Elliot Lawrence born 14 February 1925

Elliott Lawrence Broza (February 14, 1925 – July 2, 2021), known professionally as Elliott Lawrence, was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. 

Elliot Lawrence Broza was born in Philadelphia. His father, Stan Lee Broza, helped found WCAU radio in Philadelphia, and his mother, Esther Broza, wrote for radio. In 1927, his parents started a children’s variety show, “The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour,” which ran on radio and later on television until 1958. Elliot Broza made his musical debut at 3 on his parents’ radio show. He later contracted polio and, while living with his grandparents in Atlantic City, did exercises to regain the strength in his hands. At 12, he founded his first group, the Band Busters, which played on radio and at dances and included 14-year-old clarinet virtuoso Buddy DeFranco, who became a major jazz star. 

After studying classical piano throughout his youth, Lawrence entered the University of Pennsylvania at 16. As the student director of the marching band, he recruited musicians from nearby military units to fill its ranks and then arranged Penn fight songs in the popular swing-music style of the time. Lawrence, who dropped his last name because he didn’t want to cash in on his parents’ broadcasting fame, was 19 when he graduated with honours from Penn in 1944. 

Beginning in 1945, Lawrence was the leader of the house band of Philadelphia’s WCAU radio, where his parents were longtime fixtures. With many groups disbanding during World War II because musicians were being drafted, Lawrence filled the gap and was heard on nationwide radio broadcasts before he turned 21. (He was exempt from military service because of severe asthma.) 

After the war, he moved to New York, reorganizing his band into a forward-thinking ensemble that combined the modern jazz sounds of bebop with elements of classical music: It was almost certainly the only jazz orchestra with an oboe, bassoon and French horn. Lawrence may not have had as large a following as other bandleaders, such as Woody Herman and Count Basie, but he recorded a number of well-received albums, toured the country and fostered the careers of many prominent musicians and arrangers, including Gerry Mulligan, Al Cohn, Red Rodney and Johnny Mandel. The band Lawrence fronted from about 1949 to 1951 was called the Elevation band after a boppish tune he and Mulligan wrote, which became a minor jazz classic. 

                             

“His big band recordings of the late 1940s and 1950s had superb post-war optimism and freshness, especially when playing Gerry Mulligan arrangements,” jazz critic Marc Myers wrote in an appreciation of Mr. Lawrence on the JazzWax website. “His bands were always tight, well rehearsed and loaded with the best

musicians.” He broke up his touring band in 1956, when it became financially untenable because of the rise of rock-and-roll. Another reason, Lawrence told the Pennsylvania Gazette, a University of Pennsylvania alumni magazine, was that one of his musicians approached him and said, “El, I’m sorry to tell you this, but out of the 16 guys in the band, 14 of them are junkies.” 

Since the early 1950s, Lawrence had worked for CBS as a bandleader and conductor for various radio and television productions. In 1959, he accompanied “The Ed Sullivan Show” to Moscow for one of the first entertainment programs broadcast from the Soviet Union. On the trip, Lawrence met Marge and Gower Champion, who were acclaimed Broadway dancers and choreographers. "During the tour,” Mr. Lawrence recalled in 2009 to the Pennsylvania Gazette, “Gower came to me and said, you’ll do TV the rest of your life and no one will know who you are. Why don’t you come back with me and do my next show?’ That’s how I got the gig as music director for ‘Bye Bye Birdie.’ ” 

He also received a Tony nomination for his work on the hit musical and then in 1961 moved on to “How to Succeed in Show Business Without Really Trying,” with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. He did however win a Tony Award for best conductor and musical director for “How to Succeed in Business,” which ran on Broadway for more than three years. While working in television, he won multiple Emmy Awards and was the conductor and arranger for musical specials featuring performers such as Plácido Domingo, Patti LaBelle, Anita Baker, Ann-Margret, Joel Grey, Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick. 

Lawrence won his last Emmy Award in 2013, in his 46th and final year as music director of the Tony Awards. He also directed the musical portions of the Kennedy Center Honours several times between 1993 and 2005. He died July 2, 2021 at the New York Presbyterian Hospital.He was 96.

(Edited from The Washington Post)