Composers From The United States

"Verve released an album by Dizzy Gillespie titled A Portrait of Duke Ellington. The orchestral writing was nothing less than brilliant, but, alas, the album gave no arranger's credit. The writing sounded like Ellington and yet not like Ellington; like Gil Evans, yet not like Gil Evans. It was in fact apparent that the arranger had studied everything and everyone and then developed his own highly personal approach to writing. Unable to reach Dizzy by phone, I set out to find out who had done this remarkable writing. It turned out to be the young man about whom Dizzy was so wildly enthusiastic, and this time I did not forget the name: Clare Fischer. Clare was at that time chiefly known as the pianist for the Hi-Lo's, the superb vocal group out of which the even more brilliant Singers Unlimited group developed. The Gillespie-Ellington album provided convincing evidence that he had one of the most original and advanced compositional minds in jazz."

"Producer David Z (brother of Revolution drummer Bobby Z) welds the tracks magnificently and Clare Fischer's inspired string arrangements give the album a conceptual feel."

"Palmer comprehends (by dint of predatory maleness, I suppose) that this music is ultimately about seduction rather than romance. Clare Fisher's [sic] arrangements have the kind of brassy swagger and classy, stylish sweep that a ladies' man needs."

"[I]t was many years later that I met Clare—maybe 15 or 20 years ago, in the A&M Studios in Los Angeles. I wasn’t working with him, I just found out he was in the building and I jumped up: “Clare Fischer?! Aw, man, I gotta tell him what he’s done for me!” And when I met him, he had no idea that I even knew him, much less that he was a big influence on me. I explained the whole thing to him and it tripped him out, because he told me I influenced him! It was really pretty cool. We just bonded right away; I could feel it, and I knew that he could feel it, too. There weren’t that many more encounters, but when I got to meet Clare and talk to him just those few more times it was always special. I wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t for Clare Fischer."

"Clare Fisher, talk about a muse. He was my inspiration for getting the strings on the record. Clare had done work with my father—my father being the arranger and Clare being the string arranger. So, I had that “in,” although that was not how I was thinking about it at the time. Prince and I were listening to a bunch of Rufus records back in the day—and this was before we thought about doing strings on the first record. We were talking about how brilliant the strings were on those albums. I had also been listening to a lot of Claus Ogerman and Bill Evans. There's one record they did called Symbiosis and it's just one of the most beautifully arranged records. Ogerman's string arrangement, and Evans playing the piano over it, is some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. The only thing that's ever come close to feeling as perfectly arranged in terms of the strings was on the Rufusized record. I just said, “Prince, why don't we get Clare to do the strings on our record?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “My dad knows him.” I called my dad and said “Pop, you gotta call Clare and see if he's up for it.” He was. We sent him the 24 track. He got back to us right away and said “Absolutely.” Within a month we had all the lead sheets and we had the entire score for the record. We went in and cut it and I couldn't have been happier."

"According to Shipton, "It is one of the least successful of Dizzy's big band ventures, lacking the authentic stamp of Ellington's own personality." I don't think it was meant to reflect Ellington as much as the broader instrumental palette that Gil Evans had explored. If, as Shipton suggests, Dizzy wanted a setting comparable to that Miles Davis had found with Gil Evans in Porgy and Bess and Miles Ahead, he had found the right arranger. But when Fischer arrived in New York from California, charts completed, he found that Dizzy, with the out-to-lunch carelessness of which he was capable, hadn't bothered to book an orchestra. Fischer had to do it at the last minute. Most of the best jazz players in New York were already engaged, and Fischer had to fill in the instrumentation with symphony players. They didn't grasp the idiom, and the album is stiff. In a word, it just doesn't swing. But the writing in that album is gorgeous; its failure is Dizzy's fault."

"The most amazing thing, though, is that Fischer is theatrical. That is, all his tricks are just bright enough to keep the arrangements fresh without taking away from the sentimentality of Arlen's songs. He never gets solemn or super complex like Russo. If Arlen says the mood is "Bluesy," Fischer doesn't try to correct him. Fischer's overriding purpose, I believe, is to entertain. Conservatory-trained, he is rationing out language that must seem common currency to him, and trying to get it into the common currency of the public at large. I hope he succeeds. I hope that the Broadway boys will listen to him. I hope the jazz-band boys will listen to him. A half-century of the same voicings is enough."

"The vocal group, the Hi-Lo's's, were the greatest aid to me in harmony. I loved the harmonies they were using, especially Clare Fischer's arrangements, which I used to take off the record. By the time I studied theory in college, I breezed through it."

"Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that’s where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were. And, of course, Miles."

"When Clare was sending something, Prince would get very excited. When's the tape coming? And when it would get there and first thing, he'd get in the car and listen to it."

"So this is the man who loved animals with such intensity that he named far too many songs after every critter he ever encountered. The man who's written countless songs for his loves, his children, his friends, living and deceased. The man who, in countless pictures sifted through for this occasion, could be seen feeding birds at the drop of a hat, petting a stray cat, letting a dog sit on his lap; who loved children so much, took such delight in them, that he had to move right across the street from an elementary school so he could watch them play. My father, who brought me lunches at my grade school, and my friends lunches too. Whose laughter could fill a room. Who paid for my first professional recording and came to my debut gig at the Troubadour when I was fifteen. Whom I spent endless hours in conversation with, about history and philosophy and comparative religion. Who stole my Greek History books off my bookshelf. (I stole his books too.) This is the man I love fiercely, and I know that he loved me and my family fiercely in kind, and I'm forever grateful for that. And there's one more thing—well, two more things I'm grateful for: one is that the love of his life came to him, and for the last twenty years, transformed it in a manner I cannot even put words to, and I'm so deeply grateful to have her as my mother, and unspeakably grateful that my dad had that in his life. And again, I thank you all for being here, celebrating my father's life."

"His string arrangements were weird because they went sort of sideways. They just cut across the track like there was a movie going on, but Prince wanted something dissonant, something weird, so I called Clare for Prince."

"Most of my harmonic stuff comes from listening, for example, to the Hi-Lo's, and in particular, Clare Fischer's arrangements, which I heard in college. I learned about harmony from Clare's arrangements. Also I used to listen to one particular mood music orchestra--Robert Farnon's. His harmonic sense was incredible, even though it was only background music."

"[Stan Kenton] gave composers carte blanche to write anything they wanted to. The main problem was there was no money for rehearsals so all I remember is an unbelievable mass of notes going in front of my face and us trying to make a halfway decent performance out of it. There were some good compositions that came out of that: Bill Holman, John Williams. And Clare Fischer, one of my all-time heroes, albeit a bit difficult to get along with sometimes, wrote some magnificent music for that band."

"There are passages on a recent album (in which Fischer collaborates with vibraphonist Cal Tjader) that mark some of the deepest, most profound marshaling of jazz, African, and Latin American elements yet heard (Verve V6-8531). "El Muchacho," for example, is the first step forward since the failure of Liebermann to cross-fertilize mambo and concert music validly. [...] At the time that Reed wrote "El Muchacho," he was not aware that he had written a composition that was a natural for further deeper blending with the mambo. But Clare Fischer was aware of this fact, and on this album triumphantly demonstrates that mambo is a still unfinished solution to a still stimulating problem by means of punning on the ostinato patterns of the Mexican son with the ostinato patterns of Afro-Cuban. For those sensitive enough to comprehend his special flair, he has opened the door on a new phase of tri-hybrid blending. And not a moment too soon. For the Castro revolution has cut the traditional ties between Cuba's Tin Pan Alley and our own popular music, and the next Latin dance may well have to be internally generated."

"I've been up past midnight all week, woodshedding [...] playing compositions by the great jazzman Clare Fischer."

"[W]hen I was in high school, I formed a vocal group that was at first more like Four Freshmen harmonies—just this side of barbershop quartet. But then when I heard the Hi-Lo’s and Clare’s arrangements, I started writing more like that, and would write it down trying to figure out what they were doing. That was a big lesson for me on developing more advanced harmonies, and I took that with me to New York and all that. If you listen to Speak Like a Child, his influence is huge on that record, in the voicings and the harmonic devices."

