jmc's classics
Ferde Grofe (1892-1972) was an American composer. He was born Ferdinand Von Grofe in New York City to a family of Classical Musicians. He is remembered for his Grand Canyon suit and several Hollywood scores.
His Grand Canyon Suit led to a style in several other pieces: Hollywood Suite, Hudson River Suite and Death Valley Suite. He orchestrated George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I am not familiar with the Grand Canyon Suite. I have a CD of the other mentioned works which I do play a lot. Grofe as mentioned was born in New York but he grew up in the Los Angeles area. He studied and mastered many musical instruments. I was recently watching the game show Jeopardy a few days ago. In the Classical Music category. , I found out that he used coconuts in the Grand Canyon Suit to imitate the sounds of donkeys walking. He was one of the first composers in Hollywood. sound movies came out in 1927. Organs were used in theaters before that. The Hollywood soundtrack then came about. Many of his works have a jazz feel to them. he did play jazz music. There is some classical influence in a lot of Jazz music. This is not my expertise and could take an entire chapter or two.
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