Bob Florence

As a longtime staff arranger for Liberty Records, Bob Florence wrote some of the most innovative and challenging charts in postwar jazz -- in many respects a man out of time, he possessed a particular brilliance for large-ensemble arrangements in the tradition of Duke Ellington, although the commercial vogue for big-band jazz had long since passed. Born May 30, 1932, in Los Angeles, Florence was a child prodigy who took his first piano lesson at the age of three. He abandoned classical studies in favor of jazz and pop while attending Los Angeles City College, assembling a band with classmates and future studio aces Tommy Tedesco, Herb Geller, and Dennis Budimir. At a friend's suggestion, Florence shifted the group's practices to the Hollywood Musician's Union local rehearsal hall, launching a weekly session that quickly drew myriad players from across the Southern California jazz scene, all vying for a spot in the lineup. Upon graduating, Florence signed on with guitarist Alvino Rey, followed by a stints arranging for bandleaders Harry James and Les Brown. In 1958 he led his first session for Era, Meet the Bob Florence Trio, followed a year later by his first big-band date, The Name Band. From 1959 to 1964 Florence collaborated with Si Zentner, arranging the trombonist's 1960 smash "Up a Lazy River" -- the single was the last commercial gasp of the big-band era, a shift further underscored the following year when Florence and Zentner backed space age pop maestro Martin Denny on the classic Exotica Suite. The commercial and creative success of the Zentner and Denny sessions convinced Liberty A&R director Dave Pell to hire Florence for a full-time staff gig, and in the years to follow he arranged numerous recordings for the label, spanning from vocalist Vic Dana to West...