Salvatore "Tutti" Camarata
Born May 11, 1913, in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Salvatore Camarata,
nicknamed "Tutti" by bandleader Jimmy Dorsey, Camarata was truly a
jack of all musical trades - instrumentalist, orchestrator,
arranger, composer, producer, and record company executive.
Perhaps his drive had something to do with being born as the
youngest in a family of eight children. He started studying the
violin from the age of 11 and took up the trumpet at 14.
He managed not only to be heard above the noise of his siblings
but to earn an invitation to attend the Juilliard School of Music
in New York City, where he studied composition and orchestration
with Walter Damrosch and conducting with Cesare Sodero of the
Metropolitan Opera. Working in stage and radio studio orchestras to
pay the rent, he completed Juilliard and went on to study
composition at Columbia University.
Hired in 1934 by Charlie Barnet, whose band was just starting to
gain some fame, at 21, he was then known as "Toots," he then worked
briefly on Bing Crosby's radio show and as an arranger for
bandleader Paul Whiteman in 1938, when Jimmy Dorsey lured him in
with the chance to work both as an arranger and as Dorsey's
first-chair trumpet player. Camarata's arrangements were one of
the crucial ingredients in the Dorsey band's quick rise to success
in 1939.
To comply with a radio sponsor's request that the last three
minutes of each show should feature all the band's stars - singers
Bob Eberle and Helen O'Connell, Dorsey and several other top
instrumental soloists. Camarata devised the "three-in-one"
arrangement, a slow intro featuring Eberle, a mid tempo section
with O'Connell, and a finale with a full, upbeat swinging band.
At least two of Dorsey's biggest hits: "Green Eyes" and
"Maria Elena" in 1941, and several minor hits, are direct
results of this novelty.
In early 1942, Camarata quit Dorsey's band and went to work
for Glen Gray as the lead arranger for his Casa Loma Orchestra,
and then for Benny Goodman. His round of the best of the era's big
bands came to an end in 1942, however, when he went to work as a
civilian flight instructor for the U.S. Army Air Force, and later
enlisted.
In 1944, Jack Kapp of Decca Records hired him as a musical
director in New York, and Camarata arranged and orchestrated for
a number of Decca's biggest acts, including Crosby, Mary Martin,
and Louis Armstrong. During this period, he arranged and conducted
Billie Holiday's first sessions backed with a studio orchestra,
which yielded such widely loved pieces as "Loverman",
"That Ole Devil Called Love" and "Don't Explain".
In 1945 Camarata accepted an invitation from J Arthur Rank to come
to London to act as musical director, for the film, "London Town,"
starring Sid Field, Kay Kendall, and a very young Petula Clark.
The big band Camarata put together for this film later became the
core of Ted Heath's band. Although the film was not a success,
his stay in Britain made Camarata a convinced Anglophile.
He became close friends with Sir Edward Lewis, CEO of the U.K. arm
of Decca, and together, the two founded London Records. This Decca
subsidiary devoted to British artists was the means that Vera Lynn
gained an unexpected gold disc for her recording of
"Now Is The Hour", and Ted Heath, Mantovani and others found
an audience in America. Also for the London label, he formed a
British session orchestra, the Kingsway Orchestra, to record
classical music for the American market.
While London did become a major classical label, both in the U.S.
and internationally, it also went on to become one of the U.K.'s
most prominent record companies, with artists ranging from Edmundo
Ros to the Rolling Stones. Camarata himself recorded for London as
a classical performer, usually preparing original settings for full
orchestra of pieces ranging from Erik Satie's solo piano works to
chamber pieces by Bach and opera overtures and airas by Verdi,
Puccine, and Rossini.
His stay in the U.K. was short, and he returned to the U.S. in 1950,
where he rejoined Decca. He set up a studio big band, dubbed The
Commanders, which had good sales with a series of albums such as
Meet The Commanders and Dance Party. He also began working in
television, arranging and conducting a number of the medium's
more spectacular musical productions, including
"Together With Music," which featured Mary Martin and Noel Coward.
And other specials for artists such as Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and
Vic Damone.
These shows brought his name to the attention of Charles Hansen, an
executive working with Walt Disney, who had been looking for someone
to run a record label that could release soundtracks of his movies
on the then new LP format. In 1958 Camarata moved to southern
California, where he established and became co-founder and musical
director Disneyland Records for nearly twenty years. Soon after
the label's formation, Disney stumbled into a huge popular hit with
its "Mickey Mouse Club" television series. Camarata was soon busy
producing singles by most of the show's featured performers,
including the young Annette Funicello.
