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Raymond (Ray) Turner (15 March 1903, Kenosha, Wisconsin - February 1976, Hollywood, California) was an American pianist, session musician and recording artist.
The classically trained Turner, whose father Smith Turner was also a pianist, was a highly accomplished and versatile musician, fluent in a wide range of musical style and genres. Although he was mainly known to the record-buying public for the classical, novelty, children's and honky tonk recordings he made in the 1940s and 1950s, Turner's primary career was as a studio session musician in the golden era of Hollywood film, including a two-decade tenure as the staff pianist for Paramount Studios from 1927 to the late 1940s.
Turner studied piano with Bella Robinson, then studied accompaniment with Richard Hageman at Chicago Musical College, and with composer and teacher Frank La Forge, and then studied solo piano with noted Mexican pianist Ernesto Berúmen.
Turner became a prominent jazz pianist in the 1920s, and he spent two-years as the pianist in the renowned Paul Whiteman Orchestra from 1925 to 1927, participating in the group's tours of Europe and the U.S.
After leaving the Whiteman Orchestra in 1927 he was appointed as the staff pianist at Paramount Studios, where worked for over 20 years. After leaving Paramount, he became a freelance session musician, and went on to perform on the music soundtracks of many other prominent film and TV productions in a screen career that spanned more than four decades.
During his Paramount tenure, Turner frequently worked as an accompanist for the studio's musical stars, such as Bing Crosby, and he was pianist, either solo or as a member of the studio orchestra, on the musical soundtracks of dozens of Paramount productions.
Although he was generally uncredited during his long screen career, Turner's work has been regularly heard by millions of viewers thanks to his extensive work in film and TV, and he worked with many prominent screen composers, most notably Dimitri Tiomkin, with whom Turner became lifelong friends, and who Turner credited as having greatly assisted in his career.
Turner also occasionally appeared on screen as an accompanist, but was typically uncredited. He can be briefly seen at the piano in the 1935 musical comedy Millions in the Air , in a scene featuring Bob Cummings and Eleanor Whitney. Other notable (uncredited) soundtrack performances include playing piano for the soundtrack of cult musical fantasy film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. , and the silent-film-styled piano backing (playing music composed by William Lava) for the silent segments of the Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time", starring Buster Keaton.
One of Turner's most widely heard commercial recordings was his work as the featured pianist on the popular 1948 Capitol Records children's album Sparky's Magic Piano . During his commercial recording career he also collaborated with orchestra leader Victor Young and Brazilian composer Laurindo Almeida.
Ray Turner died in Hollywood, CA. in February 1976, one month short of his 73rd birthday.
Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé, known as Ferde Grofé was an American composer, arranger, pianist, and instrumentalist. He is best known for his 1931 five-movement symphonic poem, Grand Canyon Suite, and for orchestrating George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue for its 1924 premiere.
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian and American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in Saint Petersburg before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, after the stock market crash, he moved to Hollywood, where he became best known for his scores for Western films, including Duel in the Sun, Red River, High Noon, The Big Sky, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Rio Bravo, and Last Train from Gun Hill.
Frederick Charles Slack was an American swing and boogie-woogie pianist and bandleader.
Ned Washington was an American lyricist born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Nathaniel Shilkret was an American musician, composer, conductor and musical director.
Peter Nero was an American pianist and pops conductor. He directed the Philly Pops from 1979 to 2013, and earned two Grammy Awards, including the award for Best New Artist in 1962, as well as a total of 8 nominations.
The Eddy Duchin Story is a 1956 American biopic film of band leader and pianist Eddy Duchin starring Tyrone Power and Kim Novak. Filmed in CinemaScope, the Technicolor production was directed by George Sidney and written by Samuel A. Taylor. Harry Stradling received an Academy Award nomination for his cinematography. The picture received four nominations in total and was one of the highest-grossing films of 1956. Incorporating signature elements of Duchin's style into his own, Carmen Cavallaro performed the piano music for the film.
