Don Raffell was an American saxophonist, woodwind doubler, studio musician and educator. Raffell recorded on hundreds of records, movies, and T.V shows dating from the 1940s all the way through the 1990s. His career as a studio musician was long and stylistically diverse having started in the big band era and playing all the way up through rock n' roll and other modern pop era acts. He had a long time close professional association with arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle.
Early life
Don Raffell was born and raised in a musical family in Washington D.C. where both he and his brother took up musical instruments. He learned the clarinet and then moved onto the saxophone and flute, he learned to play trumpet and flugelhorn also. Early on his greatest influence on the saxophone was Lester Young and then later Stan Getz.
Professional career
Raffell got his first start with the Charlie Spivak orchestra in 1940 where he would meet long-time friend and professional colleague, trombonist and arranger Nelson Riddle. During the 1940s and early 1950s Raffell would tour and record extensively with Spivak and then later with the Artie Shaw Orchestra with whom he recorded on several of the bands famous RCA recordings. He would move to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s after the Spivak band had made an appearance on the 1944 Betty Grable movie Pin Up Girl. Raffell also toured and recorded with numerous other big bands/acts of the time to include Benny Goodman, Sonny Burke, Johnny Burke, Charlie Barnet, Louis Armstrong, Ray Conniff, and Mel Torme. His tenure with the Burke Orchestra was the one of the most positive for him of any of the touring bands from that era. Raffell eventually settled in the city ofSherman Oaks in Los Angeles County near the studio music scene of Burbank and Hollywood.
As a jazz saxophonist Raffell's natural style was patterned after Lester Young and Stan Getz; his solos on records of Sammy Davis Jr. and Anita O'Day show this side of his playing. Raffell is also heard on early R&B, pop, rock n' roll records of groups like The Platters where he achieves sounds more like Earl Bostic with growls and scoops which is a complete switch from Young and Getz. Raffell's versatily as a soloist was impressive and wide ranging. He is probably most well known for his recordings for Time-Life Records where he impersonates Stan Getz and Herschel Evans. He also recorded and performed with jazz artists Gerald Wilson, Mel Torme and Nancy Wilson throughout the 1960s and Singers Unlimited during the 1970s; Raffell is on numerous Grammy nominated, winning recordings.
As educator
Throughout Raffell's music career he kept a private music studio at his home in Sherman Oaks; he was well known in Los Angeles as one of the main woodwind and jazz artists to study with. The list of students who studied with him is long and are prominent in the music industry. Those names include Roger Ingram, , , , Stan Yamaguchi, Luis Bonilla, Jack Cooper, , , , and numerous others living around the country.