Funicello had a fairly thin voice and was something of a reluctant
performer at first. But then Camarata experimented with a new echo
effect device Disneyland Records had bought, and he was able to
develop a richer, rounder sound that convinced Disney to push her
as a full fledged recording star.
Camarata was more than just a record maker for Disney. He played an
important role in building up the studio's already well known
library of original music and provided some significant additions
to the studio's casts. He introduced Sterling Holloway, who became
the voice of Winnie the Pooh, and helped convince Louis Prima and
Phil Harris to provide the voices for King Louie the Ape and Baloo
the Bear in "The Jungle Book." He also expanded the label's
repertoire to works outside the Disney oeuvre, including a series
of Broadway musical songtrack albums he recorded with the Mike
Sammes Singers. Over the course of 16 years he produced over 300
discs, including soundtrack albums of Snow White and The Jungle
Book. Camarata's recordings earned a total of eight Grammy Award
nominations.
Even with his hectic schedule of work as an executive and musical
director with Disney, Camarata managed to return on occasion to his
big band roots. Of particular note are the two albums, Tutti's
Trumpets and Tutti's Trombones, both on Disney subsidiary label,
Buena Vista. Trumpets dates from 1957 and features a trumpet choir
manned by some of the best jazz and studio musicians in Hollywood:
Mannie Klein, Uan Rasey, Pete Candoli, Conrad Gozzo, Joe Triscari,
and Shorty Sherock. In 1970, he reprised the approach with
Trombones, using a stellar ensemble that included Dick Nash,
Joe Howard, Tommy Pederson, Ernie Tack, Kenny Shroyer,
Frank Rosolino, Hoyt Bohannon, Herbie Harper, Gil Falco, and Lloyd
Ulyate, plus Tommy Tedesco on guitar, Red Mitchell on bass, and Hal
Blaine on drums.
In the early days of Disneyland Records, Camarata relied on
recording studios rented from other firms in the L.A. area, and he
kept pressing Disney to invest in its own studio to reduce costs
and provide a consistent quality of recordings. "Why would I want
to own a studio," Walt Disney responded to the suggestion of his
company’s director of recording Tutti Camarata. "I’d rather be a
client." After Disney rejected the idea several times, Camarata
decided to take action himself. He bought an old auto repair shop
on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, built and equipped several
studios, and, in 1960, opened Sunset Sound Recorders.
Although Disneyland Records was the studio's principle customer at
first, it quickly became known, along with Gold Star, as one of the
best independent studios in Hollywood. Soon a wide range of artists
began to pass through the space. Sunset Sound was an early adopter
of the more sophisticated mixing technology used as rock shifted
its focus from singles to albums, and some of rock's biggest names,
including the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Prince, and Van Halen,
became regular customers.
As Sunset's success increased, Camarata found it increasingly
difficult to juggle its demands with those of Disney, and in 1972,
he decided to leave Disney to concentrate on his own company. He
continued to arrange and conduct accompanying groups as part of his
work at Sunset Sound, but his energies returned to his earliest
interest, classical music.
One of his last creative endeavors was the orchestration of a
number of the most popular numbers from the Church of Latter
Day Saints' hymnal. Camarata then traveled to London, where he
recruited and conducted an ensemble including a 100 piece orchestra,
a choir of 180 adults, a children's choir, a pipe organ, and a
brass section for the resulting recording, The Power and the Glory.
"This is the most important album I have ever done," he said of the
work when it was completed.
Camarata continued to work on classical recordings into the mid
1990s. He eventually turned over the control of Sunset Sound to
his son, Paul, who still heads the studio today. Dorene, his wife
of 67 years, died in 2004. "Tutti" died Wednesday April 20, 2005 in
Burbank, California at the age of 91.
Recordings:
Fiddle Sticks, Decca DL 5461
Music for a Lazy Afternoon, Decca DL 8112
I Want to Be Happy: Music of Vincent Youmans, Everest SDBR 1062
Deep Purple: Music of Peter de Rose, Everest SDBR 1079
Tutti's Trumpets, Disneyland Records WDL 3011
Autumn, Disneyland Records WDL 3021
Winter, Disneyland Records WDL 3026
Summer, Disneyland Records WDL 3027
Spring, Disneyland Records WDL 3032
The Happy Wanderer in Europe, Disneyland Records WDL 3034
In the Still of the Night, Buena Vista BV3322
Tutti's Trombones, Buena Vista BV4048
Think Young, Coliseum D41001
Songs from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Oliver!," Disneyland Records DQ1331
Songs from "Doctor Doolittle," Disneyland Records DQ3979
Songs from "The Happiest Millionaire," Disneyland Records DQ4030
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