Marvin E. Ashbaugh was an American jazz pianist.
Sparky's Magic Piano is the second in a series of children’s audio stories featuring Sparky, an original character created for Capitol Records in 1947. Sparky is a little boy with an overactive imagination. His adventures involve inanimate objects which magically come to life and talk to him.
John Waldo Green was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, conductor and pianist. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger. His most famous song was one of his earliest, "Body and Soul" from the revue Three's a Crowd. Green won four Academy Awards for his film scores and a fifth for producing a short musical film, and he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. He was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Orchestra Wives is a 1942 American musical film by 20th Century Fox starring Ann Rutherford, George Montgomery, and Glenn Miller. The film was the second film to feature The Glenn Miller Orchestra, and is notable among the many swing era musicals because its plot is more serious and realistic than the insubstantial storylines that were typical of the genre. The movie was re-released in 1954 by 20th Century Fox to tie-in with the biopic The Glenn Miller Story.
Harrison Franklin Reser was an American banjo player and bandleader. Born in Piqua, Ohio, Reser was best known as the leader of The Clicquot Club Eskimos. He was regarded by some as the best banjoist of the 1920s.
Ernö Rapée was a Hungarian-born American symphonic conductor in the first half of the 20th century whose prolific career spanned both classical and popular music. His most famous tenure was as the head conductor of the Radio City Symphony Orchestra, the resident orchestra of the Radio City Music Hall, whose music was also heard by millions over the air.
Nadine Dana Suesse was an American musician, composer and lyricist.
Emmanuel Klein was an American jazz trumpeter most associated with swing.
Harry Barris was an American popular singer and songwriter. He was one of the earliest singers to use "scat singing" in recordings. Barris, one of Paul Whiteman's Rhythm Boys, along with Bing Crosby and Al Rinker, scatted on several songs, including "Mississippi Mud," which Barris wrote in 1927.
Richard Hageman was a Dutch-born American conductor, pianist, and composer.
The Old Man and the Sea is a 1958 American adventure drama film directed by John Sturges and starring Spencer Tracy. The screenplay by Peter Viertel was based on the 1952 novella of the same name by Ernest Hemingway.
Strike Up the Band is a 1940 American musical film produced by the Arthur Freed unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was directed by Busby Berkeley and stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, in the second of a series of musicals they co-starred in, after Babes in Arms, all directed by Berkeley. The story written for the 1927 stage musical Strike Up the Band, and its successful 1930 Broadway revision, bear no resemblance to this film, aside from the title song.
George Greeley was an Italian-American pianist, conductor, composer, arranger, recording artist and record producer who is known for his extensive work across the spectrum of the entertainment industry. Starting as an arranger and pianist with several notable big bands in the 1940s, he segued into the Hollywood radio scene, working on several nationally broadcast variety programs. After conducting an Army Air Force Band during World War II, he was hired by Columbia Pictures as a staff pianist and orchestrator. He worked as pianist on several hundred motion pictures, worked with many famous composers orchestrating their soundtrack compositions, and created original compositions of his own in several dozen movies. It was Greeley's hands that performed the piano parts that Tyrone Power mimed in The Eddy Duchin Story. Concurrent with his work at Columbia Pictures, George Greeley also worked at Capitol Records as music director, pianist, and conductor for many artists such as Gordon MacRae, Jane Powell, Jo Stafford, Frankie Laine, and Doris Day. He was hired in the late 1950s by the newly established Warner Brothers Records. George Greeley arranged, orchestrated and performed as primary artist for a series of hit recordings entitled "Popular Piano Concertos." As music tastes changed in the late 1960s, Greeley had already moved into television, composing themes and music for popular TV series like My Favorite Martian,The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,Nanny and the Professor, and Small Wonder. He performed as featured piano soloist and as guest conductor in concert appearances around the world. He died from emphysema at age 89 in Los Angeles, California.
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