As a youth, he was recognized as an extraordinary talent and formed a traveling duo with Danny Polo, a musical prodigy on the clarinet and trumpet from nearby Clinton, Indiana. As a student at Garfield High School in Terre Haute, he played with several theater bands.
Thornhill entered the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music at age 16. That same year he and clarinetist Artie Shaw started their careers at the Golden Pheasant in Cleveland, Ohio with the Austin Wiley Orchestra. Thornhill and Shaw went to New York together in 1931.
Claude went to the West Coast in the late 1930s with the Bob Hope Radio Show, and arranged for Judy Garland in Babes in Arms.
In 1935, he played on sessions for Glenn Miller's first recordings under his own name, as Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. He played on Glenn Miller's composition "Solo Hop," which was released on Columbia Records.
After playing for Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Ray Noble, Glenn Miller, and Billie Holiday, and arranging "Loch Lomond" and "Annie Laurie" for Maxine Sullivan, in 1939 he founded his Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Danny Polo was his lead clarinet player. Although the Thornhill band was originally a sophisticated dance band, it became known for its many superior jazz musicians and for Thornhill's and Gil Evans' innovative arrangements; its "Portrait of a Guinea Farm" has become a classic jazz recording.
The band played without vibrato so that the timbres of the instruments could be better appreciated, and Thornhill encouraged the musicians to develop cool-sounding tones. The band was popular with both musicians and the public; the Miles Davis Nonet was modeled in part on Thornhill's cool sound and use of unconventional instrumentation. The band's most successful records were "Snowfall," "A Sunday Kind of Love" and "Love for Love."
His most famous recording, "Snowfall," was released in 1941 as Columbia 36268. He released the song also as a V-Disc recording, as V-Disc 271A1.
Playing at the Paramount Theater in New York for $10,000 a week in 1942, Thornhill dropped everything to enlist in the US Navy to support the war effort. As chief musician, he played shows across the Pacific Theater with Jackie Cooper as his drummer and Dennis Day as his vocalist.
In 1946, he was discharged from the Navy. Then in April, he reformed his ensemble. He kept his same stylistic lines, but added some Bop lines to it. He got his old members of Danny Polo, Gerry Mulligan, and Barry Galbraith back together, but also added new members like Red Rodney, Lee Konitz, Joe Shulman and Bill Barber. Barber was a tuba player, who was considered as a "soft brass" player rather than a bass as to not interfere with (Joe) Shulman on the bass. Their creative and immaculately clean and delicate interpretation of Evans’s arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie’s fast bop theme "Anthropology" (1947) provides a particularly noteworthy example of Thornhill’s style, which influenced Miles Davis’s recordings in 1949 for Capitol and many musicians who followed .
In the mid 1950s, Thornhill was briefly Tony Bennett's musical director.
He offered his big band library to Gerry Mulligan when Gerry formed the Concert Jazz Band, but Gerry regretfully declined the gift, since his instrumentation was different. A large portion of his extensive library of music is currently held by Drury University in Springfield, Missouri.
After his discharge from the Navy he continued to perform with his orchestra until his death of a heart attack at 1:30 a.m., July 2, 1965, at his home in Caldwell, New Jersey. Claude was booked at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the time, the engagement was kept in his honor with his music director in his place. He was survived by his wife, actress Ruth Thornhill, and his mother, Maude Thornhill (81 at the time), of Terre Haute, Indiana, still active at the time conducting choirs.
Claude Thornhill's compositions included the standard "Snowfall", "I Wish I Had You", recorded by Billie Holiday and Fats Waller, "Let's Go", "Shore Road", "Portrait Of A Guinea Farm", "Lodge Podge", "Rustle Of Spring", "It's Time For Us To Part", "It Was A Lover And His Lass", "The Little Red Man", "Memory Of An Island", and "Where Has My Little Dog Gone?"
In 1984, Claude Thornhill was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.
You Were Meant for Me
Claude Thornhill Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Nature patterned you and when she was done
You were all the sweet things rolled up in one
You're like a plaintive melody
That never lets me free
For I'm content the angels must have sent you
And they meant you just for me
Nature patterned you and when she was done
You were all the sweet things rolled up in one
You're like a plaintive melody
That never lets me free
For I'm content the angels must have sent you
And they meant you just for me
The song "You Were Meant for Me" by Claude Thornhill expresses a deep sense of connectedness and destiny between two people. The opening line, "You were meant for me, I was meant for you" establishes the idea that their match was predetermined, as if it was a part of nature's plan from the beginning. The repetition of "Nature patterned you and when she was done" reinforces the idea that the person was carefully crafted by greater forces.
The chorus further explains the connection they share, with the person being described as "all the sweet things rolled up in one" and their presence with the singer being like a "plaintive melody" that "never lets me free". The use of the word "plaintive" indicates a sense of longing and sadness, implying that without the other person, the singer would feel incomplete.
The final lines, "For I'm content the angels must have sent you / And they meant you just for me" tie together the belief in destiny with a spiritual element. The idea that the angels sent this person specifically for the singer suggests that their love is not just a coincidence, but rather a part of a greater plan.
Overall, the lyrics reflect a deep romantic connection between two people that they believe was destined to be. The use of natural imagery and spiritual language adds a poetic and timeless quality to the song.
Line by Line Meaning
You were meant for me, I was meant for you
Our destinies were intertwined and we were fated to be together
Nature patterned you and when she was done
You were created perfectly by nature
You were all the sweet things rolled up in one
You embody all the desirable qualities I could ever want
You're like a plaintive melody
Your presence in my life is like a beautiful, haunting song
That never lets me free
I am constantly captivated by you and cannot escape your hold on my heart
For I'm content the angels must have sent you
I feel at peace knowing that you were divinely sent to me
And they meant you just for me
You were meant to be mine and mine alone according to a higher power
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: ARTHUR FREED, NACIO BROWN, NACIO HERB BROWN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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