Axel Stordahl

Axel Stordahl
Axel Stordahl at rehearsal with Frank Sinatra, Liederkranz Hall, New York, c. 1947.
Background information
Born	(1913-08-08)August 8, 1913 Staten Island, New York
Died	August 30, 1963(1963-08-30) (aged 50) Encino, California
Associated acts	Tommy Dorsey Frank Sinatra
Notable instruments
trumpet

Axel Stordahl (August 8, 1913 – August 30, 1963) was an arranger who was active from the late 1930s through the 1950s. He is perhaps best known for his work with Frank Sinatra in the 1940s at Columbia Records. With his sophisticated orchestrations, Stordahl is credited with helping to bring pop arranging into the modern age.

Stordahl was born in Staten Island, New York to Norwegian immigrant parents. He began his career as a trumpeter in jazz bands which played in several dance bands around Long Island and the Catskills during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He also began arranging around this time, and in 1933 he joined Bert Bloch's orchestra in both capacities. Over the next couple of years, Stordahl sang on the side in a vocal trio dubbed the Three Esquires.

In 1935, he joined Tommy Dorsey's new orchestra and soon became the band's main arranger. In January 1940, Sinatra joined the group as vocalist, and it became apparent that Stordahl's arrangements were particularly well suited to the singer's voice.

In January 1942, Stordahl arranged Sinatra's very first commercial solo recordings (which appeared on the RCA Records sub-label Bluebird), and when Sinatra left Dorsey seven months later to go solo, Stordahl went with him. In the subsequent decade, Sinatra cut close to three hundred sides for Columbia Records, of which three quarters were arranged by Stordahl. In addition, Stordahl provided the orchestral backings, both as arranger and conductor, for several hundreds of songs in various Sinatra radio shows. He was the credited orchestrator for the 1945 Academy Award-winning picture Anchors Aweigh which starred Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.

Stordahl was admired for his skills in framing Sinatra's voice, creating a soft, opulent sound with swirling strings, understated rhythms and woodwinds. He was one of the first American arrangers to tailor his work to the vocal qualities of a specific singer. When Sinatra moved to Capitol Records in 1953, Stordahl arranged his first recording session there (which produced four songs). From then, however, Sinatra worked extensively with Nelson Riddle, who cultivated his jazz-oriented qualities, as well as Gordon Jenkins, Billy May, Don Costa, Neal Hefti, Quincy Jones, and others.