Summer with Ralph Burns

As summer made its official entrance (hesitantly, not sure it heard the cue) we thought of Ralph Burns.

Ralph Burns was a pianist, composer and arranger who worked with--among many others--Bob Fosse, Martin Scorsese and Mikhail Baryshnikov. He wrote for stage and film and television, and his work won an Oscar and a Tony.

But for those of us lucky enough to be around at the time, he will be remembered primarily for the fifteen years he spent with Woody Herman's band. Among the famous pieces he wrote and arranged for the Herman Herd was the exquisite "Bijou," which opens with an insinuating piano and rhythm setting of scene (Burns, Chubby Jackson, Dave Tough, maybe Billy Bauer), leads to a wall of saxophones, and then bursts forth with Bill Harris's memorably quirky trombone solo.

Burns wrote big band barn burners for Herman, like "Apple Honey" and "Northwest Passage," all tailored to the required three-minute length for ten-inch 78 rpm records.

But he also wrote longer works, which, if he had been a European composer, would have been called tone poems--now, sadly, almost impossible to find, but still playing in memory. One was titled "Lady McGowan's Dream." More famous, at the time, and the reason Ralph Burns came to mind today, was "Summer Sequence."

We wish you a serene and sunny summer sequence.