The Lone Arranger

Onzy Matthews is noted for where he puts notes

By Al Brumley Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News

Published November 14, 1996

Onzy Matthews' musical career sprang from eight bars of music.

As an aspiring singer, pianist and composer in 1963, a young Mr. Matthews gave his first professional arrangement to Les Brown for a tryout with the Band of Renown.

"It was really a catastrophe," Mr. Matthews recalls.

When it was over, Mr. Brown took the young man aside and asked him if he had heard anything he liked.

"I told him there were eight bars that sounded good," says Mr. Matthews, a Fort Worth native raised in Dallas. "And he said, `You take those eight measures and you throw away everything else, and you go from there.' "

Mr. Matthews took that advice and went on to become one of the most sought-after arrangers in jazz and pop music. His 35-year career has included collaborations with the likes of Ray Charles, Lou Rawls, Lionel Hampton, Herb Alpert and, most notably, Duke Ellington.

Now living in Dallas, Mr. Matthews is still writing and arranging, and he'd like to find a regular gig in town as a big-band leader. But it remains to be seen whether a city not known for its love of jazz will welcome a native son who has become a recognized master of the genre.

"I'm becoming well-known for something I really don't want to do," Mr. Matthews says. "I don't want to be sitting at a bar, playing piano and singing. I want to be doing something with a band. I think Dallas would support that, but it has to be done right."

Doing it right has been a trademark of Mr. Matthews' career. He knew early on that music was his calling. But answering that call took grit and determination.

" `OK' is not good enough," he says, speaking softly and deliberately. "I learned early on that when I said it was OK, I was cutting corners."

Mr. Matthews lived in Dallas until he was 14, when his mother pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles for a better job. He won't say when he was born, because he doesn't like to dwell on age. "If people start reminding me of that, I might worry about it too much," he says.

In Los Angeles, Mr. Matthews augmented his early gospel roots with healthy doses of smooth California jazz and big-band music. He graduated from high school at 16 and had already decided he wanted to sing. Nearly every day he walked to a nearby park, where he could play piano for hours in the recreation building.

"I taught myself to accompany myself on piano," he says, "and then I found out that you had to have arrangements."

He attended Westlake College of Music, where he studied ear training and harmony. "I started singing with the dance band, so that's where I started getting information about arranging," he says.

After several years of performing, attending concerts and asking questions, Mr. Matthews had 21 original songs arranged for big band.

"I had met Dexter Gordon, and I called Dexter up and I said I wanted to start a band," Mr. Matthews says. "He says, `Oh, Onzy, you gotta have at least 20 arrangements.' I say, `I've got 21.' "

Mr. Gordon was dubious and decided to teach the young upstart a lesson.

"Dexter called the best musicians in Hollywood and asked them to come to this rehearsal," Mr. Matthews says. The "lesson" Mr. Gordon had planned turned into a weekly jam session as the musicians kept returning to play the new kid's music.

"That went on for five months,every Wednesday," Mr. Matthews says.

As word spread, Mr. Matthews found himself being courted by record labels to work with their artists. His first major arranging job was on Lou Rawls' album Black & Blue, which he describes as "a rebirth for Lou Rawls."

Working with many of the musicians from the weekly rehearsals, Mr. Matthews recorded his first album in 1964, Blues With a Touch of Elegance, for Capitol Records.

About a year later, with his career in full swing, so to speak, Mr. Matthews was a guest on a New York radio show hosted by Mercer Ellington, Duke Ellington's son.

"He says, `If I can do anything for you, let me know,' " Mr. Matthews says. "I say that I'd like to be introduced to his father. And he says, `Oh, that's easy.' " The two men hit it off but wouldn't begin working together for another four years.

But for the first time in his career, Mr. Matthews found himself stymied. "I just couldn't rearrange those songs," he says. "I told him {Duke}, `I grew up listening to those songs - I can't do it.' And he didn't speak to me for six months."

Mr. Ellington eventually welcomed Mr. Matthews back into the fold, and Mr. Matthews became one of the Duke's main collaborators, helping fill the void left by Billy Strayhorn's death. Besides his prodigious arranging work, Mr. Matthews is listed as a co-writer on two Ellington tunes, Just a Gentle Word From You Will Do and Mexicali Brass.

Jeannette Brantley, a noted jazz singer living in Dallas, says Mr. Matthews has succeeded by paying attention to the artists he works with.

"He tailors the arrangements according to your empathy as an artist," Ms. Brantley says. "There are many arrangements out there, but Onzy goes a step beyond and listens to the artist . . . and he tailors it to that performer. He brings out of you, with his arrangements, some things that you don't know you have, and some arrangers, they'll just take a song and arrange it as to their perception of it, never taking into account the person they're arranging it for. And I think that's why the Duke worked so many years with Onzy."

