Frankie Carle

Spanning well over five decades in big-band music, Frankie Carle maintained an active presence from the 1930s straight through the 1980s, an achievement rendered even more striking by his scant presence in today’s compact-disc catalogs. Initially working as a pianist under the instruction of his uncle Nicholas Colangelo, he secured a position in that relative’s orchestra at age thirteen for weekly pay of one dollar; by 1920 he had already formed and directed his own short-lived ensemble. His earliest recording dates occurred at Victor in 1925 while serving in Edwin J. McEnelley’s band, which he had entered four years earlier. A pivotal engagement followed with Mal Hallett’s orchestra, where he collaborated alongside drummer Gene Krupa, saxophonist Toots Mondello, and trombonists Jack Jenny and Jack Teagarden. Although Hallett’s group never attained widespread prominence before dissolving in 1937, the affiliation furnished steady work and practical experience; afterward Carle led his own unit across New England and cut sides for Decca. He formally aligned with Horace Heidt in July 1939, gaining wider recognition as a member of the radio-favorite Musical Knights. By the early 1940s he judged the moment appropriate to launch an independent orchestra. In 1941, however, several opportunities arose simultaneously: Eddy Duchin, recently called into naval service, proposed that Carle assume leadership of his ensemble in exchange for a share of earnings. Heidt countered with an offer of one thousand dollars weekly plus five percent of gross receipts to stay on as musical director, and Carle accepted that arrangement. Roughly two years later Heidt withdrew from the music business and assisted Carle in assembling his own orchestra, which made its debut in 1944. Carle’s emblematic number, “Sunrise Serenade,” which he had co-written in 1938 and which Glenn Miller had popularized, received its Columbia treatment from the pianist himself in 1945. Old Gold cigarettes soon became a sponsor, securing him a nationwide radio program. The band’s repertoire stretched from updated Stephen Foster pieces such as “Swanee River” to topical wartime numbers like the 1944 release “I’m Going to See My Baby,” which alluded to the expected Allied victory. Beyond Carle’s own lyrical and technically assured piano work, the ensemble benefited from vocalist Phyllis Lynne, whose interpretations could suggest either smoldering intensity or ingenuous affection; she was later replaced by Marjorie Hughes, Carle’s daughter, while male singer Paul Allen also registered favorably with audiences in the mid-1940s. The orchestra maintained a lucid, sharply defined texture in which trumpets, trombones, and piano stood out distinctly, thanks in part to arrangements supplied by former Heidt colleague Frank DeVol. Although primarily a dance-oriented or “sweet” outfit, Carle’s group, like many of its strongest contemporaries, absorbed jazz inflections. The leader’s virtuosic keyboard approach supplied the chief spark. When the big-band period concluded, Carle’s activity persisted; he registered no further chart entries after the 1940s yet continued touring and performing concerts into the 1980s, four decades after departing Heidt’s organization and seventy years after entering the profession. Until his death in early 2001 at age ninety-seven, he remained the oldest surviving big-band leader.