Heinie Beau's Moviesville Jazz

Arranger Heinie Beau has been an interest of mine because of his association with Frank Sinatra, so several years ago I was pleased to find this pristine stereo copy of the only major label recording under his name.

Last year, Marc Myers of the JazzWax blog wrote about Beau and this record, and that article motivated me to pull the LP down from the shelf and to do a transfer - which I finally got around to finishing not long ago.

It's quite a good record, with Beau's compositions and arrangements using filmic set pieces as their starting points, e.g., "In Your Private Eye," "The Tattooed Streetcar Named Baby," "The Five and a Half Gallon Hat Story," "The Gina Pastrami Cha Cha Cha." Beau assembled two groups of Hollywood studio stars for the June 1958 sessions, which were quite well recorded.

Myers' article on the record has details both of the sessions and about Beau's work for Sinatra, which happened mainly as a subcontractor for better known arrangers such as Billy May. Heinie had a reputation for being both fast and talented - talents that are on full display here.

LINK to remastered version (July 2025)