Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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CAMARATA, Salvatore 'Tutti'

(b 11 May 1913, Glen Ridge NJ; d 13 April 2005, Burbank CA) Trumpeter, composer, arranger, conductor, music industry executive. The youngest of eight children, he attended Juilliard and Columbia University, then played for several bandleaders in the early 1930s including Charlie Barnet. He joined Jimmy Dorsey in 1936, who gave him the nickname 'Tutti'; he was also called 'Toots'. One source says he played lead trumpet for Dorsey, but he was concentrating on arranging by 1938: he wrote instrumentals ('Mutiny in the Brass Section') but also arranged some of the band's biggest hits ('Tangerine', 'Green Eyes'). He also wrote for Paul Whiteman and for Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall radio show; in the early '40s he formed his own orchestra for radio and records, as well as writing for the Casa Loma Band and for Benny Goodman. During WWII he was a flight instructor in the USAAF, and after the war immediately became a music director at American Decca, providing backing on records for artists including Crosby, and also on Billie Holiday's only chart hit, 'Lover Man' in '45.

At around that time American Decca became independent of its parent, Decca in the UK; Camarata went to England '48-50 and was music director for the London label, Edward Lewis's new outlet for UK pop in the USA (see entry for Decca), as well as working on film music for J. Arthur Rank. Then he was back at USA Decca, leading a very good house band called the Commanders, recording his own instrumentals as Toots Camarata and providing backing ('Music by Camarata') for the likes of John Raitt and Jeri Southern. His biggest chart successes included 'Shrimp Boats' with Dolores Gray, 'You Better Go Now' with Southern, and his own instrumentals 'Veradero' and 'Return To Paradise', all '51-3. His TV work included Together With Music, a broadcast with Mary Martin and Noel Coward.

He moved to California to work for Walt Disney, who wanted to start his own label, co-founding Disneyland Records and supervising the making of over 300 albums of soundtracks and other Disney stuff. Annette Funicello didn't think she could sing, and Disney's people want to overdub her, but Camarata fudged her voice by recording her with an echo, and when she heard the result she gained confidence. Camarata's own albums on Disney's Vista label, Tutti's Trumpets '57 and Tutti's Trombones a little later, were famous for the quality of their musicianship. The Disney recording enterprise was renting its facilities, and Camarata wanted to build a studio on Disney's lot to save money, but Disney wasn't interested, so Camarata founded Sunset Sound Recorders in 1960; it turned out Disney soundtracks such as 101 Dalmations and soon became a successful commercial studio, used by Miles Davis, Van Halen, Prince and other big names, and was still operated decades later by his son Paul. Camarata left Disney in '72, and in that decade conducted classical albums for the London label.