In the late 1930's, Henke began his career first working as a pianist in the small combos then playing in his home town of Chicago, and then in Los Angeles. He served in the U.S. Armed Forces during WW2, afterwards resuming his career working in radio and television studios. (He was 'on camera' on the George Gobel show.) About this time, he began specializing in music for commercials. His unique mix of sound effects, snatches of dialogue, and musical passages were greatly responsible for the 'tone' of that era's commericials. In the early 1960s, Henke 'cut' some LP's applying this approach to current hits, standards, and even to his original compositions.

For the Hollywood studios, Henke, working with graphic artist Eyvind Earle, produced 'trailers' for movies, including "West Side Story." For Television, he wrote for several TV series including 'Disneyland'.

Among his recordings are:
Dynamic Adventures in Sound, Warner Brothers WB 1447
La Dolce Henke, Warner Brothers WB 1472
Now Spin This!, Contemporary C5002
Now Spin This! Vol. 2, Contemporary C5003
And, some selections on "Garry Moore Presents My Kind of Music", Columbia CL 717

   [ Victor Herbert ]
b. Feb. 1, 1859, Dublin, Ireland d. May 26, 1924, New York, N. Y., USA.
Overview:
Irish born, German trained, he remained an Operetta composer throughout his lifetime, but he wrote for American audiences. Herbert virtually dominated Tin Pan Alley at the turn of the century. He was so prolific that he could work on several operetta scores at the same time. A thoroughly trained musician, he could serve as conductor of a major symphony orchestra while also writing ambitious concertos and operas. A bon-vivant, he thoroughly enjoyed life, taking delight in good food, good wines, good music, good friends, inspiring both affection and admiration.

Victor spent his childhood in a highly cultured environment. His father died when he was just 3 years old, and he and his mother traveled to Seven Oaks (a small town 20 miles outside of London, Eng.) and lived Samuel Lover, his grandfather. Lover was the author of 'Handy Andy' and somewhat of a diletante.

His mother, a trained stage performer started giving Victor piano lessons at age 7. Lover recognized his talent and sent Victor and his mother to Germany for further training. In 1867, mother and son went to Lake Constance in Germany, and soon afterwards, his mother met and married Carl Schmid, a physician. The family settled in Stuttgart, where Victor received a good academic and musical education. He studied the cello for over six years. After this, he began playing in some German and Austrian orchestras. At times, these orchestras were led by such musicians as Brahms; Anton Rubinstein; Saint-Saens, and Franz Liszt.

While playing the cello with the Stuttgart Royal Orchestra, the leader Max Seyfritz gave Victor lessons in composition and orchestration. His first two works were a concerto and suite, both for cello and orchestra. This young Irish born musician had become a typical teuton. For the rest of his life he would be partial to German food, music and beer. He was what the Germans would call a 'feinschmecker', someone fastidious about dress, manners, food and good living. He became engaged to Theresa Foerster, a prima donna with the Stuttgart Opera, to whom he had occasionally given lessons. When the New York Metropolitan Opera offered a contract to Foerster, she accepted on the condition that Herbert would also be given a job in the orchestra. In August 14, 1886, the couple married and set sail for their new, and permanent home in America. On November 8, 1886, Foerster made her successful debut in Karl Goldmark's 'The Queen of Sheba' at New York's Met.

Soon after that, Victor applied for American citizenship. He was to never set foot on Irish or German soil. In fact, except for one brief visit to England, he never left America.

Herbert played cello in the Theodore Thomas Orchestra and in the New York Philharmonic orchestra. From 1889 through 1891 he was associate conductor of the Worcester Festival (Massachusetts). In 1893, he became leader of the 22nd Regiment Band, succeeding P.S. Gilmore. From 1898 to 1894, he led the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. From 1904 and onward, he led his own Victor Herbert Orchestra. During all this, he was composing music with a strong American flavor, including the "American Fantasia", the orchestral suite "Pan Americana", and the opera "Natoma" (staged in Philadelphia in 1911).

Yet, despite all this work for the concert stages, Herbert was destined to become identified with his work for the popular theater.

