Daniel A. Henderson and Dr. Steve Call, School of Music; Professor David Day, Music and Dance Library

Early one morning in 1966 Billy May stood helpless and devastated on the first floor of the Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood, California. He watched as a group of men swiftly loaded a semi truck to the brim with boxes of original music scores. Somewhere in those boxes were all the original arrangements he had written for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, Dean Martin and Peggy Lee – music that had won him Grammy Awards, Gold Records and the admiration of every arranger in the business – the entire collection of 10,000 original Capitol Records scores from 1942 to that date. He asked the men where all the music was going, and they replied, “to the dump.” The truck was filled, the music was gone, and the truck drove away. Since that day, whenever Billy May, Nelson Riddle, the Sinatra family, the Nat “King” Cole family, and hundreds more have been asked where the music is, the standard reply has been “rotting in the dump somewhere outside LA.”

But it’s not. It’s on our campus. Somehow, it ended up in Provo, Utah, at Brigham Young University. Here it has sat almost completely untouched and unknown for 37 years. When I overheard Music and Dance Librarian David Day say that there were some scores from Capitol Records in Special Collections, my ears immediately perked up. With his help, I was able to get a rough idea of what was in the collection and applied for an ORCA grant to catalog important parts of the collection. I was awarded the grant of $1,500 and as a result have had some of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

When I began work on the collection, two problems presented themselves: first, there was no reasonable way to search the collection; there was an incomplete alphabetical listing of song titles in the library (compiled in 1972), but no way to logically search for the music of a specific artist, arranger, composer, album, etc. Second, in searching everywhere I could think of away from BYU (internet, journals, interviews, bio/autobiographies, etc.) I could find no mention of the collection anywhere; nobody outside of our campus knew that the music was here. This priceless treasure had been greatly neglected and no significant effort had ever been made to let others know it exists.

I began my work by spending many hundreds of hours identifying over one thousand scores and cataloging them in a notebook. Simultaneously, I studied the lives and careers of many of the important artists, both dead and still living, learning much that was extremely useful in organizing their music.

In time, the wheels in my head began to turn faster and faster. I put two and two together: “Many of these legendary musicians are still alive – I have a large chunk of their life’s work that they probably think is lost forever.” Then the ball began to roll. I quickly learned all I could about the 87-year-old Billy May and prepared to try to speak to him.

My first nervous phone call turned out to be the beginning of a wonderful friendship for me and the beginning of the floods of interest in the Capitol Records Collection. Billy and his wife Doris invited me to their home in San Juan Capistrano, California in September, 2003. I brought with me my uncle, Matt Henderson (a movie producer for the LDS Church), and he brought with him his professional video equipment. Billy allowed us to interview and film him for three hours in his living room. It was a thrilling experience for both of us as we sat at the feet of “the greatest natural musician of the twentieth century.”1 Billy then informed us that this was the only taped interview he has ever allowed to be done of his career. For the next four months, Billy and I spoke on the phone, wrote letters, and he mailed me some of his personal tapes of the music he was most proud of. There was a great loss in the world of music and in my life when Billy May passed away of heart failure in his home on January 22nd, 2004. It was an honor to know him.

Since I first informed Billy May of the collection here (“What?! Where did you get it?!”), I have received phone calls and emails from the Netherlands, Vancouver, British Columbia, New York City, Newark, Los Angeles, North Carolina, Minnesota, Florida, Texas, California, Washington, DC, Connecticut and many more, including musicians and their families who were involved with the music originally, who have long been searching for these scores. Jack Mirtle, author of “The Music of Billy May,” wrote, “I am an ardent fan of Billy’s music and never dreamed that any would be available.”2

The music has been welcomed enthusiastically by the music world. One month after first speaking to Billy May, I received a phone call from the Canadian Brass. They explained that they were to perform with the New York Philharmonic Brass at the 2003 Christmas with the NY Philharmonic concert, and that they would love to do a “Tribute to Billy May,” now that the scores have been “rediscovered.” They explained that if I would send them photocopies of three of Billy’s scores they were seeking, they would give me free tickets to the concert in New York City. After getting Billy’s permission, I sent the scores and attended the concert3. The sold-out audience loved the performance and collectively said, “Oooh, wow….” when it was announced they would be performing music from Billy May’s “Big Fat Brass” album.

As a result of my work here in Provo, I have compiled a clear and understandable database of all of the Capitol Records Collection scores of Billy May, Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, and the Stan Kenton Orchestra. I have also created a web site on which the catalog will be searchable throughout the world. The web address is: http://music.lib.byu.edu/CapitolRecords/index.html. It is anticipated that the catalog will be online by June 2004.

I am extremely grateful to ORCA for supporting my project. My musical knowledge has multiplied, and many important people are more aware of our university. Meanwhile, I will continue to run in the directions my project has pointed me. I hope to make this valuable collection as accessible as possible while making new connections throughout the professional music world.

References

• Arranger Sammy Nestico. Personal interview, January 22nd, 2004.
• Mirtle, Jack. Personal correspondence, December 23rd, 2003.
• The concert was held in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City on December 21st, 2003