Holmes, Johnny Orchestra - Montreal 17 piece Orchestra

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Close to You	02:51
	2	So Nice	02:33

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Wave	02:37
	2	Lollipops & Roses	02:40

Photos

Videos

No Video

Information/Write-up

The Johnny Holmes Orchestra: Jazz, Light Music, and CBC Broadcast Rarities
Johnny Holmes (John Joseph Harold Holmes, born in Montreal on June 8, 1916 – died there June 11, 1989) was a trumpeter, bandleader, arranger, and composer whose Orchestra became one of the cornerstones of Canadian jazz and light music. He picked up the cornet at the age of ten, studied briefly with C. Van Camp, and by 1940 had joined a cooperative band known as the Escorts. Within a year he had assumed leadership, renaming it the Johnny Holmes Orchestra, which he directed through 1950. The group held a Saturday night residency at Victoria Hall in Montreal that was broadcast nationally by CBC Radio, while also touring across Québec and Ontario. It became one of the city’s premier dance bands, admired for Holmes’ smooth arrangements and jazz sensibility, and for the steady stream of young musicians he identified and showcased. His Orchestra featured, at different times, Nick Ayoub, Al Baculis, Percy and Maynard Ferguson, Bud Hayward, Art Morrow, and the young Oscar Peterson. Singers Lorraine McAllister and Sheila Graham added further polish to the band’s sound.

Holmes’ mentorship was especially important in the case of Oscar Peterson, who joined the Orchestra at just seventeen. Holmes not only gave Peterson a professional platform but coached him on phrasing, swing, and presentation. He frequently featured the pianist with solo showcases such as “Dark Eyes” and even billed the group as the Johnny Holmes Orchestra with Oscar Peterson. Holmes also demonstrated conviction when he stood up to venues that objected to Peterson’s presence because of race, nearly losing a prestigious Ritz-Carlton booking in order to keep his pianist.

After retiring from music in 1951, Holmes returned in 1959 to front orchestras for CBC Radio. Throughout the 1960s he was heard regularly on programs like The Johnny Holmes Show and Broadway Holiday, blending Broadway sparkle, light music, and jazz into a polished orchestral style. Between 1966 and 1973 he recorded a total of six broadcast-only albums and singles for the CBC’s LM (Light Music) series. These were pressed in tiny quantities and distributed in plain stock sleeves, never sold commercially. Among them were two sought-after LPs — Johnny Holmes Orchestra – Ray Berthiaume and Margo McKinnon, vocalists (CBC LM-16, 1966) and Johnny Holmes Orchestra – Ray Berthiaume, vocalist (CBC LM-29, 1967). He then experimented with a brass-heavy ensemble under the name Brass Therapy, recording CBC LM-164 (1971, released 1973) with “Close to You,” “So Nice,” “Wave,” and “Lollipops and Roses,” and CBC LM-192 (1972), featuring For Once in My Life (arranged by Holmes), Love Story (trombone feature for Claude Blouin), Watch What Happens (guitar feature for Tony Romandini), and Lonely Is the Name. In 1972 Holmes also cut CBC LM-207, a 45 pairing Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” and Gene MacLellan’s “Put Your Hand in the Hand” with his own composition “Rainbow” and MacLellan’s “The Call.” His final entry came with CBC LM-266 (1973), a 45 featuring “Si tu parais” and “Alouette.”

As an arranger and composer Holmes was prolific, creating more than forty original songs, countless orchestrations, and extended works including The Fair City, a jazz suite dedicated to Montreal’s Expo 67. His career continued into the late 1970s, after which he retired permanently from music. He died in Montreal in 1989 at the age of seventy-three.

Johnny Holmes’ Orchestra provided a soundtrack for Montreal’s post-war dance and jazz culture and served as an important training ground for generations of musicians, including Oscar Peterson. The six CBC LM recordings — including the rare Brass Therapy projects and the overlooked 45s — remain vivid documents of Canadian broadcasting’s orchestral jazz output of the 1960s and 1970s.
-Robert Williston

Montreal 17 piece Orchestra:
Johnny Holmes: arranger, leader
Jack Shytyka: trumpet
Real Mathieu: trumpet
Denis Lagace: trumpet
Gilles Laflamme: trumpet
Claude Blouin: trombone
Gerard Vaillancourt: trombone
Joe Zuskin: trombone
Albert Devito: trombone
Gordie Fleming: organ
Tony Romandini: guitar
John Lanza: bass
Ronald Page: drums

Comments