Brief Chronology:
Late 1890's
-----------
Before 1900, most of the lyrics were by Harry B. Smith.
1893 "La Vivandiere" was Herbert's earliest operetta. He wrote this
      for Lillian Russell, but the show was never produced, and the
      score is lost.

1894 "Prince Ananias" became Herbert's debut as a composer of
      operettas. Commissioned by the Boston Opera Company, the
      operetta was a failure. The book was by Francis Neilson who
      later became a famous political writer.

1895 "The Wizard of the Nile", a major success. Frank Daniels played
      the part of Kibosh, the Persian Magician. He used a phrase,
      "Am I a wiz?" , that became a popular expression.
      "Star Light, Star Bright", a waltz was the big hit.
      "My Angeline"
      "In Dreamland"

1897 Composed his first Broadway show, 'The Serenade', with
       Alice Neilson singing. The show made her a star.
     "I Love Thee, I Adore Thee". This serenade was a 'leitmotiv'
       heard throughout the show. It was first presented as the
       second half of a duet, and then re-appears as a monk's chant;
       song of the brigands (a parody on grand opera); a parrot's
       call, and ending as a sentimental love ballad.

1898 from Broadway show 'The Fortune Teller'; Now that Herbert had
      made her a star, Neilson had Herbert compose this just for
      her. The story takes place in Hungary.
     "Gypsy Love Song", his first hit song. This tune is also known
     as "Slumber On, My Little Gypsy Sweetheart".

1899 Herbert was now one of Broadway's most successful composers and
     his work was in great demand. In 1899, he had three different
     shows 'on the boards'.
      'Cyrano de Bergerac'
      'The Singing Girl'
      'The Ameer'

In 1901, the magazine 'Musical Courier' wrote "everything that
Herbert wrote, is copied."  Herbert brought a suit that resulted in
a cash award of $15,000 dollars (reduced on appeal to $5,000).


prior to the 1920's
-------------------
1903 from Broadway show, 'Babes in Toyland'; Glen MacDonough lyrics.
     "Toyland"
     "March of the Toys"
     "I Can't Do the Sum"
     "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Herbert parodied the styles of some other
       famous composers.)

1904 Scored the Broadway operetta 'It Happened In Nordland'. Lyrics
     by Glen MacDonough. Starred Marie Cahill, Ambassadress to a
     mythical land, anticipated the Irving Berlin show 'Call Me
     Madam' by about a half century.
     "A Knot of Blue" (nice waltz here.)
     "Absinthe Frappe"
     "Al Fresco", an instrumental still popular today.

1906 from  Broadway show, 'Mlle. Modiste'; Lyric by Henry Blossom.
      Friti Scheff (of the N.Y. Metropolitan Opera) was the lead,
      playing the role of Fifi.
     "Kiss Me Again".  Originally planned as a parody called "If I
       Were On the Stage" in which Fifi the aspiring prima donna
       sings the tune as a gavotte, then a polonaise, a waltz and so
       on. Herbert had written this tune two years earlier. When the
       audience cheered, he immediately sat down, gave it the new
       title and new verses.
     "The Mascot of the Troop"
     "I Want What I Want When I Want It"
1906 from Broadway show, 'The Red Mill', Lyrics by Henry Blossom.
      Set in Holland, Fred Stone and David Montgomery starred as Con
      Kidder and Kid Conner.
     "Every Day Is Ladies' Day to Me"
     "In Old New York"
     "The Isle of Our Dreams"
     "Moonbeams"
1908 from Broadway show, 'The Rose of Algeria';
     "Rose of the World"
1910 from  Broadway show, 'Naughty Marietta'; starred Emma Trentini.
     "Ah!  Sweet Mystery of Life"
     "I'm Falling in Love with Someone"
     "Italian Street Song"
     "'Neath the Southern Moon"
1913 from from Broadway show, 'Sweethearts'; lyric Harry B. Smith.
     "Sweethearts"
     "The Angelus"

In 1913, he was dining at Shanley's Restaurant (N.Y.) when he heard
the orchestra playing some of his music. He mused on this for
awhile, and came to the conclusion that it was basically unfair for
businesses to make use of a composer's music without offering fair
compensation. He brought a suit against Shanley's - on principle.
The suit lasted four years before the Supreme Court decided in
Herbert's favor.  One result of this legal battle was that Herbert
brought together America's best composers and lyricists forming an
organization to protect their financial interests. In time, this
became ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers.

