Bob Florence
b. 20 May 1932, Los Angeles, California, USA. Florence first attracted widespread attention amongst big band fans when he wrote elegantly-crafted arrangements for Si Zentner's popular recording band in the early '60s. After leaving Zentner, with whom he sometimes played piano too, he wrote for several west coast-based musicians, including Bud Shank and Frank Capp but also varied his technique happily to accommodate blues singers Jimmy Witherspoon and Big Miller, Joanie Summers, Sue Raney and Sergio Mendes. Although an accomplished pianist, Florence's chief talents are his arranging skills and especially his ability to write for big bands. Like other arrangers he eventually realized that the only way to hear his charts (many of which were for his own compositions) played the way he wanted them was to have his own big band. First formed in the late '50s, the Florence bands continued through succeeding decades, providing object lessons in big band writing and playing. In the late '70s and '80s he was calling upon outstanding musicians such as Bob Cooper, Nick Ceroli, Bob Efford, Steve Hufstetter, Bill Perkins, Kim Richmond, Buddy Childers, Pete Christlieb and Warren Leuning. Although his roots are clearly in the post-swing era style of big band writing, Florence comfortably accommodates bebop and many latter-day fusions. In a tour de forceon The Bebop Treasure Chest (on TRASH CAN CITY) he demonstrated his skills by seamlessly blending phrases and quotations from 16 tunes. Florence's big band remains one of the most distinctive of the many based on the west coast.