"Hearing Clare's music that evening in 1962, was for me like experiencing a powerful earthquake. The blending of Ellington, Stravinsky and Shostakovich that we heard in Clare's improvisation and compositions altered everything for me. Later, in many generous sessions of instruction and encouragement, Clare said that, in his early teens, he had heard and transcribed parts of Ellington's ""Black, Brown and Beige Suite," Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," and the Shostakovich 1st Symphony. That was a staggering thought for a floundering saxophone player, and I often wondered then if plumbing might not have been a better chosen field for me. What came of Clare's youthful encounters with such diverse music was the creation of Clare Fischer, a composer, pianist and arranger whose music is at once a combining of every moment of beauty and life experience he encountered. Perhaps a favorite quote is proper here. This is from George Bernard Shaw. "The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.""

"And on , that depth and skill, stimulated by a change in the stale Gillespie repertoire and complemented by rich, radically imaginative arrangements by, I am told, Clare Fischer, result in a really classic album. Fischer, a young conservatory graduate, is a new name to be reckoned with."

"His work with Cal Tjader on mambo "Alonzo" is a demonstration piece of the virtues of sober revolution. Alonzo opens with a suitably propulsive riff but so celestial are the high-pitched inventions that flow easily and comfortably in the course of this composition that the introduction is retroactively shown to be almost to be in bad taste. Never has a sharpened academic skill more convincingly enriched a piece of dance-hall music. So expressive is Fischer's personality that one can even detect his hand in normally anonymous ostinato patterns. Surely "Alonzo" will inspire Afro-Cuban musicians in the United States to rebel, at least occasionally, against the strictly chiseled conventions of their octave style of accompaniment."

"Other losses that took a bite out of the music world: the swinging jazz piano of the incomparable Dave Brubeck, the lush arrangements of classical and jazz composer Richard Rodney Bennett, and Judy Garland’s musical director Mort Lindsey, who arranged her celebrated comeback at Carnegie Hall in 1961. And there was nobody more brilliantly talented than Mr. Clare Fischer, one of the finest composer-arranger-conductors in jazz for 60 years. He was the sound behind the Hi-Los, the sensational vocal quartet that revolutionized jazz singing in the 1950s, but he also enhanced the work of Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans ✱ and Cal Tjader."

"By the time "Sonando" came around, I had already had a few friendly arguments with Clare Fischer about "Poncho" and "Straight Ahead," regarding my approach and style. Clare Fischer is a genius, a wonderful musician, but he overpowered me and my ideas. He had a different approach. I was always leaning more toward a typical style. I was coming from bebop and an authentic Latin style, whereas he would like a lot of electronic influences. By the time I signed with Concord, my other band was ready to record, so me and Clare split up in a friendly way."

"If I had to make a list of the ten most important solo jazz piano recordings of all time, this recording would definitely be on the list."

""Quiet Dawn" is somewhat reminiscent of certain aspects of the work of Alban Berg, especially the stacking of either augmented or diminished chords in a manner which stretches tonality to it limits, while always retaining at least a hint of tonal gravity. In measures 10, 12, 13 and 14 Clare uses an interesting combination of conventional 4-3 suspension resolutions combined with tritone relationships in the bass. Measure 10, for example, combines the 4-3 suspension resolution of a Bb seventh chord with an E natural in the bass. The 4-3 suspension voice is also colored here with parallel major second intervals (Db-Eb to C-D natural). Clare has many varieties of this suspension variation in his vocabulary, and he traces them to such diverse sources as bebop chord substitutions and slow movements from Shostakovich symphonies."

"Playing the organ would be the renowned Clare Fischer, a brilliant keyboardist and jazz composer in his own right. [...] I saw Clare in the back of the room by himself, and now that I was feeling a bit more confident, I walked over to introduce myself to this jazz legend. As I approached, I stuck my hand out and began to introduce myself as the arranger and conductor of the upcoming session. Before I could get a word out, he looked up and said, "You're standing on my fucking wires!" Okay, then... nice meeting you too, buddy. Lenny Roberts, the engineer, was standing nearby, setting a microphone. He looked at me in shock before we both started laughing uncontrollably. We laughed for the next few hours during the session, and for the next fifteen years whenever it came up. Clare truly was magnificent and tasteful player, and contributed greatly to the sound of any album he played on. I suppose he was just having a tough day with those wires."

