Ferrante And Teicher
Piano duo Ferrante & Teicher were one of the best-selling easy listening acts of the 1960s, offering light arrangements of easily recognizable classical pieces, movie soundtrack themes, show tunes, and similarly compatible fare. Arthur Ferrante (born September 7, 1921, New York City) and Louis Teicher (born August 24, 1924, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) met while attending the prestigious Juilliard School of Music. Both were child prodigies, and they struck up a fast friendship, performing together as a duo even while they were still in school. After graduating as piano majors, they both joined the Juilliard faculty, while developing a distinctive style of their own during their free time. In 1947, they became a full-time concert act, at first playing nightclubs, then quickly moving up to classical music with orchestral backing. A switch to popular songs and standards by the likes of Kern, Porter, Gershwin, and Rodgers made them mainstays in the pops-orchestra field.
While they were enjoying success on the concert circuit, Ferrante & Teicher had been experimenting with treated pianos, influenced -- oddly enough -- by the ideas of avant-garde composer John Cage. By adding paper, sticks, rubber, wood blocks, metal bars, chains, glass, mallets, and other found objects to the string beds (among other techniques), the duo was able to produce a variety of bizarre sound effects that sometimes resembled percussion instruments, and other times produced a spacy, almost electronic sound. In the latter half of the '50s, they recorded several albums in this vein for Westminster (most notably 1956's Soundproof and Soundblast) and ABC-Paramount (including 1958's Blast Off!). The results were highly unique and quite different from their later work, appealing more to hi-fi enthusiasts and space-age pop fans.
In 1960, Ferrante & Teicher signed with United Artists, where they quickly began to tailor their sound to a more mainstream audience. Many of their subsequent albums featured orchestras conducted by Nick Perito, and their brand of instrumental pop caught on very quickly. They landed a Top Ten pop hit later in 1960 with "Theme from 'The Apartment'," and followed it with their biggest hit, an arrangement of Ernest Gold's epic movie theme "Exodus," which climbed to number two and inspired a popular jazz version by saxophonist Eddie Harris. 1961 brought another pop Top Ten with the West Side Story song "Tonight," which was featured on their highest-charting LP, the number ten West Side Story and Other Motion Picture & Broadway Favorites. A flood of Ferrante & Teicher albums followed over the course of the '60s, with around 30 of them reaching the pop charts up through 1972. They maintained a heavy touring schedule, playing over 100 concerts a year at the height of their popularity. They also managed one final Top Ten single in 1970 with their movie-theme cover "Midnight Cowboy"; the accompanying album of the same name found them experimenting a bit with strange guitar effects.
Ferrante & Teicher's voluminous recording pace tailed off during the '70s, although they did continue to put out albums on a regular basis. In 1979, they left United Artists to form their own label, and in 1989, they left the concert circuit for good, retiring to Sarasota, Florida. The lounge/exotica revival of the '90s helped renew interest in their experimental early recordings, and in 2001 led to the first-ever issue of Denizens of the Deep, a set of treated-piano instrumentals meant to evoke sea creatures that constituted their first recorded work. Dating from 1950, it had been scrapped in favor of an extensive concert tour. For the release, Ferrante & Teicher added a few simple embellishments to the archival recordings that completed their original concept for the pieces.
© Steve Huey /TiVo
Discography
20 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Santa´s Christmas Give-Aways, Vol. 9
Christmas Music - Released by Christmas Wonder on 1 Nov 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Last Time I Saw Paris
Pop - Released by Hit that Record on 1 Aug 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Latin American Adventure
Classical - Released by Music Manager on 4 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Exodus And Other Popular Favourites
Film Soundtracks - Released by Foyer on 1 Jan 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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X-Mas Favorite Songs
Pop - Released by Beat Sneackers on 1 Nov 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Xmas Hi-Fivories (Original Album 1954)
Miscellaneous - Released by Season's Greetings on 1 Jan 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beyond the Blue Horizon
Pop - Released by Jazz Focus on 31 Oct 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Xmas Hi-Fivories! (Remastered)
Christmas Music - Released by RevOla on 30 Nov 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Theme from the Motion Picture "Goodbye Again" (Billboard Hot 100 - No 85)
Pop - Released by Music Manager on 5 Nov 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Smile (Billboard Hot 100 - No 94)
Jazz - Released by Music Manager on 5 Nov 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ferrante and Teicher Play Light Classics
World - Released by TP4 Music on 6 Jan 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lisa (Billboard Hot 100 - No 98)
Jazz - Released by Music Manager on 5 Nov 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Themes From Broadway Shows
Pop - Released by Leverage on 1 Jan 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -