Johnny Green - Trivia, Categories

Composer, arranger, bandleader, and pianist, born in New York City, New York, USA. Dedicated to music from the time he saw a band concert at age three, he began studying piano when five, and by 13 knew the basics of composition and orchestration. He enrolled at Harvard (aged 15) and while there began his career as an orchestra leader and composer. His ‘Coquette’ (1927), words by Gus Kahn, was a hit even before he took his BA (1928). He took a job in his uncle's brokerage firm for a time (1928) and then left to dedicate himself to music, working as a music arranger for films, an orchestra conductor, and piano accompanist. From the 1930s he collaborated with such lyricists as E Y Harburg and Edward Heyman on many standards including ‘Body and Soul’ (1930). He continued to conduct orchestras on tours and on radio, and joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (1942–58), first as a composer-conductor-arranger, later as music director. He was in charge of several successful MGM film musicals, winning Oscars for Easter Parade (1948) and An American in Paris (1951). A serious musician, he also composed and conducted orchestral music for the concert stage and films, conducted many symphony orchestras, and was lecturer and artist-in-residence at Harvard (1979, 1981).

Johnny Green (10 October 1908, New York, New York – 15 May 1989 Los Angeles) was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, and conductor.

Green wrote a number of jazz standards, including "Out of Nowhere" and "Body and Soul".

He was the son of musical parents, and was accepted by Harvard at the age of 15, entering the University in 1924. Between semesters, bandleader Guy Lombardo heard his Harvard Gold Coast Orchestra and hired him to create dance arrangements for his nationally famous orchestra.

His father interrupted his education and forced him to become a stockbroker, which Green tried for six months, hating every minute. (Indeed, it was during his first marriage that most of his hit standards were composed, including ‘I Cover the Waterfront’, ‘You're Mine You’, ‘Easy Come Easy Go’, ‘Rain Rain Go Away’ and ‘I Wanna Be Loved’.)

During the lean years he arranged for dance orchestras, most notably Jean Goldkette on NBC.

Nathaniel Shilkret and Paul Whiteman commissioned him to write larger works for orchestra, and he scored numerous films at Paramount's Astoria Studios.

In 1934 he returned from London, where he had composed a musical comedy for Jack Buchanan. William Paley, the president of the Columbia Broadcasting System and an investor in New York's St Regis Hotel, encouraged him to form what became known as Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra.

In 1935 Green starred on the Socony Sketchbook, sponsored by Socony -Vacuum Oil Co.

Green's piano playing is intricate, and his musical ideas are exceedingly clever. He really made his mark at MGM, where in the 1940s, along with orchestrator Conrad Salinger, he was one of the musicians most responsible for changing (and, many would say, improving) the overall sound of the MGM Symphony Orchestra, partially through the re-seating of some of the players.

His credits as musical executive, arranger, conductor and composer are lengthy, but include such highlights as “Raintree County”, “Bathing Beauty”, “Something in the Wind”, “Easter Parade” (for which he won his first Academy Award), “Summer Stock”, “An American in Paris” (which netted him his second Academy Award), “Royal Wedding”, “High Society” and “West Side Story” (another Academy Award winner for him). Although Green was musical director on these films, however, the orchestrations were usually done by someone else - in the case of the MGM musicals, it was usually Conrad Salinger, and in the case of West Side Story, it was Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal.

Married three times, he had a daughter with actress Betty Furness and two daughters with MGM Glamazon Bunny Waters.

In 1965, he conducted the music for that year's new adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's only musical for television, Cinderella, starring Lesley Ann Warren, Walter Pidgeon, Ginger Rogers, and Stuart Damon.

Johnny also adapted, orchestrated and conducted the music for the film version of Oliver!

Trivia

Nickname given to him by composer/arranger/orchestrator Conrad Salinger: "Beulah."

Categories

Musical film
Broadway theatre
orchestrator
conductor
songwriter