Howard Cable dies...

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Howard Cable, composer, conductor, arranger, dies at 95
Article posted by Robert Rowat in Classical
http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2016/3/Howard-Cable-composer-conductor-arranger-dies-at-95
Howard Cable, the Canadian composer, arranger and conductor whose career spanned more than 70 years and included collaborations with Richard Rodgers, Ella Fitzgerald, the Canadian Brass, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Sharon, Lois and Bram (to name only a tiny fraction), died in Toronto on March 30 at the age of 95. The news was confirmed by CBC producer Carole Warren, a longtime friend of Cable, who describes him as "the most positive person I ever met.?"

The cause of death has yet to be specified, but according to Warren, Cable suffered a seizure eight weeks ago, recovered, and then suffered more seizures on March 30, which were fatal.

Remarkably, Cable was still an active musician. On Tuesday, March 29, he worked a full day writing and proofreading the encore number for his Symphony Nova Scotia concert slated for November 2016.

On Wednesday, March 30 -- the day he died -- Cable was to have attended a recording session for an arrangement of a song called "A Letter From Home," written by Jean Miso in commemoration of the battle of Vimy Ridge, whose final words are "Rest in peace."

Born in Toronto in 1920, Cable studied clarinet, piano and oboe and played in the Parkdale Collegiate Institute orchestra. He completed his music education at the Toronto Conservatory, studying with Ernest MacMillan, Healey Willan, Ettore Mazzolini and John Weinzweig.

His early career was centred on radio production, first at Toronto's CFRB and later CBC. He was music director of the radio show Canadian General Electric Hour from 1948 to 1954, and the TV program Showtime from 1954 to 1959.

In 1953 he began a long association with Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition as music director of the CNE Grandstand Show, which included a full symphony orchestra. "How good were these men?" wrote Cable in his blog, referring to the musicians in his orchestra. "The American agents (and the stars they booked for us) named it the best light orchestra in North America!?"

Cable had become the go-to conductor/composer/arranger for many ensembles and organizations. In the mid-'60s he worked as a studio conductor in New York and as an arranger for Broadway composers Richard Rodgers, Frank Loesser and Meredith Willson.? When Expo '67 was looking for somebody to organize its musical entertainment, it turned to Cable. The Canadian Brass engaged him in 1977 to write arrangements for them, a collaboration that lasted 20 years and resulted in 80 works.

Cable wrote a lot of music for CBC Radio and Television and 10 film scores for the National Film Board of Canada. He's probably best known for his light orchestral music, including arrangements and medleys of Canadian folk songs.
LISTEN

audio "Quebec Folk Fantasy" by Howard Cable
Edmonton Wind Ensemble
Harry Pinchin, director

Cable's solo piano arrangement of Delores Claman's "The Hockey Theme" (a.k.a. the theme song for Hockey Night in Canada) is included in the Royal Conservatory of Music's Grade 4 syllabus.

Cable was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 1999. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lethbridge in 2002.

He is survived by his partner, Lori Fox Rossi, and three children.
LISTEN

audio Howard Cable hosts CBC Radio 2's This Is My Music

Online tributes include the following by former Cable collaborators:

It's a sad day here at the office, but remembering our friend @HowardCable is a gift. He always had a great story. https://t.co/iDFOzN68cX
-- Symphony Nova Scotia (@SymphonyNS) March 31, 2016

-- Hogtown Brass (@HogtownBrass) March 31, 2016

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Howard Cable's musical legacy will live on
Toronto composer, arranger and conductor contributed to a wide range of orchestras and projects in career that spanned parts of nine decades.
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/04/10/howard-cables-musical-legacy-will-live-on.html

Howard Cable, seen here in 2007, was working up to the end, scheduled to attend a recording session the day he died.
Michael Stuparyk file photo / Toronto StarOrder this photo

By: Wayne Larsen Special to the Star, Published on Sun Apr 10 2016

Anywhere there was popular music in Canada, Howard Cable seems to have had a hand in it.

From Big Band standards in Toronto ballrooms to stirring ceremonial marches on Parliament Hill, the composer, arranger and conductor contributed to a wide range of orchestras and musical projects in a busy career that spanned parts of nine decades.

Retirement was out of the question. Cable died at his Toronto home at age 95 on March 30 -- the same day he was scheduled to attend a recording session. The previous day, he was reportedly working on a piece for a November concert with Symphony Nova Scotia.

Born in Toronto in 1920, "an era when people still travelled in horse and buggy, refrigerators ran on blocks of ice, there was cream floating on top of milk," as he put it, Cable's storied career goes all the way back to 1937. That was when the ambitious teenager formed Howard Cable and his Cavaliers -- a dance band that included future Front Page Challenge host Fred Davis on trumpet.

"From my home in Parkdale, it was a short walk down to the Palais Royale on the waterfront," Cable wrote of his inspirations during the Depression. "There we would be treated to the sounds of great bands like Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Charlie Spivak or Woody Herman -- live!"

He learned the rudiments of musical arrangement -- a crucial skill for composers and band leaders of the time. It wasn't long before he made the transition from a first gig at the Argonauts Rowing Club on Lake Shore Blvd. to the coast-to-coast airwaves of CBC Radio, where he spent six years as music director of the Canadian General Electric Hour, and eventually became a regular on Showtime, a staple of early Canadian television.

Cable's career took him to New York in the early 1960s, where he worked as an arranger for top names such as Richard Rodgers, as well as conducting orchestras for Broadway musicals. But despite a promising future on the Great White Way, Cable was lured back to Canada for a key position -- director of onsite entertainment at Expo 67 in Montreal.

Along the way, Cable found time to compose scores for the National Film Board and many Canadian stage productions.

Musician and author Binnie Brennan describes Cable as highly influential to thousands of Canadian musicians at all levels -- including countless high-school students who still play the pop medleys he originally arranged each year for the music department of North Toronto Collegiate Institute, back in the 1970s.

"Howard's medleys were a high point for all of us," said Brennan, who first encountered Cable's arrangements in high school and got to know him personally when she joined the viola section of Symphony Nova Scotia in 1989. "Truly, I cut my teeth on Howard's arrangements; I learned to read jazz rhythms and played repertoire I might never have encountered otherwise."

Brennan added that a key to Cable's musical longevity was his ability to stay current. "He was from the Big Band era, but the medleys I played in high school included Burt Bacharach, Beatles and Bee Gees," she said. "Howard had his finger on the pulse. He kept up with the times."

The memoirs of a musical contemporary of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman would be a natural subject for a book, but instead of dealing with editors, agents and the often arduous publishing process, Cable took an easier route. Through the prompting and help of blogger Lori Fox Rossi, he became a blogger himself -- at 92.

His blogsite, Howard Cable Remembers, contains a range of reminiscences. From the irony of witnessing a tipsy Gene Autry fall off his horse while singing Back in the Saddle Again to the thrill of Ginger Rogers asking him to arrange a song for her performance at the Royal York's Imperial Ballroom, Cable's anecdotes reflect his sharp sense of humour.

And while the honours and awards piled up over the years -- Cable was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1999 -- perhaps his greatest distinction came with a special commission from the Canadian government in 1986.

Every summer morning since then, at exactly 10 a.m., the regimental band strikes up Cable's composition The 10 Provinces March, made up of musical motifs from each province, moving east to west. It's the signature music of the traditional Changing of the Guard ceremony on Parliament Hill -- a long way from a makeshift bandstand on the Toronto waterfront.