"We went down and got a six-pack of beer, and we're coming back in the van – back to the concert site – and all of a sudden, Clare said, "Oh, look! There's a Jack in the Box! And we went... "So?... We just ate prime rib, dessert and all; and you say, 'There's a Jack in the Box'??!!!" Well, Rob was drivin', I was ridin' shotgun, and Clare was sittin' in the middle... and he said--he said "Pull in there quick! Pull in there." You gotta be kidding! We pulled in there. He got into the Jack in the Box line. "What do you want from here?" He goes, "I want.." Oh no, first he goes, "Do you guys want anything? You want anything?" We said, "Clare, we just ate a prime rib dinner! We just want our beer, ya know? And he goes, "OK... Give me seven apple turnovers." Seven apple turnovers from Jack in the box! They gave him seven apple turnovers. We took off, and there's a bag down here, and I'm shaking my head. "This guy wants seven apple turnovers!" We took off, and he immediately started eating two of them, fast. I'm lookin' at 'im, and sayin', "Damn!" And then Rob Fisher looks at me and says, "What the heck. I guess I'll get one." As soon as he put his hand in the bag, Clare grabbed his hand! He said, "Those are mine! I asked you guys if you wanted anything. I would buy you anything! Those are MINE. Stay away from them!""

"The harmonic style of Clare Fischer is more chromatic than that of Bill Evans. Like Ellington, he uses several independent lines to develop a rich harmonic texture. His arrangements during the 1950s for the vocal group, the Hi-Lo's, were an important harmonic influence on Herbie Hancock. An essential aspect of his style is that the harmony is rarely resolved completely. There's often new or lingering dissonance, even at the end of a phrase, which gives the music a constant feeling of forward motion. Clare combines elements from Ellington, Konitz, Alban Berg, and Shostakovich to develop a fresh and personal style."

"Saxophonist Tom Scott, bassists John Patitucci and Jeff Berlin, keyboardist Patrice Rushen and drummer Ndugu Chancler are but a few of the L.A.-based contemporary jazz talents who are taking part in "A Tribute to Clare Fischer." [...] The event, which will be emceed by the ever-chipper Chuck Niles, is sponsored by Musicians Wives, Inc. and is being held to offset medical expenses incurred by the Grammy-winning Fischer, a keyboardist-composer-arranger who suffered severe head injuries in an accident in July. Fischer, who has worked with Cal Tjader, orchestrated for Dizzy Gillespie and Prince and had his tunes recorded by Art Blakey, is recuperating at his Studio City home. "Though he's still suffering from short term memory loss, dizziness and depression, he's greatly improved and the latest CAT scans show that blood clots in his brain that showed up after the accident have almost disappeared," said the keyboardist's son, Brent Fischer, a percussionist who plays in his father's band.✱ Fischer said his father is back to playing every day, and "he wrote a new song as soon as he came home. He's just taking it easy, reading and talking to a lot of old friends who are wishing him well." Not only will attendees at the tribute hear a lot of good music, they will be eligible for door prizes which range from a Kurzweil K-1000 synthesizer to signed LPs by Prince and Paul McCartney."

"He is a master of thematic development. Like some of the masters of the Classical and Romantic periods of music history, I’ve seen Clare ask for a theme from an audience, then proceed to spontaneously render endless variations on that theme, at the piano, in the manner of a performance. Listen, for example, to his awesome nine and one-half minute performance of Yesterdays (from the album, Alone Together at the Brunner-Schwer Steinway), treated like a theme and variations form, taking it through several keys, in 4/4 and in 3/4, changes of tempo, and several different styles."

