WOODY HERMAN, BANDLEADER, DIES AT 74 - NYTimes.com
WOODY HERMAN, BANDLEADER, DIES AT 74
Published: October 30, 1987
Woody Herman, a musician from Milwaukee who led one of the most varied, durable and successful of the big bands, died yesterday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 74 years old.  Mr. Herman was suffering from congestive heart failure, emphysema and pneumonia, according to a hospital spokesman. Mr. Herman was admitted to the coronary intensive-care unit there on March 26 after suffering from effects of medication taken for high-altitude sickness during a tour through Colorado and Utah, his manager, Tom Cassidy, said.
Over the course of a career that lasted half a century, Mr. Herman led a succession of ensembles - generally calling each one his ''Thundering Herd'' - in a wide spectrum of popular music from blues to bop to rock and beyond.
The songs most closely associated with Mr. Herman include ''Woodchoppers' Ball,'' ''I've Got the World on a String,'' ''Apple Honey,'' ''Summer Sequence,'' ''Four Brothers,'' ''Caldonia'' and the group's theme song, ''Blue Flame.'' Mr. Herman conducted the band, played clarinet and saxophone, and sang in a light baritone voice that was warm and musical and slightly bluesy.
''Year by year, there have been certain basic consistencies in Woody Herman's so-called Thundering Herds,'' John S. Wilson wrote in a 1980 review for The New York Times. ''The level of musicianship has been high, the age level has been low, the turnover in personnel has been frequent and, primarily because of the last factor, some of his orchestras have been better than others.''
''Although Herman's instrumental expertise was considerable, his essential importance was as an organizer,'' Michael James wrote in the New Grove Dictionary of American Music. ''His rare ability to assemble and sustain bands notable both for their solo and collective qualities grew especially clear in the late years of World War II, when his group typically combined brilliant improvisation with exuberant and incisive ensemble playing (this was the band for which Stravinsky composed his 'Ebony Concerto'). The harmonic procedures of bop influenced Herman's next orchestra even more deeply, confirming his freedom from jazz's current sectarianism.'' Financial Problems
Mr. Herman had had financial problems in recent years. In August, he was threatened with eviction from his Hollywood Hills, Calif., home because he could not pay the rent. He had lost the house in a 1985 Internal Revenue Service auction to recoup $1.6 million in back taxes assessed against him. He had continued to rent from the man who bought it.
Mr. Herman's fans and friends raised more than $70,000 toward the tax debt and to pay $4,600 in back rent. More than 1,200 jazz enthusiasts, including many musicians and singers, attended a tribute to Mr. Herman last week in West Los Angeles. Proceeds were given to the Woody Herman Tribute Trust Fund.
Mr. Herman was the model of the nomadic, hard-working professional musician, an unflappable craftsman who played for many thousands of people each year, at black-tie supper clubs or small-town dances, in Carnegie Hall or a rock auditorium. ''Every night a new town,'' he told an interviewer in 1968. ''Only time we get to settle in for a while is when we play Las Vegas, in one of the lounges, for a couple of weeks twice a year. The rest of the time, we have to keep moving. And we move. You know that.'' 'Boy Wonder'
Woodrow Charles Herman was born in Milwaukee on May 16, 1913. While still a child, he appeared in a vaudeville act as ''The Boy Wonder of the Clarinet,'' and he made his first record, entitled ''Sentimental Gentleman From Georgia,'' at the age of 16. He studied at the Marquette University School of Music for one year, then moved to California, where he joined the Tom Gerun band as featured singer and instrumentalist. In 1934, he joined the Isham Jones band; when the group broke up in 1936, Mr. Herman used its leading sidemen as a nucleus for his own orchestra.
The resulting ensemble was called ''The Band That Plays the Blues'' and Mr. Herman took the name literally, playing and recording many blues-influenced selections. In 1939, ''Woodchoppers' Ball,'' based on a simple, infectious blues riff, became a great success; it remained the band's most requested number for almost 50 years.
After some changes in personnel -the bass player Chubby Jackson joined the group in 1943, the arrangers Neal Hefti and Ralph Burns, the tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips and the trombonist Bill Harris signed on in 1944 - the group, now known as the Thundering Herd, became celebrated for the energy, precision and high spirits of its playing. Played Stravinsky Work
Having heard that Igor Stravinsky enjoyed the group's music, Mr. Herman commissioned him to write a piece for the Herd. The result, ''Ebony Concerto,'' was first performed at Carnegie Hall in 1946, to mostly unfavorable reviews.
''I think it's a complete gem, a work of art,'' Mr. Herman said years later. ''It's now being used as an academic piece in music schools throughout the country. But we had no more right to play it than the man in the moon had. For Stravinsky it was a challenge to write for this ridiculous combination of instruments. He had no desire to write jazz or anything like it and the work should never have been judged a jazz piece.''
Mr. Herman disbanded his original ensemble in 1946, but founded a second Herd the following year. This group included such splendid improvisers as the baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff and the tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. It was one of the most daring of the big bands, peppering its commercial sound with elements of bop.
''The Herds kept coming,'' George T. Simon wrote in his book ''The Big Bands.'' ''The Third followed the Second, the Fourth followed the Third, and so on. In the early 60's, he was fronting still another Herd. Don't ask me what number this one was. All I know is that it too was great, one of the most startlingly original outfits I'd ever heard.'' Added Amplified Sounds
In the late 60's, Mr. Herman and a new, electrified ensemble played on a triple bill with two rock bands at the Fillmore East; the appearance was poorly received by both audience and critics.
But Mr. Herman continued to play amplified music, combining it with the traditional big-band sound. In 1976, members of several Herds joined Mr. Herman and his current band at Carnegie Hall in a celebration of his 40th anniversary as a bandleader. In 1986, he released an album entitled ''Woody Herman and His Big Band 50th Anniversary Tour.''
Wherever the band would play, it was inevitably asked for a performance of ''Woodchoppers' Ball.'' ''I've been sick of it for 20 years,'' Mr. Herman once said. ''But it's been such a big number for us that I really shouldn't knock it.''
He is survived by a daughter, Ingrid Reese of Hollywood Hills, and two grandchildren.
Photo of Woody Herman (Camera Press)