When Mr. Ellington died in 1974, Mr. Matthews played piano in the Ellington band for a while. He moved to Seattle in 1974 and put together a big band, which he led for three years before returning briefly to Texas and New York. Feeling restless, he moved to Paris in 1979 and lived there for the next 14 years.

He put together yet another big band, did some trio and solo playing and even found work as an extra in the movies. He and Miles Davis both appeared in the movie Dingo in 1993. In the film, Mr. Matthews plays a trumpeter in a nightclub scene.

Mr. Matthews returned to the States in 1993 to work on a project with Mr. Ellington's widow and was drawn back to Texas by the death of his mother in 1994.

For now, he's living in a small apartment in East Dallas on royalties and credit cards. He's had a few gigs in the Dallas area but remains frustrated by the lack of opportunity.

His main preoccupation these days is a project called "We Remember You," a night of free music and dining he's trying to organize to recognize longtime Dallas natives.

"There are people living around Fair Park in the same houses as when they were kids," he says. "They've lived there through all sorts of improvements that have never touched them. We can't do anything about that, but we can do something for them. We've got to show them that for the first time, all the important people feel that something like this is important."

And there's always the prospect of the next big hit. He recently recorded a demo for Herb Alpert and also pitched the song to George Benson. It's a smooth, Latin tune called Macarena that has nothing to do with the dance craze of the same name.

When asked how many songs he's written, Mr. Matthews pulls out a suitcase filled with sheet music and says, "I've got twice as much in the closet. So how many tunes have I written? I don't know."

Dallas jazz `genius' dies

Onzy Matthews worked with greats such as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis

By Al Brumley Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News

Published November 23, 1997

Onzy D. Matthews, a Fort Worth native and noted jazz and big-band arranger who worked with such musical giants as Miles Davis and Duke Ellington, has died. He was 67.

Mr. Matthews, who was raised in Dallas, was found Nov. 15 at his typewriter in his East Dallas apartment by jazz singer Jeannette Brantley and her husband, Hans Wango.

Ms. Brantley said she and her husband had become concerned when Mr. Matthews didn't return their telephone calls.

The cause of death was hypertensive and arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, said Bob Breckenridge, a field agent with the Dallas County medical examiner's office. The last day Mr. Matthews was known to have been seen alive was Nov. 13, Mr. Breckenridge said.

Mr. Matthews was primarily a self-taught musician, although in an interview with The Dallas Morning News last fall he said he once studied ear training and harmony at Westlake College of Music.

At 14, he moved with his mother from Dallas to Los Angeles, where he immersed himself in the local jazz scene. He began arranging in his late teens and recorded his first album, Blues With a Touch of Elegance, in 1964 for Capitol Records.

By then, he had already arranged an album for Lou Rawls and had worked with such jazz luminaries as Les Brown and Dexter Gordon. He would go on to work with such stars as Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton and Herb Alpert.

In 1969, Mr. Ellington needed new arrangements for his singer, Frank Link, and recruited Mr. Matthews. The two men worked together until Mr. Ellington's death in 1974.

Mr. Matthews then played piano in the Ellington band for a short time before moving to Seattle to form a big band. He traveled the country awhile and moved to Paris in 1979, where he led big bands and even appeared as a trumpeter with Miles Davis in the 1993 movie Dingo.

He returned to Dallas in 1994, where he kept busy writing and looking for a big band to lead, Ms. Brantley said.

"He was telling me he wanted to take the big-band sound into the 21st century with more modern arrangements," she said. "He was a major figure in music. He's in every library across these United States and across Europe. Arranging, composing, writing - he was a genius. " In the interview last fall, Mr. Matthews expressed frustration at not being able to find any big-band work in Dallas.

"I don't want to be sitting at a bar playing piano and singing," he said. "I want to be doing something with a band. I think Dallas would support that, but it has to be done right. " Ms. Brantley said she and her husband found a poem in Mr. Matthews' typewriter that he apparently was working on when he died.

"I don't know if he had written the music to it or not, but it was called `Out There,' " she said. "If you read it, you'll know that Onzy knew he was going to die. " Ms. Brantley said she plans to read the poem at Mr. Matthews' funeral.

Visitation will be noon to 8 p.m. Monday at Cedar Crest Place Funeral Home, 4830 S. Lancaster Road in Dallas. The funeral will be there at 11 a.m. Tuesday, and burial will follow at Lincoln Memorial Park.

The funeral home listed no survivors for Mr. Matthews.

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