their friends, their families, and their colleagues too
Alike are marble figurines to hew and make anew
With one great heart
They take apart
Rebuild with art
The art of Sis Talk, Sis Talk
Great song. After a decade of Led Zeppelin’s 12 minute long songs and Pete Townshend’s “rock operas”, short and catchy pop songs that didn’t take themselves so seriously were a huge relief. Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello.
I was thinking of the same song.
I watched “How to Murder your Wife” when it came to the TV. I loved it, and watched it several times over the years. It is fun in a way movies aren’t anymore. I miss the silly movies and the virginal ways of the entertainment. Where the men were dirty dogs, and the innocent girl or lady, straightened them out.
Another great movie was “Don’t eat the Daisies”, I still laugh over the kid in the cage because he could pick locks. It was not too far away from the reality of my life growing up with 6 brothers and sisters born 12 years apart.
I thank God for my life on Earth. The freedom and no worries environment gifted to us by those who sacrificed in WW 2. It can never be repeated. Thank you to the guys and dames born 1900-1930.
I never know if anyone else has the interest in Sinatra that I do. Haven’t heard of this particular album, but there are so many & unfortunately a lot of songs are duplicated. I’ll have to see if it’s on YouTube, maybe. :-)
Amen to that Well said
Neal Hefti also wrote the (annoying?) theme to the 70s paramedic drama “Emergency “
The show starred Hefti’s old friends Bobby Troup as world-weary Dr. Joe Early and Julie London as know-it-all nurse Dixie McCall
Theme music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyIvLarYpWw
Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency!
Julie London was married to both Jack Webb and Bobby Troup, although not at the same time.
How interesting - cue the Johnny Carson “I did not know that”
Now I’m going to have to look up and listen to some new music.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.