Revised 1/17/2011 7:06 AM by Susan McKeever

BIO OF JOHN GRAAS, FRENCH HORN PLAYER, COMPOSER, & ARRANGER

 The first thing most people do not know about John is that he was born on March 14, 1917, not October 14, 1924, as reported everywhere.  He died on April 13, 1962. So when he died he was 45, not 37. He was christened John Jacob Graas, Jr. His parents names were: Susan Apel (Birch-second husband) and his father was John Jacob Graas, Sr. Both parents were born in Luxembourg and emigrated to the United States before settling in Dubuque Iowa.  His mother Susan was a very talented pianist and had perfect pitch.  John toured with the National Woodwind Ensemble for a year following high school graduation in June 1934.  Then he became a member of another touring group, a concert band led by the noted cornet virtuoso and conductor, Bohumir Kryl.  John was impressed with the University of Missouri at Columbia when they were touring around colleges with that group.  He became a student there and during that time commuted from Columbia to Chicago to study with Max Pottag of the Chicago Symphony.  In June 1940 he received a scholarship to the Tanglewood camp at the Berkshire Music Center and studied there with Willem Valkenier, principal horn with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he received detailed study. 

In September 1941 he became a member of the Mozart Festival Orchestra, conducted by Thor Johnson.  In September 1941 John received notice of a scholarship to Juilliard School of Music but a month later he turned down the Julliard scholarship to perform as first horn with the Indianapolis Symphony.  After one year, he left the orchestra because he wasn't playing as much as he would have wished.  Around that time he married Jane Neal, a harp student at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo.  John left classical music for a brief time when in May 1942, he became a member of the Claude Thornhill cool bop big band.  He recorded several songs which featured him, such as "Buster's Last Stand" and "Lullaby in the Rain".  Then it was back to Tanglewood under Koussevitsky.  John signed a contract in June of 1942 to play Principal Horn with the Rochester Civic Orchestra to begin in September of 1942 but just before leaving for Rochester, John was drafted into the Army in August of 1942. In the Army he spent the most time with the 145th Army Ground Forces Band in Virginia.  He began composing, arranging, and conducting there. His earliest known arrangement was "Atlantic Zephyrs" for solo horn with military band accompaniment.  His earliest works reflect the influence of Kryl's cornet virtuoso playing.  At Camp Pickett, Graas began studying improvisation.  John graduated as Band Leader from the U.S. Army Music School.  He finished out service in the Army Air Corps.  He gained the respect of his fellow servicemen for his playing and musicality.  He worked with Lloyd Otto, another French horn player at Keesler Airforce Base. 

After discharge, Graas became a member of the Mark Warnow band, playing at the Capitol Theater in NY City.  He also played with the NBC Studio Orchestra, the Lucky Strike Hit Parade Band, and the Hall of Fame Band conducted by Paul Whiteman.  He became a very successful commercial horn player in NY city.  He also frequently heard Parker and Gillespie play bebop at Minton's Playhouse.  During this time, John began to study with Lennie Tristano (listed in Leonard Feather's book Encyclopedia of Jazz).  But in June 1945 Graas was offered a contract with the Cleveland Orchestra with Erich Leinsdorf.  This was to be his last symphony job.  He had problems there matching tone with James Stagliano and felt too controlled by Leinsdorf and wanted more freedom of musical expression.  He felt that only playing and improvising jazz would give him freedom.  After one season with Cleveland, he became a member of the Glenn Miller-Tex Beneke swing band.  There he became friends with trombonist Paul Tanner.  During recording sessions, John's accuracy was so great that some of the guys in the band would buy him drinks if and when he missed.  His friends tried to get him to miss (more money for a longer recording session), but John didn't go along with it.  He got frustrated with not enough chance to do solo work, and left in 1949 to become part of Stan Kenton's Innovations orchestra.  With Kenton, Lloyd Otto said John would hit high "E" entrance notes night after night, never missing. Kenton featured John on a track entitled "John Graas".  John started becoming noticed in the press. On the West Coast now, he became friends with Shorty Rogers, who he began studying with and then Rogers suggested he start studying with Rogers' teacher, Dr. Wesley LaViolette. Graas did do that and felt he learned about musical form from LaViolette, even though LaViolette did not teach jazz per se.  After two seasons with the Kenton band, Graas began to do a lot of work with recording studios, working with Shorty, Louis Bellson, and Gerry Mulligan.  John began to record his own original compositions and arrangements on the Decca label.  One of the first of these was his "Trends in Jazz" album.  In the early 1950's John played with the Liberace TV Orchestra for one year and when that show was canceled John stayed with the orchestra conducted by George Liberace.  Chico Hamilton invited John to join his quintet but he could not because he was under contract with Liberace. Graas appeared in Liberace's movie "Sincerely Yours".  During the 50s Graas began to appear in various jazz polls, often winning top honors.  After the Liberace orchestra, he returned to film and recording studios.  One movie was "Dementia" with music written by George Antheil, and arranged by Shorty.  The second movie was "Private Hell 35", with music by Leith Stevens.  He also did some recording for "The Wild One".  In 1954 he wrote the TV score for "Keep the Peace", a series about real-life police investigations.  This was scored for horn and guitar.  The soundtrack was recorded by Graas and Laurindo Almeida. He recorded with Henry Mancini music for "Peter Gunn" and "Mr. Lucky".  He also recorded with Frank Sinatra, June Christy, the Dizzy Gillespie Story, and others. Between 1955 and 1961, he received honors from Metronome, Down Beat, and the Playboy Magazine All-Star polls. One of Graas's greatest honors was to receive a commission by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thor Johnson to write a symphony for the 1956 Popular Music Festival.  Unfortunately John did not complete the work in time.  However, when John later finished the Symphony, the Radio Stuttgart Orchestra did perform the symphony in October 1956.  At that point a fight began over publishing rights between the German publisher and the Cincinnati Symphony.  The work was performed by the Beverly Hills Symphony Orchestra with Herbert Weiskopf conductor, John on jazz horn,  Paul Horn, Bud Shank, Dave Madden, Bill Green, Paul Moer, Buddy Clark, etc.

John was now a respected jazz composer, arranger and performing artist.  In 1958 the New England Conservatory of Music presented a program of jazz compositions which included some of John's works.  In 1958 he was elected to ASCAP.  He began working with Universal Studios, where he was first horn, and studying and later teaching jazz arranging at Westlake College in LA.  He marched with Top Hatters for the Rose Bowl Parade and was a member of the LA Horn Club. 

When Graas was found dead in 1962 he was slumped over the horn he loved so much, apparently of a heart attack.  He was survived by his wife and two sons. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

The two major influences upon Graas' compositions were the use of European classical forms as taught by Dr. LaViolette and the elements of West Coast cool jazz. Henry Mancini felt John was a pioneer in the application of French horn to jazz and felt his music and playing had a probing quality. John wrote about his composing in an Oct. 1957 issue of "Jazz Today".  Summed up, he said he would write only what he could honestly hear, that form was very important to him, and that jazz was ready for a linear concept and perhaps the beginnings of atonality.  He incorporated Tristano's concepts of cool jazz into the West Coast style.  In 1950 he wrote the Chaconne in C Major, which he revised in 1955 and expanded. On the Jazz Studio3 and 4 LP,  Mulliganesque and Rogeresque were written in honor of Gerry Mulligan and Shorty Rogers.  John Graas wrote the first Jazz Symphony & was a pioneer in the use of the French horn in Jazz.

Bibliography: Doctoral dissertation on “John Graas” by Verle Ormsby, Jr. and numerous other sources.