Phil Moore

Phil Moore and John O. Levy, c. 1947

Phil Moore (February 20, 1918 – May 13, 1987) was an African American jazz pianist, orchestral arranger, band leader, and recording artist.

Biography

Phil Moore was orphaned and placed in a county hospital in Portland, Oregon. He attended the Cornish School and the University of Washington in Seattle. When Moore was 13, he played piano at speakeasies^[1] and small venues of Portland.^[2] Later, he supported Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra,^[3] Bobby Short, Marshal Royal, Irving Ashby,^[4] Julie Wilson, Gene Sedric,^[5] Les Hite, and Helen Gallagher.^[6] He arranged big-band music for the Tommy Dorsey and Harry James orchestras.^[7]

In 1946, he played the role of a band leader in a short B-grade film, Stars on Parade.^[8] About this time, his relationship with Dorothy Dandridge helped bring her success in a nightclub singing career.^[9]

Phil Moore worked at MGM and Paramount studios as an arranger. He worked on scores for over 30 films, although rarely receiving screen credit, presumably due to his race.^{[citation needed]} These included Ziegfeld Girl, Dumbo, Three Cheers for the Boys, Panama Hattie, Presenting Lily Mars, Cabin in the Sky, the 1944 production of Kismet, and This Gun for Hire.^[10]

During the late 1940s Moore toured with his group, the Phil Moore Four (Marty Wilson, Jimmy Lyons, Milt Hinton, and Johnny Letman). From the late 1950s until his death, he was active in teaching singing and stagecraft, and gained a wide reputation in the grooming and coaching of aspiring black and white singers; he started a school in New York named "For Singers Only".^[11]

In 1953, he recorded two bebop Christmas songs for RCA Victor: "Blink Before Christmas" and "Chinchy Old Scrooge".^[12] Created in the heyday of the "beat" era, these songs were thick with 1950s hipster lingo, in the style of jazz-based pre–rap songs. This recording has become a rare collector's item.^[13]

Discography

Moore's recordings include:

• Fantasy for Girl and Orchestra
• Moon Mist Blues, Discovery LP
• Portrait of Leda, Columbia LP
• Music for Moderns, Clef 635
• Polynesian Paradise, Strand SLS 1004
• Moore's Tour, MGM 3752
• New York Sweet, Mercury SR60763

As sideman

With Gil Fuller

• Gil Fuller & the Monterey Jazz Festival Orchestra featuring Dizzy Gillespie (Pacific Jazz, 1965)

References