20/05/2025
Sophisticated Harmony
The lives and music of six great British arrangers
Oliver Lomax
Foreword by Dick Walter
Arrangers were once the backbone of the music business. They were the ones behind the scenes – the archetypal backroom boys – who spent hours in solitude, often working to crushing deadlines, scribbling notes onto score paper which would subsequently be heard in myriad contexts: behind a singer or vocal group; or as an accompaniment to comedians, variety acts, all types of pop group, contestants on gameshows … You name it, and the arrangers had to be able to score it, in any style and for any instrumental combination – for TV, radio, documentaries, films, theatre, records – and it always had to be good and delivered on time. In other words, they had to be completely flexible and utterly professional.
“Arrangers are the people who can transform a single, frequently uninteresting line of music into a glorious, unforgettable, and transformative aural experience,” explains the arranger Dick Walter in the Foreword to ‘Sophisticated Harmony,’ a new book in which Oliver Lomax pays tribute to the arrangers’ art, focusing on six British arrangers who worked on London’s thriving music scene of the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. “They provide all the accompanying material: the rich string chords, the punchy brass figures, the swirling saxophones, the intricate woodwind figures, the interesting contrapuntal lines – and they often change the rudimentary chords initially provided into whatever suitable harmonic material the job calls for.”
Each arranger featured here had his own niche. Ronnie Hazlehurst became synonymous with television through his role as the BBC’s Music Advisor to the Light Entertainment Group. So too did Anthony Isaac, though his specialist area was drama. Trevor Bastow and Steve Gray both built up large catalogues of library compositions, while Gray’s skill as a big band writer enabled him to pursue a separate career in Europe. After working in the American television industry, Dick Doerschuk came to London where he spent two decades arranging for TV and radio. And major artists on both sides of the Atlantic benefitted from Peter Knight’s brilliant orchestrations, among them the Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, and Harry Secombe. Drawing on interviews with their closest family, friends, and colleagues, Oliver Lomax builds up a picture of not only the arrangers themselves, but also the circumstances that shaped their musical development.
Moreover, there is insight into the rigours of writing music for television – especially the BBC’s prodigious light entertainment output – as well as radio, documentaries, and recorded music libraries, including interviews with session players, technicians, and producers who were involved in these areas.
This, then, is a vivid account of a fascinating era of music-making, given from the arrangers’ perspective – the people who were at the heart of the music business and the wider entertainment industry.
‘Sophisticated Harmony’ specifications:
• Publisher: Vocalion Books
• 282 pages
• Foreword by Dick Walter
• Hardback and paperback editions
• ISBNs: 978-1-9996796-3-7 (hardback) / 978-1-9996796-4-4 (paperback)
• Fully indexed
• Includes a 28-page photo section containing both colour and black-and-white images, many of which are previously unpublished.
