A short but intense piece by Howard Heitmeyer, it sounds like a lullaby of enchanting tenderness.
Howard Heitmeyer was born October 4, 1923 near Prescott, Arizona. He grew up in a family with two sisters and a brother. He never studied music or the guitar during his early youth which was spent living in distinct locales in different states as his father was a traveling salesman selling vacuum cleaners. Finally the family settled in Phoenix and there Howard grew up. When he was 18 he acquired a steel string guitar and started learning basic chords and rhythm playing.
At age 19 he went into the US Army where he spent over 3 years as an aircraft mechanic. Upon his release from the Army in 1945 he returned to Phoenix where he first worked in a drugstore while he continued to play and learn all he could about the guitar. By 1947 he was good enough to land a job in a Hawaiian band at a place called the South Seas in Phoenix. He then found employment working for the owner of two restaurant/clubs, the Gilded Cage and The Steakhouse. During this time in Phoenix Howard met and became friends with Howard Roberts (1929-1992), the famed jazz guitarist. They shared an apartment for a time before Roberts left for California in 1950.
Southern California in the early 1950’s still had a great number of clubs featuring live jazz, and Howard was able to hear many fine jazz guitarists which included Barney Kessel, Jimmy Wybel, Tal Farlow, Tony Rizzi and the great George Van Eps. He worked during these fifties years as a studio musician, playing on a diversity of recordings among which figured the popular “Fifty Guitars” series produced by Snuff Garrett. Howard played live gigs with a diversity of musicians which included the pianist/vocalist Bobby Troup. He also heard Andrés Segovia in concert on several occasions and this was a major influence for him.
Howard was not a "child prodigy". He never had a guitar teacher and no familial support. He made his way alone through his own intuitive efforts. He is the kind of person who can figure things out by himself (being a voracious reader helps). His experience with the guitar is one example of this. He learned how to do magic, particularly card tricks. And he also became a very sharp pool player. Then later in his life he spent a good many years mining for gold!
He became good friends with Frederick Noad (1929-2001) at this time. By 1962 Howard had grown totally dissatisfied and left the professional recording studio scene. The following year he began teaching at José Oribe’s guitar shop in Inglewood, California.
At Oribe’s he met Joe Torres who was very keen on bossa nova and asked Howard if he would make an arrangement of Jobim’s The Girl from Ipanema for him. The rest is history. Howard and Joe eventually formed a duo and enjoyed great success in concert and club performances in Southern California over several years. Another guitarist at Oribe’s, the astounding virtuoso Vince Macaluso (1941-2012), also performed in concerts with Howard. This teaching/performing part of Howard’s life lasted 32 years until 1995 when he “retired” at age 72. Hundreds of people studied with him and hundreds of arrangements were the result. This is the legacy of Howard Heitmeyer. With Howard we have both quality and quantity-652 listed titles to date with numerous ones either not located yet or not accessible.
His technique is not that of a flashy virtuoso. It is a technique that embraces correct voice leading, advantageous use of distinct keys, connectedness in the voices, use of open strings, and a harmonic vocabulary utilizing jazz and popular sources. And with one other very special characteristic: arrangements geared to a certain level of difficulty from easy to complex. His technical and creative skills allowed him to produce arrangements that were “tailor made” for students, crafting the level of difficulty to match a person’s playing ability. I think it somewhat paradoxical that it is more difficult to “get something down” that is interesting at the level of a beginner than to write a very difficult virtuosic arrangement. But an amazing fact about Howard is that he has made arrangements at all levels that are ingenious, satisfying and beautiful.
“Howard Heitmeyer's arrangements, particularly of the great popular songs
of the early 20th century, are remarkable for their authenticity of style and
harmony and for their playability. They are treasures.” David Leisner