Ray Conniff: Interview 2

What sort of a background to what you do today would you say your previous work with big bands gave you?

Oh, it was like going to school. I learned a lot, working with bands, as trombonist and arranger, down through the Swing band era—Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, Bob Crosby. It was just what you’d call being right on the firing–line; really a great way to learn to write music and play music.

It’s nice to see, in your show, that you still get a blow on the horn.

Yeah, I get the horn out every time we do personal appearances, and do a show. It’s kinda fun, and you can’t go wrong with great fellows like John Best., Skeets Hurfurt and Johnny Guarmeri. I’ve worked in bands with Skeets and Johnny; not John Best, but our paths crossed quite a bit, because in those days the bands would go to see each other when they’d both be in town.

What’s the set–up when you go on tour? Do you take a nucleus of these men, and use the local players to make up the band?

On this tour, everything was self– contained. I brought four musicians and sixteen singers from the United States, and the rest of the people I got here in London. The British musicians did a great job, too.

How did you actually hit on this successful sound of yours? Did it spring from your scoring for big bands?

Well, there wasn’t really too much connection with the big bands. It was just an idea I had. I was scoring a background for an arrangement on CBS Records, where I used the voices as instruments. It turned out to be a good sound; so we did an album with the same sound. As it was a success, we did a follow–up of two more albums right away.

Your original concept, I suppose, was to feature the band as an equal entity to the singers. Since then, have the singers become of main importance?

That’s right—it was an instrumental concept when I first did it. After about four or five albums, I made the first album called “The Talk Of The Town”, where the singers sang the words. And from that point on, the singers became more important.

Have you kept some of the same singers who worked with you on the earlier records?

No, because the earlier records were made in New York City. I live in California now; so I have an entirely new bunch of singers.

Had you done any choral writing before these things?

I really hadn’t. As a matter of fact, that was the first time I wrote for chorus, when I started backing different artists on the CBS label.

Had you listened to anything in the way of classical choral music?

I was exposed to it, but I didn’t really sit down and study it—no.

Initially, did you think that this would be a way to bring the big band sound to people?

Not really. It was just an experiment that worked out good. I hadn’t really any plans for it. You know, every time I ever write an arrangement, I always try something new, and it was just a new thing that I tried.

You still use the instrumental voice idea to some extent, don’t you?

Yes, I put probably one or two songs in each album with that sound.

The coordinating of a show of this nature must be quite an undertaking.

We have an office in Los Angeles. It takes a few months to put it together, and quite a voluminous correspondence. For this, I’ve been very dependent on a lot of people in England. Like, the whole stage, sound and light crew are from here—and so are the tour promoters.

Do you travel as much as recording?

No, I mostly do recording. I travel very little. Most of the travelling I do is for pleasure.

You normally have everything written, do you, prior to going in the studio?

Oh yeah, everything’s all planned and written down. We change it around a lot, but we have something to start out with.

And you score and visualise every part of an arrangement yourself?

Yeah, I do it all myself. You know, I’ve done it so many years now, I have a pretty good idea how it’s gonna sound when I write it down on paper. Sometimes, of course, I’ll try something new, and I’ll have to hear it once before I’m exactly sure that’s what I want. In general, I can usually tell before.

Your sound has spawned a great many imitators. What have you thought about all the other people who have had a similar kind of idea to yours?

Well, at first I used to kind of worry about it, and it bothered me that there were other people doing the same kind of thing I was. But in the last several years I’ve realised that the music business and recording business move so fast that you can’t just stay on one thing constantly. And I’ve been constantly coming up with fresh sounds and ideas. If they want to copy me, they have to move pretty fast now, because styles change so rapidly.

Are you particularly pleased with certain of your arrangements?

Well, two stand out in my mind. I think Somewhere, My Love and  ‘S Wonderful are the two that I would pick as being my favourites.

And they were also very successful for you. Have you used the voices in any other context than your own recordings?

I don’t use them any other way than recordings and personal appearances. Well, I’ve done a little motion picture work, but not too much.

Being from a jazz background, and still playing trombone, how do you view the general field today?

I think it’s fascinating. It’s such a fast–moving and fast–changing business that you really have to be on your toes to stay abreast of what’s going on. It’s a very exciting business.

What do you think of the big band revival movement, with certain bands recreating the sounds of bands like Miller and Dorsey?

Oh really—I wasn’t aware that was going on. But I really don’t think you can revive things in music. I think music continually goes forward. I could be wrong—it’s only a .personal opinion.

But you yourself have been going a few years now, and the public expects you to repeat a lot of nostalgic things that they’ve heard on your old recordings, don’t they?

Right. In concert, I find that they do expect to hear some of the old things, like ‘S Wonderful, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Street Where You Live”. So I play them in the concerts. But I try to initiate them into some of the newer sounds, too, like Tie A Yellow Ribbon, Harmony, Gipsy Rose and other things in the recent albums. I always mix it up on concerts.

It certainly is a classic sound, I don’t think anybody who’s tried to duplicate it has really got it the way you have it. Presumably, it’s to do with the voicing.

Oh yeah, it’s in the arranging, it’s in the recording technique, it’s in the performance, and it’s in what I tell them at the record session. There’s a lot of elements in it that make it what it is.

You have a certain way of getting the brass very close to the voices.

Yes, that’s the engineering. It’s very difficult to get that just right, by the way. They’re scored together, but then when you mix ‘em, it’s hard to get them in equal volume With equal volume, it’s a nice different sound; but if the brass are louder you don’t hear the voices properly, and if the voices are louder you don’t hear the brass. It’s easier now than it used to be in the days when we’d put everything on simultaneously Now, with overdubbing, it’s easier to get the sound.

Do you have any special thoughts about the future?

Well, I’ll keep recording albums as long as people will buy them. Because I’m like everyone else—I’m always looking for a hit single. And it looks like we might have one with this Harmony that I have out now. We’re selling about two million albums a year now. We have a very large catalogue—I’ve recorded about fifty albums. I try to keep abreast; I keep buying all the new singles that come out, and listen to what the younger generation are writing and recording. I try to stay on top of the market, and I use the sounds that will work into my style.

It’s good to see as musical a product as yours so successful, I hope you can return to Britain soon.

Thank you very much. We’ll try to come back; we don’t have any definite plans at the moment. After I recover. . . . It’s been a very strenuous tour, and we’re all very tired. The audiences were fantastic. We really enjoyed working to them.

 Copyright © 1973 Les Tomkins. All Rights Reserved