1917 from  Broadway show, 'Eileen'; Lyric by Henry Blossom. The show
     flopped, but this melody remains a great success today.
     "Thine Alone"

1919 "Indian Summer," this independently written piano piece, was
      revived in 1939 and achieved a new popularity.

Especially in America, the post-war period became the era of Jazz
and of Ragtime; Chicago's Austin High Gang; Bix Beiderbecke; New
Orleans; Charleston, and the dance bands.

In retrospect, we can now see that Victor Herbert's time ended with
World War 1. His waltzes and serenades were the voices of a placid
and sentimental era that came to an end with the World War I. Victor
once lamented "My day is over, they are forgettng poor old Herbert."

the 1920's
----------
1920  Wrote a song for 'Ziegfeld Follies of 1920'; (He actually
      wrote several independent songs for Ziegfeld's Follies between
      1918 and 1923, usually to Gene Buck's lyrics.
     "When the Right One Comes Along"
1922 Scored Broadway show 'Orange Blossoms', lyric B.G.De Sylva.
     The show flopped, but had the hit song:
     "A Kiss in the Dark"

the 1930's: 
----------- 
Herbert's earlier stage operettas 'Mlle. Modiste'; 'Babes in Toyland'; 'Naughty Marietta', 
and 'Sweethearts' were made into successful movies during the thirties and early forties, 

   [ Bernard Herrmann ]
b. June, 29, 1911 New York, NY, USA, d. Dec. 24, 1975, Los Angeles, CA, USA. (heart attack)
Overview
Throughout his career, Bernard Herrmann was known as a pedantic aristocrat with an uncompromising drive for perfection. (Photo through the kindness of 'The Bernard Herrmann Estate', who hold all rights to the picture.)   This notoriously demanding perfectionist, once told an interviewer that most directors didn't have a clue about music, and that he blithely ignored their instructions. Interestingly, though staunchly trained as a classical musician, Herrmann was also an early experimenter in the sounds used in film scores. His score for the film 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (1951), featured two theremins, pianos, and a horn section. Herrmann was also a consultant on the electronic sounds created by Oskar Sala, (b. July 18, 1910, Greiz, Thueringen, Germany, d. Feb. 26, 2002, Berlin, Germany. (natural causes) on the 'mixtrautonium' for 'The Birds' (1963). Herrmann was never reticent about using odd instrumentation. For the skeleton duel in the film 'The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad', Herrmann used xylophones. For the film ' Journey to the Center of the Earth' he resurrected an obsolete medieval instrument called a 'serpent'.

Herrmann was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, Abraham, was a practicing optometrist (the profession eventually taken up by Bernard's younger brother Louis), who encouraged both of his son's interest in the arts, taking both his sons to the opera, the symphony, and giving each a musical instrument to play (in Bernard's case, a violin). At age 13, he had already won a 100 dollar composition prize, and had read Hector Berlioz's Treatise on Orchestration (he later claimed that tome decided the course of his future career).

His formal music education began in 1927 when he became a student at New York city's DeWitt Clinton High School (this writer's alma mater too), where one of his classmates was the composer Jerome Moross. While still a student in the New York Public School system, Herrmann studied the scores of the great symphonists, -listening to them on his father's gramophone recordings, and live at New York's famed Carnegie Hall concerts. After high school, Herrmann studied at New York University and then at New York's Juilliard School of Music. When he was just 20 years old, he founded, and also conducted, his own chamber music orchestra, -The New Chamber Orchestra of New York - in performances of his own works as well as those by Bax, Bennett, Milhaud and Ives.

In 1934, CBS Radio's music director, Johnny Green, hired Herrmann as his assistant. It was during his tenure at CBS that he met Orson Welles, and wrote scores for Welles' Mercury Theatre broadcasts including the famous adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. The Herrmann-Welles relationship was tempestuous, but both men knew and respected each other's talents. Herrmann was not an easy man to get along with, and about the only man with whom he could get along with in life was Orson Welles...they seemed to understand each other. During their rehearsals, Herrmann would be yelling at Orson, and Orson would be yelling back. But, the two men understood each other and worked well together. Week after week, Herrmann wrote original music for the show.

In 1941, when Welles moved to Hollywood, Herrmann went with him, writing the scores for 'Citizen Kane' (1941) and 'The Magnificent Ambersons' (1942). Between those two movies, he wrote the score for William Dieterle's "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1941, starring Simone Simone and Edward Arnold), for which he won his only Oscar. There the Welles-Herrmann collaboration ended, and Herrmann returned to the CBS Symphony, where he remained until it was disbanded in 1951. By now, Herrmann had already composed several concert works including "Aubade" (1933), "Sinfonietta for Strings" (1935), "Moby Dick" (1938), and "Symphony" (1941).

In Hollywood, Herrmann produced some of his best scores for Alfred Hitchcock films, including 'The Trouble with Harry' (1955), 'Vertigo' (1958), 'North by Northwest' (1959) and, perhaps, most famous of all, 'Psycho' (1960). The score for Psycho is unusual in that the score uses only the string section of the orchestra, no brass or percussion. The screeching violin music heard during the famous shower scene is one of the most famous moments from all film scores. (Interestingly, Hitchcock originally suggested that the scene should have no music at all.) He ended his association with Hitchcock after Hitchcock rejected his score (on studio advice) for 'Torn Curtain' (1966).

After ending his work with Hitchcock, in Hollywood, Herrmann ended up in England with his third wife, Norma Shepherd, who was with him from 1967 to his death in 1975. An interesting sidenote is that during his stay in England, he was very often mistaken for another "Bernard Herrmann", flutist and leader of the Northern Dance Orchestra. A lot of people made the mistake. Even the newspapers, and the staid BBC made the mistake.

It should be noted that Herrmann's tenure at CBS Radio overlapped his film music career at 20th Century-Fox, where the studio's music director, Alfred Newman, hired him to score 'Jane Eyre' (1943), 'Hangover Square' (1945), 'Anna and fire King of Siam' (1946), 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir' (1947), and 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (1951). With the collapse of the Hollywood studio system, Herrmann relocated to England, where his formidable talents were rediscovered by a new generation of directors -- Françoi s Truffaut, Brian DePalma, Larry Cohen and Martin Scorsese. (An interesting sidenote is that Herrmann was a "dyed in the wool" Anglophile.)

Among the films on which Herrmann worked, were:

One of the songs that Herrmann wrote was "Tenement Symphony". Tony Martin sang it in a Marx Bros Film. A very young 'Skitch' Henderson, still in his teens, sat in that orchestra for the Marx Bros. film, while Martin sang "Tenement Symphony". I mention it here because years later, on Feb. 27, 1998, Skitch had a 80th Birthday party show at New York's Carnegie Hall. CBS reporter Mike Wallace and Daily News reporter Liz Smith were the hosts. Many musical stars showed up, including Julius LaRosa and Tony Martin, who again sang "Tenement Symphony". It was quite a thrill for Skitch as he recalled his teen years, sitting in the MGM band playing that tune for Tony.

Bernard Herrmann was 61 years old when he died in his sleep, shortly after he had done the recording sessions for the film 'Taxi Driver'. The film's director, Martin Scorsese, dedicated the film to his memory.
The Big Bands Database Plus thanks the 'The Bernard Herrmann Estate', for permission to reproduce Mr Herrmann's photograph.

   [ Jerry Herman ]
Currently no information available.
1961 Scored Broadway musical 'Milk and Honey'. Don Appell, librettist.
. "Shalom", Sung by Mimi Benzell.
?? Scored Broadway musical 'Hello, Dolly!', Librettist Michael Stewart, starred Carol Channing.
"Hello Dolly"
Based on a Thornton Wilder's 'The Matchmaker'.
1966 Scored Broadway musical 'Mame', Librettists Robert E. Lee and Jerry Lawrence. Starred Angela Lansbury.
"If He Walked Into My Life"
"It's Today"
His next shows were commercially unsuccessful.
'Dear World'
1974 'Mack and Mabel', story of Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand.
1979 'The Grand Tour', adaptation of 'Jacobowsky and the Colonel'
1983, 'La Cage aux Folles'