"Walter Wanderley was very talented and very good with arrangements. I remember that there was a famous jazz organ player and arranger, Clare Fischer, and when we arrived, we were playing in L.A. and Clare was sitting next to Walter and paying attention to all the sounds and everything and he told me, "My God, I heard this guy's albums for ages and finally to be able to look at him and see how he does it..." So, you know it was very impressive because he [Fischer] was famous in Brazil as a jazz player, so he [Wanderley] was very very good. He died some years ago."

"I visited Clare’s home in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1952 (before he moved to the West Coast). He had to respond to a last-minute gig offer, and so I had the opportunity to speak with his mother in the meantime. She told me that Clare used to run home from public school each day to sit at the piano and improvise music that closely reflected his mood of that day. When he was happy, inspired, thoughtful, or at peace, she would hover in a nearby room to hear and love the beauty that would emanate from the piano. But she said that on those occasions when he returned from school depressed or in a foul mood, the resulting musical pathos would force her to run out into the back yard to escape being affected by the highly-disturbing, heart-wrenching sounds. Clare feels very deeply about his music, never writing or playing anything that doesn’t agree with his true feelings (at the emotional level) and his unwavering sense of musical integrity."

"I'm working with Natalie Cole this afternoon. We've been working on vocals lately, and we had an incredible string date yesterday down at Ocean Way. Clare Fischer did the string arrangements for a couple of tunes, and I arranged some others. Clare is a genius. The way he hears internal string parts is just incredible."

"What the chord symbols [B(flat)13#11 and A(flat)13#11] of the final two bars don't reveal is that the right-hand voicings are generated from two rising chromatic lines in a rather Clare-Fischer-like way(three names now?). In fact, the problem with this tune, now as when I wprote it, is that the chord symbosl alone don't tell the whole story. [...] As I discovered in my own version of "Wayne's World" - now, why didn't 1 think of that? - certain sounds can fit in between the counterpoint of melody and bass without reference to "proper" chord symbols. This was reinforced as I learned more about classical composers and the music of jazz pianist/arranger Clare Fischer in particular."

"My “super idol” (since the time in the early ‘50s when we played together in dance bands in Northern Indiana at various summer resorts) is Clare Fischer. The consistent, high quality of his work sets him apart. For me, his command of melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation and “LINE” is unequaled – he is my present-day Bach!"

"When I met Clare Fischer I was 27, and I was very impressed with his beautiful harmonies. At that moment it was very important to me because I was more into jazz than commercial music. And in that sense it changed my harmonic concept and opened up a wide spectrum of possibilities. Later, when I started working more in pop and jazz and in conducting and arrangement, that remained forever, even though those harmonic concepts don't apply to everything. But everything is always there."

"His chord voicings, whether in the left hand alone or in the frequent two-handed block chording, are simply extraordinary. When the inner voices shift while the bass note stays the same, it can be difficult to tell just what the chord is and how it’s functioning in the phrase, but the sense of movement, of progression if you will, remains clear. This dense harmonic interplay reaches an apogee in “Du, Du, Liegst Mir Im Herzen,” a traditional tune that Fischer makes very affecting by keeping the melody virtually intact while the chords quietly tie themselves into knots."

"Rule #2: In general, the higher notes of the basic chord structure (the 9th 11th, and 13th) should be placed somewhat higher in the voicing than the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th. There are many exceptions to this rule, and at least one highly respected jazz pianist, Clare Fischer, develops his unusual harmonic colors specifically by violating it."

"Clare Fischer is my friend. He’s not only a great musician and an exciting performer, but is an excellent composer and arranger. He’s bi-lingual and can bore you to tears on any subject from medicine and astronomy to politics and world history. I try to avoid all of these in favor of theology (about which he knows more than some preachers in my acquaintance). Since Clare assists me in my choir clinics, we travel by plane together a lot, so we talk about theology a lot (and occasionally disagree a lot)."

"Clare’s harmonic concepts are not limited to intriguing sonorities created by harmonic appoggiaturas and illusions. He also stretches the limits of the chord structures themselves, structures that remain unresolved, creating entirely new, stationary chord sounds. Read, for example, "Coker’s Blues" (from Extension), and "Quiet Dawn," where you’ll find many examples of new vertical sonorities."

