Album Notes

Nelson Riddle and Buddy DeFranco collaborated on this project more than fifty years ago. The album won a Grammy in 1958 for “Best Original Composition More Than Five Minutes Long”. The collaboration began as an idea when they were both playing for Tommy Dorsey in the 40’s.

The Riddle Family is extremely happy to have been able to work with Universal on this limited reissue of a work that meant a great deal to both Nelson Riddle and to Buddy DeFranco. The clarinet solos Buddy produces throughout this CD are certainly a credit to one of the most famous jazz clarinetists of our time. The re-mastering by Doug Schwartz of this original album is exceptional.

Since Nelson Riddle is known better as an arranger for some of the best vocalists in our history, his talent as a composer played a back seat. Many people do not realize he wrote all the music for the television series Route 66 and for Untouchables. He scored many movies including Lolita, Paris When It Sizzles, Paint Your Wagon, and CanCan. He won an Oscar for his score of Great Gatsby. This score was a combination of his original music as well as music adapted from the era. He always wanted to have more time for film scoring, but was busy with a huge schedule of arranging for vocalists such as Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Johnny Mathis, Peggy Lee and Linda Ronstadt.

In this series of orchestral/jazzy portraits of eleven regions of America, he had a chance to use his highly developed talent for evoking images in music. These original compositions create a wonderful composite of this great country as interpreted by this most famous arranger.