Ferrante And Teicher With Percussion

Aflame

Ferrante And Teicher With Percussion

Produced by Joe Malin in Collaboration with Don Costa

Engineers: Al Weintraub, Art Leigh, Phil Macy, Sol Kessler

Design: F. Scott / F. Schutz

Photo: R. DeCarava
ABC - Paramount ABCS-248
1958

Percussion: Philip Kraus, Milton Schlesinger, Ted Sommer - Bass: Pat Merola

From the back cover: About Ferrante - One of four children, Arthur Ferante was born in New York City in a family richly endowed with musical talent. Besides his brother and two sisters, Arthur's father was a well-known professional musician until recently and, as Arthur states it, "there have been musicians on both sides of the family all the way back."

With this sort of background and lineage, it isn't too surprising to learn that young Ferrante began picking out melodies on the piano at the age of 2! When he was but 5 years old, he began his formal music study with a private teacher, who insisted that the child concentrate on sol feggio for three months before allowing him to touch a note on the keyboard. A scant eight months later, the tot played in public for the first time in a student recital, when he performed the First Movement of the D Major Concerto by Haydn and Fur Elise by Beethoven. 

A year later, Mama Ferrante insisted that the boy being his study of complete music theory, and Art was given a test for the Juilliard Preparatory Center. The result of the test so amazed the examining board, that he was awarded a full scholarship to Juilliard – which continued until he was 21! During his years at Juilliard, Ferrante won every award he famed school had to offer, including the Loeb Memorial Fund Prize, the coveted Coolidge Chamber Music Award for Composition and many other distinctions for all phases of his studies.

Later, he was invited to join the faculty at Juilliard, and served on the staff unto 1948, when he teamed with Teicher for the real beginning of their joint career(s)...

About Teicher - Unlike his partner, Ferrante, Louis Teicher has no musical heritage to claim for his own great talent. His brother and sister showed signs of an interest by studying for a time, but neither displayed the usual gift which he possesses.

The Teicher precocity became evident when he (like Ferrante) started his piano performing at 2, picking out familiar melodies on the keyboard. Two years later – a 4 – he began his piano studying under private's tutelage in his home town of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and continued thus for a year. Brought to New York for the Juilliard Preparatory Center test, he was hailed as a prodigy and was granted a full scholarship, which remained in force until 1945. So impressed were the faculty heads with his talent, that they made arrangements for him to attend grammar school for a half-day only for the whole of his elementary schooling years, arranging for whatever private tutorship seemed necessary. His progress in the Juilliard school was so remarkable that he was graduated at the age of 15 – one of the youngest students to have finished the curriculum in the history of the institute. During his course of study, he received the Schirmer Gold Medal for Highest Musical Attainment, one of the most coveted honors bestowed at Juilliard.

In the fall of 1944, Teicher became a post-graduate as a conducting major and was appointed to the faculty to instruct in theory. He continued in this capacity until October, 1947, when he made his appearance with Ferrante as duo-piano soloists with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, and the team was roundly acclaimed.

At the beginning of his post-graduate work in '44, Teicher accepted the offer to play in the pit orchestra of the Broadway hit musical, Song Of Norway, playing all of the solo piano passages. Nothing of value of popular music long before this, he also headed his own piano-violin-cello trio at the exclusive Ritz-Carlson Hotel, where he was able to experiment with his own ideas and theories in embellishing the pop form. In January of 1948, he teamed with Ferrante for the permanent association that has distinguished them as the most outstanding and unique duo-pianists of our time.

Also from the back cover: As is the rule with all their recording sessions, the studio was barred to all visitors and observers during these dates. Only the recording director and the engineers are ever allowed in the control room, and only the two artists are present in the studio proper. The engineer, incidentally, is carefully instructed and trained by Ferrante and Teicher to make certain he is never shocked by the resultant sounds issuing from his monitor speaker. His qualifications, according to the team, merely require that he be "a first-class idiot!" (Needless to say, this is a modest summation by the two pianists and the engineer on any F & T session usually revels in the goings-on with keen delight).

From Billboard, November 10, 1958: Here come Ferrante and Teicher, the unique duo-piano team, again! This time they're backed by quartet of ace percussionists who help the two keyboarders provide versions of "How High The Moon," Beyond The Blue Horizon," and "The Nearness Of You" you never heard before. A cute novelty, faintly like "Doodletown Fifers" is their own "Parade Of The Bobbies"

How High Is The Moon
The Nearness Of You
Che Si Dice
Temptation
Three O'Clock In The Morning
Va Va Voom
Beyond The Blue Horizon
Aflame
Get Out Of Town
Paraded Of The Bobbies
Yesterdays
Cielito Lindo