Sammy Nestico
Encyclopedia
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
) is a prolific and well known composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and arranger
Arranger
In investment banking, an arranger is a provider of funds in the syndication of a debt. They are entitled to syndicate the loan or bond issue, and may be referred to as the "lead underwriter". This is because this entity bears the risk of being able to sell the underlying securities/debt or the...
of big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
music. Nestico is most known for his arrangements for the Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
orchestra.
Biography
Sammy Nestico received a BachelorsBachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
degree in music education from Duquesne University
Duquesne University
Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a private Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened its doors as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost in October 1878 with an enrollment of...
in 1950, and has since then received an honorary Doctor of Music degree there, as well as numerous awards.
He has been a professional music arranger since 1941, when he became a staff arranger for ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
radio station WCAE in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
at age 17. During his career, he arranged music for the Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
Orchestra (1967–1984), the US Air Force Band (15 yrs) and the US Marine Band (5 years) both in Washington, DC. In addition, he played the trombone in the big bands of Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, Woody Herman
Woody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...
, Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa
Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...
, and Charlie Barnet
Charlie Barnet
Charles Daly Barnet was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle".-Early life:...
.
In 1998-1999 Nestico was a professor at the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
, teaching commercial orchestration and conducting the Studio Orchestra, but was unable to find the necessary administrative support to remain there. He also directed music programs at Los Angeles Pierce College
Los Angeles Pierce College
Los Angeles Pierce College, also known as Pierce College, Pierce, is a community college that serves more than 23,000 students in the northern Chalk Hills of Woodland Hills, a community within the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California.The college began with 70 students...
, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, Westinghouse Memorial High School, and Wilmerding, PA.
Wilmerding, Pennsylvania
Wilmerding is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,190 at the 2010 census. It is located southeast of Pittsburgh. At the start of the twentieth century, it had extensive foundries and machine shops of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. In 1900, the...
During his long career in the television and film industry, he has arranged and conducted projects for artists such as Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Toni Tennille
Toni Tennille
Cathryn Antoinette "Toni" Tennille is one-half of the 1970s Grammy Award-winning duo Captain & Tennille. Tennille has also done musical work independently of her husband Daryl Dragon. Tennille has a contralto vocal range.-Biography:...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, and many others. As orchestrator, he has worked on nearly seventy television programs, including Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible is an American television series which was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicled the missions of a team of secret American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force . The leader of the team was Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, except in...
, Mannix
Mannix
Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors...
, Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...
, and The Mod Squad
The Mod Squad
The Mod Squad is a television series that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968, until August 23, 1973. This series starred Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton, Clarence Williams III, and Tige Andrews...
.
He has also written commercial jingles for Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...
, Zenith
Zenith
The zenith is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the imaginary celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction opposite to the apparent gravitational force at that location. The opposite direction, i.e...
, Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
, Mattel Toys, Pittsburgh Paints, the National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
, Dodge
Dodge
Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....
, Remington Bank, Americard and more.
Sammy Nestico has published nearly 600 numbers for school groups and many for professional big bands. He has conducted and recorded his arrangements with several leading European Radio Jazz Orchestras including the BBC Big Band
BBC Big Band
The BBC Big Band, originally known as the BBC Radio Big Band is a British big band run under the auspices of the BBC. Widely regarded as the UK’s leading and most versatile jazz orchestra, the band broadcasts exclusivley on BBC Radio, particularly on BBC Radio 2's long running series Big Band Special...
in London, Germany's SWR Big Band and NDR Big Band and the DR Big Band
DR Big Band
The Danish Radio Big Band , often referred to as the Radioens Big Band is a jazz big band founded in Copenhagen in 1964, when the Copenhagen jazz scene was particularly active, and the city was regularly visited by prominent jazz artists from the USA.- Band history :Originally called The New Radio...
.
In the year 1971, Sammy Nestico was charged for the attempted murder of his leading officer during the Vietnam War.
The Sammy Nestico Award
The Airmen of NoteThe Airmen of Note
The Airmen of Note is the premier jazz ensemble of the United States Air Force. Originally created in 1950 to carry on the tradition of Major Glenn Miller's Army Air Corps dance band, the “Note” is one of the few touring big bands, and has attracted 18 professional jazz musicians from across the...
, the premier jazz ensemble of the USAF, sponsor an annual competition for composers and arrangers of big band music, in honor of Sammy Nestico. Previous winners include:
| Year | Award Recipient | Place of Residence |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Jeremy Levy | Hannibal, MO |
| 2009 | Sara Jacovino | Middlebury, CT |
| 2008 | Michael Dease Michael Dease Michael Dease is an American jazz trombonist, composer and producer. He also plays saxophone, trumpet, flugelhorn, bass and piano.- Biography :... |
Augusta, Ga. |
| 2007 | Chris Schmitz | Anchorage, Alaska |
| 2006 | Carl Murr | Dallas, Texas |
| 2005 | David Cutler | Pittsburgh, Pa |
| 2004 | Stephen Smith | Denton, Texas |
| 2003 | Aaron Lington | Denton, Texas |
| 2002 | Earl MacDonald Earl MacDonald Earl MacDonald , is a music arranger, composer, jazz pianist and music educator. Director of jazz studies at the University of Connecticut, the Winnipeg native earned a bachelor of music degree in jazz performance at McGill University and a master of music degree at Rutgers, where he apprenticed... |
Mansfield Center, Conn. |
| 2001 | Curtis Stephan | Carrollton, Texas |
| 2000 | Jeff Antoniuk | Annapolis, Md. |
| 1999 | no award issued | - |
| 1998 | Joey Sellers Joey Sellers Joey Sellers is an American composer, arranger, and trombonist.-Background:Sellers grew up in Arizona and graduated from Arizona State University. He freelanced for years in New York City and Los Angeles and was Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at Northern Illinois University... |
Brooklyn, N.Y. |
| 1997 | Lyle Durland | Provo, Utah |
| 1996 | William Straub | Syracuse, N.Y. |
| 1996 | Charles Bayne | Dallas, Texas |
Discography
- 1982: Dark Orchid (Palo Alto RecordsPalo Alto RecordsPalo Alto Records was a jazz record label that released most of its discography in the 1980s. The label was founded in 1981 by Jim Benham, who was a Palo Alto, California resident. The artistic director was Herb Wong. In 1985 the company ceased its activities...
) - 1986: Night Flight
- 2000: Basie and Beyond - Quincy Jones/Sammy Nestico Orhestra (Qwest Warner Records)
- 2004: A portrait of Sammy (Fenwood Music Inc Records)
- 2004: No Time Like the Present - Sammy Nestico and the SWR Big Band (SWR Music 94118)
External links
- http://www.sammynesticomusic.com/