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Artist
Ralph Burns
12+ albums
jazzpianoSoundtrackSmooth Jazzjazz piano
about
Ralph Burns (June 29, 1922 – November 21, 2001) was an American songwriter, bandleader, composer, conductor, arranger and bebop pianist. After Burns moved to New York in the early 1940’s, he met Charlie Barnet and the two began working together. In 1944, he joined the Woody Herman band with members Neal Hefti, Bill Harris, Flip Phillips, Chubby Jackson and Dave Tough. Together, the group developed one of the most powerful and distinctive sound. 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. Burns worked with numerous other musicians. Stan Getz was featured as a tenor saxophone soloist in "Early Autumn", a huge hit for the band and the launching platform for Getz’s solo career. Burns also worked in a small band with soloists including Bill Harris and Charlie Ventura. The success of the Herman band provided Burns the ability to record under his own name in the 1950s. He collaborated with Billy Strayhorn, Lee Konitz and Ben Webster to create both jazz and classical recordings. He wrote compositions for Tony Bennett and Johnny Mathis and later Aretha Franklin and Natalie Cole. Burns 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 1960’s, Burns was freed from touring as a band pianist, and began comp