"Wow Factors: Absolute integrity is a must, but it's also the emotional content that will get the listener. A Memorable Performance: Taking my children to see Duke Ellington perform live in L.A. with his big band around 1970. His sax section is irreplaceable. Advice for Achieving "Wow": There is only one level and that is professional. You must do whatever is required to achieve that in every performance. Audition Tips: Anybody can show off with flashy displays, but when a performance exudes maturity, that can only come as a result of deep, heartfelt contemplation. That person will stand out. Sensing Something Extraordinary: When you are reduced to tears by the sheer beauty of what you are hearing. Who Would You Like to Hear? To be able to hear J.S. Bach take a melody and improvise what amounts to a spontaneous composition is the most amazing thing I can think of. Have Wow Factors Changed? Audiences tend to be fickle. I've been lucky enough in that many musicians attend my concerts, so that I can just be myself."

"Although many musicians have claimed a major role in the importation of bossa nova, Fischer is one of the few who can back up such assertions. In March 1962, he wrote the first bossa nova orchestrations created in this country, as part of an album he scored for Cal Tjader."

"Prince either uses or doesn't use what I have. When he gets it, I understand he listens to the strings separately, he'll listen to the brass separately and the woodwinds separately and then he'll put it all together and listen to it. So when we got to his movie, Cherry Moon, most of the music that was what you might refer to as the 'underscore' was the backgrounds that I had written for certain songs of his, that he took the voices and his part out. Now I would have preferred to write the individual sections, but on the other hand, it worked out just fine."

"How did I get to Lee Konitz, when everybody else was doing Charlie Parker? The sound, for one thing, the notes that he played—man, it just knocked me off my feet! When Lee was first playing, God he was inventive! I worked out so many solos of his off the records, from when he began recording with Tristano and Warne Marsh in 1949. I listened to Charlie Parker but I was not a fan—he was repeating himself too much."

"You get tired of dealing with how other people think of what you're doing. It finally gets to the point where you realize that if you're going to do it the way you want, you have to do it yourself. That might mean putting up the money to do it yourself."

"I'm a writer who plays the piano. As I write, I find new things I like. I make them into what I call principles, and they become part of my playing vocabulary. That's the secret of what you get from composing. You get to discover things that you wouldn't ordinarily do. Much like a speech pattern, your improvisation patterns can get stale if you don't keep building your vocabulary. Each time you re voice something, you change the sound. When you do this enough, you get used to those sounds, and they start to come out as you play. You end up using voicings that aren't common, which gives you an auditory identity."

"Tristano was too contrived for me; he sounded terribly planned. Lee is very intuitive. One of my proudest achievements was when I finally got to play the saxophone well enough that I could improvise on it. I aimed to have a tone like Lee Konitz—but I don't necessarily think I got there!"

"In 1964, my first steady job in the studios in this city was with the NBC Orchestra playing for the Andy Williams Show. So who comes on that show but Antonio Carlos Jobim. And he comes over to the orchestra, doesn’t say a word to me. He sits down to the piano and starts playing a bossa I had written that the Hi-Lo’s recorded. I mean, he’s heard of me?"

"I found, once I passed the age of forty, that I have a good sense of humor. It’s only through that I can keep stuff off and go through my life. If you sit and try to take on everything that is going on out there, you’re going to end up with problems. That’s where I feel music. And music becomes the way in which I express feelings. And, because it allows me to have contact with my emotions, it’s a constant catharsis, not just playing and writing. By doing that, you alleviate something inside of you. And who knows where that comes from?"

"When I had a big band in the late 1960s, though, Warne and I were working quite a lot together. Warne would be turning time around, and dealing with cross-the-bar structures, and starting phrases in odd places—his intuition was really far out! He was one of the greatest players ever."

"I had gone to hear the winner of that year's drum and bugle corps competition. That band played a chord that made every hair on my body stand up. I've been in front of great symphony orchestras, and the greatest bands, but I've never had my hair stand up quite like that. That's when I decided to write for the bugles."