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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 ZSAUTER-FINEGAN ORCHESTRAA concert band led 1952-7 by arrangers Eddie Sauter (see his entry) and Bill Finegan for studio work and a few gigs. Finegan (b 3 April 1917, Newark NJ; d 4 June 2008) had written for Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller (as well as the scores for Miller's movies Sun Valley Serenade and Orchestra Wives '41-2), also for Horace Heidt, Les Elgart, Gerry Mulligan and many more. The Sauter-Finnegan band used top sidemen such as Al Klink, Ralph Burns, Kai Winding, etc and arrangements with unusual voicings, including muted horns, recorders, bass clarinet, piccolo, oboe, English horn, tuneable drums and so on; there were as many as six players in the percussion section, and Sauter played toy trumpet on a couple of tracks. On 'Midnight Sleighride' Finegan pounded on his chest to imitate the sound of galloping horses. At the band's peak, 21 musicians played 77 instruments. The 'Big Band Era' was already over, and the Sauter-Finegan band was never an economic proposition as a road band, but the music is still a lot of fun today. The delightfully twee 'Yankee Doodletown' was based on 'Yankee Doodle', 'Doodletown Fifers' (no. 12 hit) on a civil war song, 'Doodletown Races' on Stephen Foster. 'Midnight Sleighride' was based on Prokofiev, 'Now That I'm In Love' on Rossini (vocal by Sally Sweetland), 'Nina Never Knew' (vocal by Joe Mooney) and film theme 'The Moon Is Blue' (with Sweetland) were chart hits '52-3. Much of this was lightweight, but items like Sauter's 'Wild Wings In The Woods' for woodwinds aimed at Gil Evans territory. Albums included a 10-inch LP New Directions In Music, then 12-inchers Inside Sauter-Finegan, The Sons Of Sauter-Finegan, The Sound Of The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Concert Jazz, Adventure In Time, Under Analysis, Memories Of Goodman And Miller, all on RCA. There were also 45rpm EP editions; RCA was pushing the 45 at the time and Sauter and Finnegan wrote an Extended Play Suite of four pieces, each over twice the length of the average pop single of the day. The band broke up when Sauter went to work in Germany, but remade tracks in stereo for The Return Of The Doodletown Fifers '61 on Ultra; RCA put out a compilation Inside Sauter-Finegan Revisited in phony stereo. Sauter and Finegan worked together writing advertising jingles from '59; Finegan wrote for Mel Lewis in the '70s, and revived the Sauter-Finegan band for a gig early '87 in NYC with Jim Hall and others. Several of the early Sauter-Finegan albums had covers drawn by Jim Flora, whose work is celebrated in The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora by Irwin Chusid (Fantagraphics Books, 2004). In particular, Inside Sauter-Finegan featured a cartoon of two dancing demented robots, their conjoined torso full of bolts of musical lightning. It was one of the most delightful artifacts of the year. |