Charlie Barnet
Encyclopedia
- For other persons with this name, see Charlie BarnettCharlie BarnettCharlie Barnett may refer to:* Charles John Barnett , British Army officer and diplomat* Charles James Barnett , English cricketer* Charlie Barnett , English cricketer...
.
Charles Daly Barnet (October 26, 1913 – September 4, 1991) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
saxophonist, composer, and bandleader
Bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
.
His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle".
Early life
Charlie Barnet was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His parents divorced when he was two, and he was raised by his mother and her grandparents. His grandfather was Charles Frederick Daly, a vice-president for the New York Central Railroad
New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
, banker, and businessman.
Barnet attended various boarding schools, both in the New York and Chicago areas. He learned to play piano and saxophone as a child. He often left school to listen to music and to try to gain work as a musician.
Career
Although he began his recording career in October 1933, Charlie Barnet was at the height of his popularity between 1939 and 1941, a period that began with his hit version of "Cherokee", written by Ray NobleRay Noble (musician)
Ray Noble was an English bandleader, composer, arranger and actor. Noble studied music at the Royal Academy of Music and became leader of the HMV Records studio band in 1929. The band, known as the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, featured members of many of the top hotel orchestras of the day...
and arranged by Billy May
Billy May
William E. "Billy" May was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music, for The Green Hornet , Batman , and Naked City and collaborated on films, such as Pennies from Heaven , and orchestrated Cocoon, and Cocoon: The Return among...
. In 1944, Barnet had another big hit with "Skyliner". In 1947, he started to switch from swing music to bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
. During his swing period his band included Buddy DeFranco
Buddy DeFranco
Boniface Ferdinand Leonard "Buddy" DeFranco is an American jazz clarinet player.-Biography:DeFranco began his professional career just as swing music and big bands — many of which were led by clarinetists like Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman and Woody Herman — were fading in popularity...
, Roy Eldridge
Roy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
, Neal Hefti
Neal Hefti
Neal Hefti was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, tune writer, and arranger. He was perhaps best known for composing the theme music for the Batman television series of the 1960s, and for scoring the 1968 film The Odd Couple and the subsequent TV series of the same name.He began arranging...
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...
, Dodo Marmorosa, Oscar Pettiford
Oscar Pettiford
Oscar Pettiford was an American jazz double bassist, cellist and composer known particularly for his pioneering work in bebop.-Biography:...
, and Art House, while later versions of the band included Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...
, Doc Severinsen
Doc Severinsen
Carl Hilding "Doc" Severinsen is an American pop and jazz trumpeter. He is best known for leading the NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.-Early life:...
, and Clark Terry
Clark Terry
Clark Terry is an American swing and bop trumpeter, a pioneer of the fluegelhorn in jazz, educator, NEA Jazz Masters inductee, and recipient of the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award...
. Trumpeter Billy May
Billy May
William E. "Billy" May was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music, for The Green Hornet , Batman , and Naked City and collaborated on films, such as Pennies from Heaven , and orchestrated Cocoon, and Cocoon: The Return among...
was an arranger in the Charlie Barnet Orchestra before joining Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
in 1940.
He was one of the first bandleaders to integrate
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
his band; the year is variously given as 1935 or 1937. He was an outspoken admirer of Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
and Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
. Ellington recorded the Charlie Barnet composition "In a Mizz". In 1939, Basie lent Barnet his charts after Barnet's had been destroyed in a fire at the Palomar Hotel in Los Angeles. Throughout his career he was an opponent of syrupy arrangements. In the song "The Wrong Idea", he lampooned the "sweet" Big Band sound of the era. The song was written by Billy May, who later used the same satirical bent in his collaborations with Stan Freberg
Stan Freberg
Stanley Victor "Stan" Freberg is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944...
on Capitol Records including the Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...
satire "Wunnerful! Wunnerful!" Barnet's was a notorious party band where drinking and vandalism were not uncommon. While Glenn Miller enforced strict standards of dress and deportment, Barnet was more interested in having fun, according to his autobiography "The Swinging Years."
In 1949 he retired, apparently because he had lost interest in music. He was able to retire when he chose because he was one of the few heirs in a very wealthy family. He occasionally returned from retirement for brief tours but never returned to music full time.
In September 1964, Barnet arranged a private party for his musical hero, Duke Ellington and orchestra to play at Palm Spring's San Jacinto country club. At the door, a small sign painted by Barnet said, "any complaints about loud music or requests for excessive use of mutes will be grounds for instant expulsion (to a table in the parking lot). Any requests for folk music, twist, watusi, or rock and roll will result in instant execution by golf balls at 20 paces". Barnet did not play at the gathering.
Barnet was married eleven times and in his 1984 autobiography says, "I went through several more marital fiascos, but they were mostly Mexican marriages and quickly annulled, because they weren't legal in the first place.." His final marriage to Betty was for 33 years. He had one son, Charles D. Barnet, Jr, from an earlier marriage. During retirement, Barnet resided at homes in Palm Springs and San Diego, California. He kept a 46-foot boat in San Diego.
Barnet died from complications of Alzheimer's disease and pneumonia at San Diego's Hillside hospital, September 4, 1991.
Compositions
Charlie Barnet's compositions included "Skyliner", "Southland Shuffle", "Swing Street Strut", "The Right Idea", "The Wrong Idea" with Billy MayBilly May
William E. "Billy" May was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music, for The Green Hornet , Batman , and Naked City and collaborated on films, such as Pennies from Heaven , and orchestrated Cocoon, and Cocoon: The Return among...
, "Growlin'", "Scotch and Soda", "Midweek Function", "Oh What You Said (Are We Burnt Up?)", "I Kinda Like You", "Tappin' at the Tappa", "The Last Jump", "Knocking at the Famous Door", "Lazy Bug" with Juan Tizol
Juan Tizol
Juan Tizol was a Puerto Rican trombonist and composer.He was born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. Music was a large part of his life from an early age. His first instrument was the violin, but he soon switched to valve trombone, the instrument he would play throughout his career...
, "Ogoun Badagris (Voodoo War God)", and "In a Mizz", which was recorded by Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
.
"Skyliner", arranged by Billy May
Billy May
William E. "Billy" May was an American composer, arranger and trumpeter. He composed film and television music, for The Green Hornet , Batman , and Naked City and collaborated on films, such as Pennies from Heaven , and orchestrated Cocoon, and Cocoon: The Return among...
, was written as the theme music for the late 1940s US Armed Forces Network program "Midnight In Munich", broadcast from the AFN station in Munich, Germany, and hosted by Sgt. Ralph Moffat. Thanks to the station's immensely powerful twin 100 kW transmitters, AFN Munich could be heard as far away as the UK; this, and the popularity of Moffat's show, evidently helped "Skyliner" and many other contemporary American swing hits to gain wide popularity across Europe and become hits in the UK. The title (which was originally printed as "Sky Liner") may be a reference to the practice of American pilots flying into Munich, who used the radio station's powerful signal to home in on the city.