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Reviews Reprinted
from ALLEGRO Oct. 2001 Joe Harnell, with his co-writer Ira Skutch, tells the story of his life from birth to the present, interweaving the details of his very successful professional career as pianist, composer, arranger and conductor with an account of his difficult personal life, including three failed marriages and a long struggle with alcoholism. Along the way he tells many interesting stories about his experiences in a wide variety of musical venues, and of stars he has worked with including Frank Sinatra, Maurice Chevalier, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Pearl Bailey, Julius LaRosa and Mike Douglas. Harnell's father was a klezmer musician, playing accordion and violin, and he started Joe on the piano as a pre-teen. He arranged for lessons with one of his drinking buddies, and insisted that Joe practice regularly. By age thirteen Harnell (born Hittelman) was playing with his father's band in the Bronx, expanded to summer work in the Catskills, and by the time he reached high school he had begun to play with rising young jazz musicians like Shorty Rogers and Harry Devito. He studied other instruments in high school, and at night he haunted the jazz clubs. He got the chance to play for two weeks in Dizzy Gillespie's rhythm section, and also worked with Henry Jerome at the time he was experimenting with a modern jazz band. Young Joe won two college scholarships, one to Juilliard and one to the University of Miami. Since his family had moved to Florida, he chose Miami, where he stayed for one semester until the war intervened. In New York he had met Glenn Miller, who told him he would requisition him if he were drafted. But the Miller band left for England before Joe's basic training was completed, and he was assigned to the 692nd Air Force Band, an offshoot of the Miller organization. He served in Germany and received an Air Force scholarship to study at the Sorbonne. Uncomfortable in Paris, Harnell applied to study composition at Trinity College in England with William Walton and was accepted. He returned to the States in 1946 as a budding young composer, developed further at Tanglewood, and then in 1948 began traveling the country for a couple of years as Harry Richman's accompanist and musical director. That job led to some prestigious fill-in work with Lena Horne and Frank Sinatra. Harnell moved to New York in 1953 where he began freelancing and did his first recording. He tells many lively stories about his adventures on the New York music scene. He took over as musical director for Marlene Deitrich from his friend Burt Bacharach and stayed with her for a year before moving to the same job with Peggy Lee. He conducted for her for three years, also writing arrangements for her recordings. While working on his first movie score, a bad auto accident nearly ended Harnell's playing career. His right hand was severely damaged, but a good surgeon was able to reconstruct it, and he eventually was able to play again, though without the dexterity he once had. In 1963 he made a recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" that won him a Grammy, earned some satisfying royalties, and established him as a recording artist. It also led to a job as musical director of Grey Advertising. In 1967 Harnell moved to Philadelphia as music director for the Mike Douglas TV show, a job that lasted for several years and brought him into contact with many entertainers who appeared as guests on the show. Some of them later hired him to tour with them. Several of them encouraged him to go to California and write movie scores. In 1973 he took their collective advice and moved to Los Angeles, where he found his way into the music industry there, writing and conducting scores for movies and television. The story of Harnell's personal life, woven through that of his professional life, is a tortured counterpoint to the smooth progression of his musical work. He frankly discusses his alcoholism and the disintegration of three of his marriages, and describes the help he got on the way to sobriety and a happy fourth marriage. He is also amusingly candid about some of his working relationships that proved to be less than wonderful. The authors have included about thirty photos from various stages of Harnell's life, as well as a discography. This book is available at the website www.Xlibris.com, and a copy is in the Local 802 library. ...Bill Crow |
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Antoinette
Follett Counterpoint: The Journey of a Music Man The turbulent life of Grammy and Emmy award-winning pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor Joe Harnell, member of Local 47, 802, and 655, is beautifully detailed in Counterpoint: The Journey of a Music Man, by Harnell and Ira Skutch. Like any journey, the musicians life is filled with highs and lows: an immensely successful musical career tempered by unresolved personal conflicts. Fortunately for readers, this dichotomy culminates in Counterpoint, a stunningly honest account of Harnells life. Each chapter illuminates key periods and events during Harnells life, including his teen years, WWII, recording milestones and career stops, relationships, and his recovery from alcohol. It is in this section, perhaps, that we learn (or are allowed to learn) the most about Harnell. He eloquently describes each agonizing detail of his addiction with an acute objectivity, a tonal quality that persists throughout the entire book. This writing style works to capture Harnells true essence; indeed, the artists soul is etched on every page. The books honesty is supplemented by colorful anecdotes and firsthand accounts of Harnells dealings with a whos-who of music personalities, including Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, John Lennon, Louis Armstrong, and Judy Garland, to name a few. Counterpoint is many things. It is a story about love of life, music, and those who have touched Harnell's life. It is the confession of a gifted, yet troubled artist who never abandoned his craft. Most of all, however, it is the gripping personal account of an amazing human being, and definitely worth reading. |