Catherine Howe – What A Beautiful Place

wow someone just bought an original for $1666! more words

While rock and pop most often focuses on the front people, there was a time when great orchestras and fine arrangers were much in demand and fully appreciated. Gradualy they were pushed more and more into the background, while orchestra records now are more often associated as being of minor importance and for second hand shopping for pennies, and with easy listening kitsch. But times have been different. Catherine Howe must have had the right feeling and connection for this. Besides, her favourite record was Burt Bacharach’s “the look of love”.

Through CBS, she came into contact with the manager of their independent partner from Reflection Records, Andrew Cameron Miller. He immediately understood the idea, and invited the, in that time, musical director and arranger, -now more known as a jazz man-, Bobby Scott, to be the producer. Bobby Scott is a man, who, once with the idea, was completely dedicated and a perfectionist. The arrangements for the album made the album in fact a really perfect and beautiful to listen to musical concept, where the songs almost fit in with the music, (and not the reverse), and work like one harmonious pair. Scott’s idea to add a prologue (with spoken word on orchestrations), an interlude and an epilogue gives you the feeling there has only been one big composition.

No less an orchestra than the London Symphony Orchestra was hired, with some session musicians, like Stan Gorman on drums, Mike Ward on bass, Lance D’Owen on guitar. The costs were high and the project was ambitious, but the unexpected happened: CBS didn’t want the album, so only a few copies were print for media purposes. The critics were very positive, but some unrelated problems of the manager with the boss of the company meant that with the final departure of Miller, the album had to go with him.
It took four years but then Paul Rich heard the recordings of the first LP. He offered her a new deal for RCA, which would lead to her next album, “Harry”...