Lucien Schmit (1898-1976) Schmit first performed publicly at the age of 7 in Paris and became a member of the St Louis Symphony Orchestra at 13. He was a native of Louvaine, Belgium, but migrated to the US in 1909. He became first cellist in the New York Symphony Orchestra in 1921 under Walter Damrosch. During the 1930's he was active in radio musical programmes. He was musical director of The Royal Typewriter Hour and for 20 years was featured on such programs as The Telephone Hour, the Firestone Show, the Longines Symphonette programme and The Prudential Family Hour.
George Koutzen (1926-2009) Pick up a random Charles Mingus recording and chances are good you will hear Koutzen on the cello. This versatile musician also had the music of John Blow and Henry Purcell on his resume.
Between 1937 and 1954, he was a member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini. In 1954, he appeared on the live album, Marian McPartland at the Hickory House. He fittingly was included in the 1957 compilation, Modern Jazz Hall of Fame. A recording he made with Bill Harris and Jack Nimitz in the 1950s, entitled The ABC Paramount Harris-Nimitz Sessions, was never released, although there are murmurs that it may be released on CD one day.
In 1961, George returned to his classical roots in a performance at Judson Hall in New York for a programme consisting of J S Bach’s “Trio Sonata” from his Musical Offering.
In 1963, he took up the conductor’s reins for the Rockland Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until 1974. In between, he still managed to record Who Can I Turn To with Tony Bennett in 1964 and perform live with the New York String Quartet. In 1972, he recorded Morning Star with Hubert Laws. It was around the time his tenure with the RSO ended that he played on Tabernakel.
In 1975, he performed a trio concert with Inez and Nadia Koutzen. In 1979, he was one of myriad session pros on Frank Sinatra’s boxed set, Trilogy. He stepped into the movie studio in the early eighties for soundtrack work on an early Demi Moore film entitled Choices.
It should be of little surprise that he is on a variety of Charles Mingus CDs. Other CDs on which you can hear George’s cello stylings nclude a pair of Rupert Holmes anthologies, as well as classical fare such as Purcell and Blow.
Jesse Levy Levy is a primarily New York-based cellist who performed on multiple Sesame Street albums in the 1970s. He has backed up George Benson, Peggy Lee, Bette Midler, Barbara Cook, Carly Simon, Lou Rawls, Paul Simon, Lena Horne, and Gloria Estefan. He performed on film soundtracks for Fame, The Wiz, Pocahontas, and Everyone Says I Love You. Levy made an on-camera appearance in Small Time Crooks as a church cellist.
George Ricci (d 2010) Ricci was one of the great American cellists, and, like many great musicians, his family was musical. His brother was the great violinist Ruggiero Ricci and his sister Emma was a violinist with the Metropolitan Opera.
Born in California and raised by Italian immigrants, George and Ruggiero performed together as child prodigies. A wonderful recording of Brahms’ “Double Concerto in A minor” for violin, cello and orchestra features the two brothers with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Kurt Masur. They also performed the concerto at Carnegie Hall.
George Ricci resided for a great part of his life in New York City and was one of the most in-demand cellists in the concert and movie industry. Early on he won a scholarship to study with Alfred Wallenstein, principal cello of the New York Philharmonic. Next, his journey continued with the famed cello teacher Dirian Alexanian, who was assistant to Pablo Casals. In 1937, Alexanian moved to New York and taught in New York City. Among his prize students was Ricci.
Ricci’s versatility was outstanding. In addition to being a classical virtuoso, he was a cellist in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra when the young Frank Sinatra first came on board. “In fact, George was frequently mistaken for Sinatra by the young girls who would wait at the stage door after their gigs,” wrote his friend Greg Zayia. Ricci was also the cellist on many other Sinatra recordings.
Ricci became principal cellist with the ABC Orchestra in New York. In the heyday of recordings, spectacular players were needed who could sight-read new scores and sound tremendous on the first take. Ricci was such a virtuoso. He was legendary and his scintillating technique is still talked about by many great musicians who knew and heard him.
With cigarette in hand he would dazzle even the greatest of violinists, playing their works at breakneck speed with tremendous accuracy of intonation and artistic beauty on the more cumbersome cello. In fact, he could also pick up a violin, turn it upright like a miniature cello, and bedazzle everyone around him by playing virtuoso violin parts.
Ricci and the great violinist Arnold Aidus formed Stradivari Recordings, essentially for the preservation and distribution of their art. This kind of self-sustained recording venture was really ahead of its time.
Kermit Moore (1929-2013) A cellist, conductor and composer Moore was of African American heritage and was born in Akron, Ohio. While still in high school, he studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music. In Manhattan, Moore studied the cello with Felix Salmond at the Juilliard while simultaneously studying for a master's degree in composition and musicology at New York University.
Moore was one of the founders of the Symphony of the New World, the first racially integrated orchestra in the US. Together with his wife Dorothy Rudd Moore and others, he founded the Society of Black Composers. He was also a member and board member of the Musicians Club of New York.