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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZHAYMAN, Richard(b 27 March 1920, Cambridge MA; d 5 February 2014, Manhattan) Composer, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist. He began at age 18 playing harmonica with Borrah Minevitch's Harmonica Rascals for three years; worked in vaudeville; studied privately with conductors Arthur Fiedler and Sixten Ehrling, as well as some of the best film composers in Hollywood. He arranged background music for films such as Meet Me In St Louis (working under Georgie Stoll; Hayman at various times used pseudonyms such as Ray Howard, Richard Savage). He also played bit parts in films. He was music director for Vaughan Monroe late '40s, later worked for Bob Hope, Jack Benny etc. He went to Mercury Records '51 and became their NYC A&R man '53; backed artists such as Bobby Wayne and led his own orchestra '53-6, also arranged and conducted strings on a Cannonball Adderley album. His own instrumental hits incl. 'Ruby' (theme from film Ruby Gentry) and 'The Story Of Three Loves' (film title theme based on the 18th variation from Rachmaninoff's 'Variations On A Theme Of Paganini'), both '53: Hayman played harmonica on the first, Jerry Murad on the second. (The Rachmaninoff theme was borrowed by film composer Miklos Rozsa [b 18 April 1907, Budapest; d 27 July 1995] who scored over 90 movies, was nominated for 16 Oscars including Thief Of Bagdad '40, won three: Spellbound '45, A Double Life '47, Ben Hur '59. Rozsa was also a substantial classical composer.) Hayman made over 20 albums for Mercury, was chief arranger for the Boston Pops Orchestra '49-79, had formed the Manhattan Pops Orchestra '63 and was a guest conductor all over the USA. He was known for some showmanship on the podium (he liked sequined jackets), and paid little attention to musical boundaries; 'Music is music if it tells the right story,' he once told The New York Times. 'It doesn’t matter if it is Bach or rock.' His album Harlem Nocturne And Other Hits '88 on Kem-Disc was followed by a series of new albums on Naxos to delight fans of light music. He was conductor of the St Louis Symphony's pops concerts from 1976 until they were discontinued in 2002. |