The Sauter Finegan Orchestra

[Teasing the Korean]

I started picking up their albums years ago. I can’t remember if the Jim Flora cover art first brought them to my attention, or the fact that they were on some compilations.

Anyway, I have about 8 albums by them, mostly on RCA, but also 2 later ones on United Artists. It seems to me that they were – in a sense – RCA’s answer to Stan Kenton on Capitol and Pete Rugolo on Columbia (and later Mercury).

What’s interesting about the albums that I’ve heard is they veer from incredibly modern, experimental, space age writing and arranging, to some really corny stuff that I never want to hear again. Like everyone else, they had to pay the bills, so I’m guessing some of the latter were intended to be novelty or commercial efforts. What I’m not clear on, though, is how many of those early RCA albums were intended as albums or simply compiled from singles. Assuming the latter, that would at least explain why those albums vary so much in quality of content.

I know that Eddie Sauter later went on to work with Stan Getz on both “Mickey One” and “Focus,” but I’m not sure what else Sauter and Finegan did after this orchestra. Also, was this strictly a studio project or did they do live performances?

[Larry Kart]

The band toured, mostly playing concerts IIRC. This would be a Mosaic possibility, but I believe Cuscuna balks at the more novelty-like SF material. I find all of it that I've heard to be at the least amusing/clever, while the best of it is quite remarkable. Also, if original masters could be obtained, these were the best-recorded big band albums of their time, maybe ever. Webster Hall, I believe. In fact, the cachet of the SF Band was inseparable from the early days of "hi-fi" mania; thus some of the band's cuter material was designed to test/show off your sound system. Also, IIRC the band traveled with its own sound engineer, in an attempt to make sure that it sounded just as good live as it did on records. Some marvelous players in that band.

[GA Russell]

I saw Buddy DeFranco speak at a jazz clinic in Atlanta about 1990, and he mentioned how much he admired the Sauter-Finnegan Orchestra.

[Guest Bill Barton]

This brings back memories of Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins broadcasting from "The Purple Grotto" on the Milkman's Matinee show at clear-channel AM WNEW back in the day. He was a Sauter-Finegan fanatic and few shows went by without at least one piece from the orchestra.