Edwin Finckel: Profile of an Arranger/Composer Overlooked by Jazz Reference Books

Dieter Salemann

Edwin Finckel's name was written here and there as "Finckle" or something else. A letter from his wife, Helen, confirms the spelling used in this article.

Ed Finckel, the youngest of six children, was born in Washington, D.C., on December 23, 1917. His parents were Nell, the Irish-born, violin-playing mother, and his patent attorney cello-playing father. It really was a musical family; some of his sisters and a brother attended Eastman School of Music and became professional musicians.

But the parents didn't urge anyone, so young Edwin decided to learn the piano himself in the basement, with unconventional fingerings and reading not a note of music. Later on, he developed some technique, musical notation and composed music of all kinds, simply by listening to recordings and reproducing innovative solos by his idols -- jazz musicians such as Lester Young, Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum.

He was an accomplished tennis player, developed interest in visual arts and won a scholarship at Corcoran School of Art. But at age 18, he already had performed on Arthur Godfrey's radio show, as well as in Washington jazz clubs, such as the "Spotlight Club," together with his hero, Lester Young, when the Count Basie band was in town.

On the Road with Spivak

Dissenting with his sisters and brother, Finckle turned down a scholarship at Eastman School. Instead, he started his touring life on the road for nearly a year with Charlie Spivak and with the orchestra of Ralph Hawkins, a drummer who later was with Harry James' band in 1939.

Rejected by the army, he and his wife, Helen, (they were married in 1939) went to New York City, where Ed privately studied with innovators like George Antheil and Otto Luening. Life was difficult, the young newlyweds were hungry and Finckle was plagued by incurable migraines that would last for days, during which he would sit in a darkened room listening to Debussy. But when he felt fine, he went to the clubs on 52nd Street to jam with celebrities like Sarah Vaughn or Ben Webster.

Still, Finckel thought of being a jazz composer and/or arranger. Most people remember those sensational Finckle charts for the Boyd Raeburn orchestra. In his Boyd Raeburn discography, Jack McKinney wrote:...