RIP Pete Rugolo

[guitarfool2002]

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-pete-rugolo-20111018,0,5211929.story

This may not seem on-topic for the Beach Boys forum, but the connection to Brian Wilson in particular cannot be ignored. Pete Rugolo was known best as an arranger who did a lot of Stan Kenton's various "Artistry..." charts, as well as composed music and TV themes including "The Fugitive" in the 60's.

The connection to Brian was that Rugolo mentored The Four Freshmen, was director of A&R for Capitol who had signed the Freshmen in the 50's, and most of all did the arrangements for the album "The Four Freshmen and Five Trombones" among other work with the Four Freshmen when they were recording for Capitol.

So all those stories of Brian wearing out copies of the "...Five Trombones" album as a teenager, listening to and transcribing the arrangements and being greatly influenced by those arrangements, learning jazz voicings and harmonies by studying that album, teaching his family Graduation Day and other Freshmen hits and arrangements...he was being influenced by Pete Rugolo. It's probably not much of a leap to say Rugolo's arrangements and work with the Freshmen on Capitol in the 50's was one of Brian's biggest musical influences, if not the biggest on him as an arranger.

[Aum Bop Diddit]

Thanks for the heads up.  And we tip our hats....

[guitarfool2002]

Check out this article from 2008, highlights in bold...

The Four Freshmen

(posted by William H. Smith on August 26, 2008 at 6:19 pm)

Message:

    Article I wrote for the Wall Street Journal. I sat next to Brian at their Palm Desert concert last January and met you in the Green Room after the concert.
    Music

    A Vocal Group at the Top of Its Class
    By WILLIAM H. SMITH
    August 20, 2008; Page D9

    Widely known for basketball, the Indy 500, and a plethora of covered bridges, Indiana also proudly claims The Four Freshmen as its own. The legendary vocal/instrumental group will celebrate its 60th anniversary at a reunion, sponsored by The Four Freshmen Society, of band members past and present -- there have been 23 lineups to date -- at the Sheraton Indianapolis City Centre, Aug. 21 to 23. Commemorative concerts continue to air across the country during PBS fund-raising drives, and a highlight of 2008 will be the Freshmen's Oct. 25 performance before Russian fans at the prestigious Great Hall of the Moscow Performing Arts Center.

    Although not the first successful vocal group, The Four Freshmen was, without question, the most innovative. Inspired by Artie Shaw's Mel-Tones with Mel Torme, as well as by The Pastels, a five-voice group with Stan Kenton, the Freshmen soon developed their own unique style of harmony -- singing a five-part sound with four voices and playing instruments as well. Every vocal group that followed -- except for those that sang with no or minimal chord structure -- was influenced by the Freshmen, including The Lettermen, Manhattan Transfer, Take Six, the Beatles and the Beach Boys. (At The Four Freshmen's Jan. 14 performance at Palm Desert, Calif.'s McCallum Theatre, I sat in the audience next to the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson -- one of the Freshmen's most enthusiastic fans, who listened to their records as a teenager and wanted to emulate their unique sound in his arrangements.)

    The close harmony of this unique quartet had its genesis at Butler University's Jordan Conservatory in Indianapolis, when Hal Kratzch, along with Don Barbour and his brother Ross, formed "Hal's Harmonizers." In an interview at his home in Simi Valley, Calif., Ross Barbour recalled that "we tried a few lead singers, but it was only after our cousin Bob Flanigan, with his strong high voice, joined the group that we started getting that Freshmen sound." The four went on the road in 1948 as The Toppers, but the name was soon changed to The Four Freshmen. (Both Ross Barbour and Bob Flanigan, the only survivors of that quartet, received honorary doctorates at Butler this May.)

    Stan Kenton heard the Freshmen in March 1950 at the Esquire Lounge in Dayton, Ohio, and gave them their first big break by introducing the group to his own recording label, Capitol Records. The Freshmen had developed their trademark sound by structuring chords much like the trombone section of Kenton's own band, and Mr. Barbour maintains that the success of one of their biggest-selling albums, "Four Freshmen and Five Trombones," can in a large way be attributed to Pete Rugalo, the arranger the quartet and Kenton shared.


Would it be too much of a stretch to suggest the Beach Boys would have been a totally different band if Brian had not gotten so interested in learning and copying those sounds he heard from the Freshmen's voices and Rugolo's arranging style on those FF Capitol albums?

[SMiLE Brian]

Rest in peace Mr. Rugolo