Sauter, Eddie (actually, Edward Ernest)

Sauter, Eddie (actually, Edward Ernest ), jazz arranger, composer, trumpeter; b. Brooklyn, N.Y., Dec. 2, 1914; d. Nyack, N.Y., April 21, 1981. Sauter originally played drums, studied at Columbia Univ., and played and arranged for the Columbia Blue Lions. He next played trumpet with bands that worked on Atlantic liners. He traveled extensively throughout Europe, then settled in N.Y. He worked with Archie Bleyer in 1932 and also for a brief spell with Charlie Barnet, while he continued studying arranging and composition at the Juilliard School of Music. Sauter played trumpet and, occasionally, mellophone with Red Norvo in late 1935, but he was active mainly as Red’s staff arranger until June 1939; at this point, he began arranging regularly for Benny Goodman. Sauter scored for many big bands during the 1940s, including Woody Herman and Tommy Dorsey; he also worked briefly as staff arranger for Ray McKinley. After three long spells in the hospital (suffering from a lung ailment), he joined with pianistarranger Bill Finegan to form the Sauter-Finegan Orch. in 1952. The band was originally a studio unit, but later did tours and residencies before disbanding in 1957 (Finegan revived the band in N.Y. in 1987). Sauter then worked in Germany as musical director for Sudwestfunk radio until autumn 1958. During the 1960s, he continued composing and arranging, including the striking album Focus, which set improvising by Stan Getz and Roy Haynes against written string parts; he scored the film Mickey One (1965), also with Getz. Sauter was less active in the 1970s, and he died in 1981.

Discography

Sound of Sauter-Finegan (1952); New Directions in Music (1952); Inside Sauter-Finegan (1953); Sons of Sauter-Finegan (1954); Concert Jazz (1954); Under Analysis (1956); Adventure in Time (1956); Straight Down the Middle (1957); Inside Sauter-Finegan Revisited (1961).

—John Chilton , Who’s Who of Jazz/Lewis Porter