CLARE FISCHER: MEMENTO

CLARE FISCHER
Eu admirava Clare Fischer desde que ouvi seus arranjos vocais e instrumentais
para o disco "Hi-lo's Happen to Bossa Nova". Jamais poderia imaginar que viesse aconhecê-lo pessoamente de forma tão prosaica: ele de chinelos, camiseta e bermudas, totalmente à vontade, na casa do nosso grande e saudoso amigo TENÓRIO JUNIOR, em Laranjeiras, onde se hospedou quando veio ao Rio pela primeira vez, nos anos 60.
--------------
CLARE FISCHER
Clare Fischer (born October 22, 1928 in Durand, Michigan) is an American composer, arranger, and pianist.
His parents were of German, French, Irish-Scot, and English backgrounds. In grade school he started his general music study with violin and tuba as his first instruments. At the age of 7 he began to pick out four-part harmony on the piano. After two years of piano lessons the family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where 12-year-old Clare began composing classical music and making instrumental arrangements for dance bands. At South High School he took up cello, clarinet and saxophone. His high school instructor, Glenn Litton, took an interest in the boy and, because the family could not afford it, gave him free lessons in music theory, harmony,and orchestration. Clare returned the favor by orchestrating and copying music for him. Whenever the concert band needed an instrument, Clare would be supplied with it and the fingering chart to play it in concert. This gave him a personal training in orchestration that was invaluable. He started his own band at 15, for which he wrote all the arrangements. After graduating in 1946, he began undergraduate studies in 1947 at Michigan State University, majoring in music composition and theory, and studying with H. Owen Reed. During his teens there were no funds for him to study piano, so he was mostly self-taught. Therefore his major instrument in college was cello, and piano a minor. Later he changed his major to piano and minor in clarinet. Fischer graduated in 1951 with a B.M., cum laude, and began his first year of graduate work in composition. The U.S. Army drafted him the next year, sending him to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for basic training. There he played alto saxophone in the band and ended his service as an arranger at the U.S. Military Academy Band at West Point, N.Y. After the army, Clare returned to Michigan State. In 1955 he received his Master of Music. Next Clare was living in Detroit, Michigan, where after a concert he offered his duties to the vocal quartet The Hi-Lo's. For five years he was pianist and arranger for this group. He wrote his first vocal arrangements and recorded several albums as pianist and sometime vocal and instrumental arranger.
(FROM WIKIPEDIA)
---------------
ALBUM COMMENTS
Clare Fischer has inherited the crown from Cal Tjader as Latin music's leading
non-Latin bandleader and figure. These 13 selections, pulled from three Fischer
albums done in the late '60s and early and mid-'80s, show Fischer's straight jazz
and big band work. It does include the title song and "Preludio," but this is mostly
straight-ahead swing, bop, and cool fare, with nice reworkings of such anthems as
"Giant Steps," "Jeru," and "Old Folks." His band contains many West Coast household names, like Bill Perkins, Gary Foster, and Bud Shank, plus bassist John Patitucci on board part-time.
(By Ron Wynn, All Music Guide)
----------------
MINHA OPINIÃO: este álbum gravado for Clare Fischer em 1969 foi revisto por ele, que
refez alguns arranjos e o relançou em 1993. A maioria das composições é de sua própria lavra, ao lado de clássicos do jazz como "Giant Steps", "Jeru" e da maravilhosa composição de Tadd Dameron, "If you couls see me now". E este "Blues Bossa" é de autoria do próprio Fischer, muito mais complexo do que o tema homônimo, de Kenny Dorham. MARAVILHA!

CLARE FISCHER: MEMENTO

PERSONNEL:
Listed in back cover

1 Basic Blues
2 A Long Time Ago
3 Blues Bossa
4 Preludio
5 If You Could See Me Now
6 Fugue
7 Blues in G
8 My First Waltz
9 Giant Steps
10 Old Folks
11 Jeru
12 Pat's Blues
13 Memento

DOWNLOAD: AQUI