Home » Jazz Musicians » Ralph Carmichael
Ralph Carmichael
Ralph Carmichael's Big Band: Big Band Christmas
by C. Michael Bailey
Tremendous Sound. Make no mistake, this is a BIG band disc. Carmichael's band bursts out all over the place with holiday cheer. His arrangements and bubbly and bright, providing a contemporary big band seasonal offering. The arrangements were originally used with another great big band, that of Stan Kenton's in 1961. This current disc was recorded live at Speer Studios in Nashville in 1997. A real treat for big band fans. ...
read moreRalph Carmichael: Big Band Classics, Vol. 1
by Jack Bowers
One problem I have with many of these big–band anthologies is that they’re composed of a few “classics” and a lot of other songs the band likes to play. This is true to a degree in Ralph Carmichael’s salute, but at least the bona fide classics chosen by Carmichael outnumber the rest (by as many as twelve to four or at least ten to six according to my count). And even when using the phrase “big band swing classic” means ...
read moreRalph Carmichael: Big Band Gospel Classics
by Jack Bowers
One can’t help but marvel at how wonderfully these time–honored spirituals and hymns lend themselves to contemporary big–band arrangements. It helps, of course, if the arranger is as sharp and seasoned as Ralph Carmichael, a resourceful “song doctor” who could probably make Lawrence Welk’s or Guy Lombardo’s book swing. And it helps further if the band itself is comprised of some of the most capable studio and big–band musicians in Southern California. Carmichael, it is quite evident, places his ample ...
read moreRalph Carmichael Big Band: Ralph Carmichael and Friends Live / Big Band Christmas
by Jack Bowers
Ralph Carmichael, one of America’s most prominent born–again bandleaders, has abundant faith in big bands and in their capacity to help deliver a Christian–centered message of love, peace and redemption. Friends Live was recorded at Southern California College in Costa Mesa, 50 years after Carmichael’s graduation, class of ’47. As the song titles — “The Savior Is Waiting,” “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” “Be Still My Soul” and so on — make clear, ...
read moreInterview: Ralph Carmichael (Part 3)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In the last years of Nat King Cole's life, he sounded comfortable in the arms of Ralph Carmichael's charts. Admittedly lighter and more commercial than Cole's earlier Capitol dates, these albums need to be put in context. Easy listening LPs like Touch of Your Lips; Lazy Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer and L-O-V-E were indeed lighter than earlier releases and silly in place, they remain period piecesprime examples of an era when traditional pop was nearly exhausted and at the ...
read more
Interview: Ralph Carmichael (Part 2)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ralph Carmichael likes to arrange strings in clusters. This technique allows him to take the largest possible group of violins, violas and cellos and, by bunching them into groups and voicing them as mini ensembles, he ensures richness and clarity without clutter and sweetness. For Ralph, the goal always is to create a luminous frame for singers and not let the arrangement become cute or shmaltzy. In Part 2 of my three-part conversation with Ralph on his close relationship with ...
read more
Interview: Ralph Carmichael (Part 1)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ralph Carmichael has arranged for Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Stan Kenton, Jack Jones, Peggy Lee, Julie London, Al Martino, Roger Williams and Sue Raney. But he is perhaps best known for his collaborations with Nat King Cole between 1960 and the singer's death in 1965. In fact, each holiday season you hear Carmichael's stereo arrangement of Cole's The Christmas Song. In Part 1 of my three-part conversation with Ralph, 83, on Cole, the arranger talks about growing up in three ...
read more