Bill Finegan

Bill Finegan towers among the premier arrangers of the big-band era, masterminding classics for bandleaders Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey before teaming with fellow arranger extraordinaire Eddie Sauter to found the pioneering Sauter-finegan Orchestra. Born in Newark, NJ, on April 3, 1917, Finegan studied trumpet as a teen and toured with an award-winning high-school jazz combo -- Dorsey was so impressed with his arrangement of "Lonesome Road" that he recommended him to Miller, who hired Finegan in 1938. Finegan's arrival coincided with the struggling orchestra's return to New York City and Miller's decision to refine its sound, instructing new lead clarinetist Wilbur Schwartz to hold the melodic line while tenor saxophonist Tex Beneke played the same note, with harmonic support from three other saxophones. Finegan was instrumental in enabling Miller to crystallize this radical, richly appointed approach, and in September 1938 he arranged the orchestra's breakthrough RCA Victor hit, "Little Brown Jug." Virtually everything Miller recorded over the next year and a half bore Finegan's stamp, and as time went by, the famously humorless bandleader grew so confident of his cohort's abilities that he extended to Finegan the latitude to write and arrange whatever material he so chose.

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