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Creator
Boras, Tom
Call number
JPB 11-6
Physical description
5.25 linear feet (21 boxes)
Preferred Citation

Tom Boras Scores, JPB 11-6. Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Repository
Music Division
Access to materials
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Tom Boras was a composer, arranger and saxophonist. His scores contain compositions and arrangements for jazz big band, and other music including pieces for orchestra, chorus, chamber groups, songs and a musical.

Biographical/historical information

The composer, arranger, and saxophonist Tom Boras grew up in Chicago. He started studying piano at age seven, and the saxophone and clarinet at nine. He discovered jazz at an early age, and was the featured soloist with the Chicago Suburban High School Jazz Ensemble.

In 1962, Boras was awarded a full scholarship to the Stan Kenton Clinics at Indiana University, where he met the composers Morgan Powell and Dee Barton. Powell and Barton recommended that he study performance and composition at North Texas State University. There, Boras played baritone saxophone, bass clarinet and flute in the North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band for three years and recorded three albums with the band from 1967-1969. Two of his arrangements, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat by Charles Mingus and Ol' Five Spot by Charles Lloyd, were recorded for those albums.

Following his graduation from North Texas, Boras toured as a performer and arranger with a rhythm and blues group, after which he was hired to play on Woody Herman's band, a stint which lasted ten months. Boras recorded one album with the Herman band, Light My Fire, in October of 1970. He was forced to leave Herman when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served as a performer, composer and arranger with the prestigious North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Band of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

After an honorable discharge from the service, Boras used the G.I. Bill to study with the composer/theorist George Russell at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. There, he completed a Master of Music degree in composition in 1973. During his time at NEC, Boras taught and performed with the faculty there and at Berklee College of Music, among them Alan Dawson, Tom McKinley, Jaki Byard, Ray Santisi, Herb Pomeroy, Ted Pease, Andy McGee and the Paul Fontaine/Jimmy Mosher Orchestra.

Boras moved to New York in 1976 and in the same year received a National Endowment for the Arts Award in Jazz Composition. He also received a full scholarship to attend Columbia University, where he received his doctorate in composition in 1986.

Boras wrote for and recorded with the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Orchestra, