Artist: Gary McFarland
Gary McFarland was an American composer, arranger, vibraphonist and vocalist. He recorded for the jazz imprints Verve and Impulse! Records during the 1960s. Down Beat magazine said he made "one of the more significant contributors to orchestral jazz". A 2015 review of a McFarland DVD documentary called him "one of the busiest New York jazz arrangers of the 1960s".
The review further stated that McFarland's "ascendance" coincided with the rise of bossa nova, and McFarland was adept at translating the mercurial song form into orchestrations. He wrote some beautiful orchestral settings for great soloists yet wasn’t immune to commercial forces."
McFarland was born in Los Angeles in 1933, and grew up in Grants Pass, Oregon.
He attained a small following after working with jazz luminaries Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges, John Lewis, Stan Getz, Bob Brookmeyer, and Anita O'Day.
As well as his own albums and arrangements for other musicians, he composed the scores to the films Eye of the Devil (1966) and Who Killed Mary What's 'Er Name? (1971). By the end of the 1960s, he was moving away from jazz towards an often wistful or melancholy style of instrumental pop, as well as producing the recordings of other artists on his Skye Records label (run in partnership with Norman Schwartz, Gábor Szabó and Cal Tjader, until its bankruptcy in 1970). He also produced and arranged the soft-rock album Genesis by singing sisters Wendy and Bonnie Flower.
More information can be found here and here.
Photography credit: William P. Gottlieb, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McFarland, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
With Gabor Szabo - Sympatico
Gary McFarland: Videos
Amour Tormentoso
Today (album)