Robert F. Graettinger

The relatively small output of late big band-era composer and jazz arranger Robert Frederick Graettinger has been likened to the work of cutting-edge classical composers such as <a href="spotify:artist:73s17iW5LTtXRMVoofi9sU">Charles Ives</a> and Edgar Varèse. Born in Ontario, California, Graettinger studied at the Westlake School of Music in Los Angeles, and worked as an alto saxophonist and arranger in dance bands such as those led by <a href="spotify:artist:2rZK2GfjWjRnAvKw5NbkCq">Bobby Sherwood</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5dlCVmfRbWVGOJYHzGyk32">Benny Carter</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:35hCHSRgl0dhCYfgGb4bwV">Alvino Rey</a>. In 1947, impressed with the "progressive jazz" charts of <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Stan Kenton</a>'s arranger <a href="spotify:artist:6NLW1QaFwxrhGeuBehGXUj">Pete Rugolo</a>, Graettinger obtained an audition with <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Kenton</a>. Graettinger earned a position on <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Kenton</a>'s arranging staff on the strength of his piece "Thermopylae." The following year, <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Kenton</a> began his Innovations Orchestra, which was devoted to the promotion of the progressive jazz idiom, and in April 1948 the first version of Graettinger's multi-movement suite "City of Glass" was unveiled to a polite but bewildered audience in Chicago.

Graettinger continued to add to the Stan Kenton & the Innovations Orchestra's book through 1953, including progressive arrangements of standards such as "Everything Happens to Me" and "You Go to My Head," which are still regarded as mini-masterpieces of this genre. <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Kenton</a>'s fan base also admired some of Graettinger's originals, such as "Incident in Jazz," but were split on the subject of "City of Glass," which <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Kenton</a> recorded in a revised version in 1950. Many fans argued that "City of Glass" was not jazz at all, but a type of weird, classical-styled concert music played by a dance band. Shortly after recording a number of concerted Graettinger set pieces under the title This Modern World, <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Kenton</a> disbanded the Innovations Orchestra in 1953 under commercial pressures and formed a more traditional dance ensemble. Afterward, Graettinger worked on his "Suite for String Trio and Wind Quartet" with the intention of breaking into classical concert music, but his early death interrupted the work before it was finished. Graettinger's lifelong routine of late nights, smoking, black coffee, and amphetamines caught up with him, and he died of lung cancer at the age of 34.

During his lifetime, Graettinger's work was regarded by many jazz critics with a kind of respectful toleration, but later this gave way to a view of the whole progressive jazz genre as having been a pretentious failure. Long after both Graettinger and <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Kenton</a> were dead, an underground appreciation of "City of Glass" emerged among an audience who was not necessarily interested in <a href="spotify:artist:27hSR8e34ZM5vj5fUFixyb">Stan Kenton</a>, or even in jazz itself. Newer admirers regard Graettinger as a pioneering post-modern visionary who greatly expanded the vocabulary of orchestral music and discovered new combinations of instrumental sounds. Even some of the critics who expressed misgivings about Graettinger have recanted and proclaimed him an "American original", but his work remains controversial in jazz circles. Nonetheless, many classical composers and industrial musicians born after 1960 regard Robert Graettinger as a major influence, and with the turn of the 21st century interest in his work continues to grow. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis, Rovi