Re: Herb Jenkel and Victory at Sea


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Posted by Mark Heter on August 13, 2003 at 14:31:27:

In Reply to: Herb Jenkel and Victory at Sea posted by Stan Howell on August 13, 2003 at 12:43:11:

Herb Jenkel has been out of the picture for quite a while. The NBC Symphony had some "regular members" - mostly in the strings - but many of the chairs were filled by various NBC staffers who were "on call". For instance, Artie Baker, who I knew almost esclusively as a jazz clarinetist (and an great one) and alto saxophonist was the bass clarinetist with Toscanini for 14 years. It wasn't like what we now regard as a "regular" symphony orchestra, and yet it produced some wonderful broadcasts and recordings. It serves to show the kind of freelance musicianship that was available in NYC in those days. I believe the latter series of those recording were done by Don Butterfield. I know he did all of Russ Bennett's "Project 20" stuff later on. I'm pretty sure Dick Rodgers conducted none of those Victory At Sea sessions - all of it was arranged and orchestrated (and mostly composed without credit) by Robert Russell Bennett. From the look of it, the themes were recorded, and inserted and reinserted over and over again - as newsreels were done. It didn't require "movie" type scoring, so Sarnoff didn't pay for it.

Maybe Don B. knows about this guy - or Harvey. They were both around at the time.


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