Burns, Ralph, 1922-2001

Ralph Burns (born June 29, 1922 Newton, Mass. - died Nov. 29, 2001, Los Angeles, Calif.) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He studied at the New England Conservatory in 1938-1939 where, in his own words, he learned about jazz by transcribing arrangements from records. Burns also worked in the big band led by Charlie Barnet, who recorded his piece "The Moose" in 1943. Later in 1943 he joined Woody Herman, and played an important role in the band's rhythm section from December 1943 to mid-1945. For 15 years, Burns wrote or arranged many of the band's major hits including "Bijou", "Northwest Passage" and "Apple Honey", and on the longer work "Lady McGowan's Dream" and the three-part "Summer Sequence." The final movement of ''Summer Sequence'' became a feature for Stan Getz's tenor saxophone and helped make Getz a star. As ''Early Autumn,'' with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, it also became a favorite of many vocalists. During the 1950s Burns created songs for many singers, including Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Ray Charles, and later, Aretha Franklin and Nathalie Cole. He was responsible for the arrangement and introduction of a string orchestra on two of Ray Charles's biggest hits, "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "Georgia on My Mind". In the 1990s, Burns arranged music for Mel Tormé, John Pizzarelli, Michael Feinstein, and Tony Bennett. By the early 1960s Burns was also active on Broadway, writing orchestrations for ''Funny Girl,'' ''Sweet Charity'' and other musicals. His first movie credit was Woody Allen's ''Bananas,'' but the film that established him in Hollywood was ''Cabaret,'' which he orchestrated and for which he composed new music. ''Cabaret'' reunited him with Bob Fosse, with whom he had worked on Broadway. He did three more Fosse films: ''Lenny,'' ''All That Jazz'' and ''Star 80.'' Burns won the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations in 1999 for "Fosse" and posthumously in 2002 for "Thoroughly Modern Millie," which also garnered him the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations. He was inducted into the New England Jazz Hall of Fame in 2004.