Frank Cordell (musician)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Cordell (1918-1980) was an accomplished British music composer, arranger and conductor. He was also actively involved with the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Sometimes he wrote music under the name Frank Meilleur or Meillear. Frank was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, his father was a respected medical doctor who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War. Frank had two sisters, and a brother who was a professional musician. Frank's brother wrote music for some of the Hammer Horror productions filmed at Pinewood Studios. As a young teenager Frank worked briefly in the cotton mills in the Midlands for a family relative before returning to London. Frank entered a city wide London music contest and won a Melody Maker poll at the age of 17 for the most promising Jazz pianist of 1935. This enabled him to secure a job as a sound man in one of the prestigious London film studios.

When the Second World War broke out Frank enlisted in the RAF and trained as a radio navigation opperator, flying Vickers Wellington in British Bomber Command. In his time between dangerous flying "ops" Frank was in constant demand entertaining his squadron with popular piano music in the mess. On completing his 33 ops he was transferred to flying stealth De Havilland Mosquito bombers on the run between Britain and the Middle East. While in RAF Middle East he was later assigned as bandleader with his own group of musicians and a small convoy of lorries to entertain the British troops in the Western Desert Campaign. He was then appointed music director of Forces Radio in Cairo. Among the friends and local Cairo artists he worked with was the singer Delores El Greco. From there he was assigned to a double role of music entertainment and intelligence work in Palestine. It is Palestine while music entertaining that he met his first wife Magda, who was a Hungarian refugee working for the British in translating intercepted wireless signals. Magda later became a well known "Brutalist" artist, and along with Frank was a participant in the This is Tomorrow Exhibit, and both were founder members of the Independent Group at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

Frank Cordell returned to Britain in 1947, resided in Barnstead, and joined the BBC as a composer, arranger, and orchestra conductor. Among the recording studios he used were the Abbey Road Studios, formerly the RAF sound studio, in Maida Vale, and the Aeolian sound studio in Bond Street, he also worked with George Martin. One of his early music hits conducting his own orchestra was called Sadie's Shawl, and another called Black Bear. Frank was noted in 1951 for his radio score of the historical drama The Gay Galliard, starring Valery Hobson as Mary, Queen of Scots. He worked with most of the well known performers and musicians of the day including Noel Coward, Charlie Chaplin, vocalists such as Alma Cogan and Ronnie Hilton, and the Jazz trumpet player Humphrey Lyttelton. In 1952 Frank was drawn to the cinema and made his music film debut. He also commenced composing music for many advertising commercials for film and TV. It is in this 1952/3 period that Frank and Magda Cordell established an artistic atelier at 52 Cleveland Square in London which they generously shared and artistically collaborated with the British Modern artist John McHale.

The McHale/Cordell atelier occupied three floors in a large Georgian row house in Cleveland Square. Frank used the top floor with his piano and large windows over looking the park as his music composing studio. John McHale occupied the large sky lit studio at the back of the atelier on the ground floor. Magda used the other large painting studio downstairs, which was also used by all three artist as a film studio. McHale used the downstairs film studio to produce his photograms for his Telemath collage series. There was also a separate downstairs workshop and photographic dark room. The living room on the ground floor was used for entertaining guests such as: Reyner Banham and other members of the ICA group, musicians, writers such as Eric Newby, dramatists such as Arnold Wesker, and international guests such as Buckminster Fuller, and Picasso's son. Frank made numerous tape recordings of Bucky Fuller. It is the atelier living room ,with window shifted right to left and stairs modified, that John McHale used to depict in his Pop art layout design of the This is Tomorrow poster collage Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?. Magda Cordell provided the Hamiltons access to McHale's private studio and the contents of McHale's famous black metal trunk containing McHale's original measured design and all the Pop art collage material which the Hamiltons and Mada used to cut out and paste up the collage. The actual cut out and paste up of the collage was done in the McHale/Cordell atelier living room at 52 Cleveland Square.

Frank Cordell had a wide knowledge of commercial entertainment and the media and it was this information and his insights that helped John McHale with his original concepts when he coined the term Pop art in 1954. Frank and Magda Cordell collaborated with John McHale on the This is Tomorrow Exhibit in 1956. McHale designed most of the Pop art installation at the TIT and provided the Pop art material. Some of the Pop art was in the form of readymades which McHale requested Frank Cordell to assist him access through his extensive media contacts. Frank accessed Robby the Robot, the Juke box, the film projector used for the endless reel of film depicting the British Navy Fleet at sea. Frank accessed the gramophone motor and installed the rotating rotor relief disc given to McHale by Marcel Duchamp in New York. Frank also installed on his own initiative the interactive microphone and electronic amplifier that provided cybernetic feedback of the ambient audience sounds at the TIT, and was the first example of an artistic "Happening" in Britain. Magda helped John McHale fetch Robby the Robot from the film studio, which was used to open the TIT. Magda along with Tery Hamilton blocked in with paint some of McHale's Op art designed dazzle panels that were positioned at the portals to the TIT. Frank and McHale also collaborated on the making of an architectural promotional film Hauptstadt Berlin in 1959 for the Smithsons, with commentary by Peter Smithson, which is available through the British Film Institute. In return, Alison and Peter Smithson designed a studio house on paper for the Cordells. Frank delivered several lectures at the ICA, including Gold Pan Alley, on the subject of commercial music, jazz and popular culture.

In 1955 Frank Cordell left the BBC to become musical director of HMV Records, known subsequently as EMI. He scored the music for the film The Captain's Table, 1959. In the early 1960's he divorced Magda who went with McHale to America. Frank married his second wife Anja who he met on film location in Japan while doing the music score for Flight to Ashia in 1962/63. He wrote the theme music for the spy adventure directed by Robert Lansing called The Man Who Never Was 1966-67. Frank wrote The White Mountain introductory music for the science fiction film Mission of the Darains, 1975. Frank Cordell composed over twenty major music scores including: The Voice of Merril 1952, First on the Road 1957, The Rebel starring Peter Sellers 1961,The Bargee 1964 , Never Put It In Writing 1964, Khartoum 1966, Mosquito Squadron 1959, Ring of Bright Water 1969, Hells Boots 1970, Cromwell 1970, Trail by Combat 1976, God Told Me To (Demon in the USA) 1976. Between his film scores Frank Cordell wrote concert hall works including the Concerto for Cello, the Concerto for Horn, a wind quartet entitled Interplay; also pieces for saxophone quartet, Gestures and Patterns, and mood miniatures such as Production Drive. He wrote choral music for the Choir of King's College, Cambridge ; and an arrangement for strings of the English air Oh Dear What Can the Matter Be, available on Guild GED5104. He was nominated for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for his feature film score of Cromwell, 1970. Frank was involved in several experimental and documentary films. These included a surrealist film made in Yugoslavia in 1957 with McHale and his three sons and Arnold Bittleman the Yale trained artist . Frank Cordell also wrote the score for the documentary film Tiger Tiger 1977. Frank Cordell appeared in the Fathers of Pop interviewed by Reyner Banham in a 1970's TV documentary on the origins of British Pop art. Frank retired with his wife Anja, and David their son, to their sheep farm in the English countryside where they kept open house to many of Britain's leading artists and musicians including the Beatles. Frank Cordell was an outstanding person, courageous, debonair, discreet, multi-talented, kind to a fault, and well remembered by those who knew him. Frank Cordell died in Hastings in 1980. Some believe Frank has gone to entertain his old crew in the Large Hangar in the sky, perhaps playing one of his signature tunes from The Melody Lingers On. Frank Cordell's original manuscripts now reside in the archives at the Trinity College of Music in London.