Hemmenway, Todd

Cellist whose early recording credits include Frank Sinatra’s 1979 boxed set, Trilogy, and Elmer Bernstein’s soundtrack of the 1981 Bill Murray military comedy, Stripes.

On 4^th December 1981, under the umbrella of the South Bay Chamber Music Society, he performed as a member of the Pro Arte Ensemble a program ranging from Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann to 20^th-century British composer Benjamin Britten.

He also performed cello duties on the Milton Nascimento-Sarah Vaughan collaboration, Brazilian Romance, released on CD in 1987. In 1991, he did another Brazilian turn on Joao Gilberto’s self-titled album, Joao.

He also has quite a few credits on Shirley Horn albums, beginning with 1992’s Here’s to Life: The same year found him performing in the string section on the Wilson Phillips album, Shadows and Light. In 1994, he re-united with Shirley Horn on the jazz compilation, ‘s Marvelous – The George Gershwin Songbook, went Latin again on Dionne Warwick’s Aquarela do Brasil, and lent his signature to the Nancy Wilson valentine, Love, Nancy. He celebrated the Yuletide with David Foster on The Christmas Album and appeared on Roch Voisine’s Kissing Rain in 1995.

In 1996, he made the cut on the Sarah Vaughan retrospective, This is Jazz #20. Albums on which he appeared in 1997 included Ottmar Liebert’s Leaning into the Light and Luis Miguel’s Romances. In 1998, he again found himself paired with Shirley Horn on Jazz ‘round Midnight and accompanied Neil Diamond on The Movie Album – As Time Goes By. The players remained the same in 1999: He appeared on a pair of Shirley Horn albums, Quiet Now – Come a Little Closer and Ultimate Shirley Horn and, for those with short attention spans, Neil Diamond’s The Best of the Movie Album.

These turns on Neil Diamond’s movie albums turned out to be a prelude to much of the work he would do in the new millennium, when he became heavily involved in the movie studio. Soundtracks on which he has performed include: Antwone Fisher, The Bourne Supremacy, Bulletproof Monk, Cats & Dogs, Constantine, Dark Water, Dreamcatcher, Dreamer, Elektra, Identity, Inside Man, The Island, The Italian Job, Jarhead, The Last Samurai, National Treasure, Peter Pan, The Punisher, Scary Movie 3, and Under the Tuscan Sun.

It seems improbable with that filmography that he has had time to record anything else, but he has appeared on some non-movie CDs, including Harry Connick, Jr.’s When My Heart Finds Christmas, Mary Haskell’s Inspired: Standards – Good for the Soul, Frank Sinatra, Jr.’s That Face!, But Beautiful: The Best of Shirley Horn, and Send in the Clowns: The Very Best of Sarah Vaughan.

Here is Wilson Phillips performing “You Won’t See Me Cry” which Toss performs cello on…

Sources:

Hemmenway, Todd

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