Ferde grofe biography of christopher

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. 26, 1933

Matty Malneck, 77, violinist - arranger ( 1926-1936 ), d.Feb. "

    It's also an historical fact that few African-Americans had any connection to the Whiteman orchestra.

    “Yeah, because that wasn’t happening then,” Rayno offered.  “It wasn’t socially permissible, unfortunately .

. . took it out and stuck it in my pocket and rifled through and found what Don needed and I came down and I said to him, ‘Do you have a cassette recorder?’ because I don’t think I own one.  And he said, ‘Yeah, I do.’  And I shoved this in there and it was a tape that my grandfather must have been giving some interview, and it’s a complete tape but there’s, maybe, only four minutes on it.  So for four minutes, he’s talking about me when I was a little girl.  And it was the strangest thing, ‘cause I hear his voice often and it just kind of gives me the chills.  And I don’t know if you’ve had that experience… to go back and look at a family video or listen to a tape of somebody you loved and their voice.  It’s always a little freaky.  It just brought back like this tumbling down of memories to me, and he was just the most loving, wonderful, supportive person in the world.  I was saying to Don, ‘You know, at the point that I came to live with him, I was 3.  My sister was 3 months.  My brother was 6.  They could have very easily a) not even bothered but, being the people they were, obviously they would.  They could have planted us in one of the places that they resided in with a nanny and a caretaker and gone on their merry way, and they didn’t.  They just dragged us with them everywhere they went.  Be it the East Coast or West Coast or anything in-between, we were very much a part of their lives.  They kept us very away from all the hoop-de-hoo and falderal.  It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that all of the people that were in our house, all the families we contact with were people that other people considered, quote – unquote, ‘famous.’  Because they just very much wanted us to have this lovely, normal existence and he was passionate about protecting us.  We weren’t subjected to any kind of public displays .

4, 1994

Kurt Dieterle, 95, violinist ( 1924-1935 ), d.Nov. Movements such as "49er Emigrant Train" and "Sandstorm" highlight the desert's extremes through stark dynamics and shimmering string effects simulating heat waves.

    Within a few years, by 1923, Whiteman's yearly royalties from recordings was said to be $75,000.

    “I think he had a good sense, though, of what was commercial and what would sell well,” Rayno suggested.  “I remember Bill Challis, one of his arrangers, told me that, that he really had a good sense of that.  But he really was, uh, intrepid, in playing just a variety of styles, and really pulling it off .

6, 1931

Bill Challis, 90, arranger ( 1927-1930 ), d.Oct. I think I have spoken of America in this music simply because America spoke to me, just as it has spoken to you and to every one of us.   His total income in 1925, for example, was $680,000. Out land is rich in music, and if you listen you can hear it right now.

sort of, half and half of the year.  And a restaurant in Palm Springs wanted him to just come… they said they’d pay him to come every day and just sit at a table, where people could see him.  And he said, ‘I don’t want to be on display like I’m a museum piece.’  So he just really never liked that part of it, I don’t think.”

    I wondered if that was the time where someone asked him, "How old are you?" and Whiteman said, "Not half as old as the steak you served me!"

   “It might have been, I forget,” Rayno laughed.  “That’s in Tom’s book.  He

[ Whiteman ] had a really witty, clever sense of humor.  He had a language all his own… his own lexicon.  I’ll try to get more of that in the second book.  He really was amusing to musicians in the things that he said.”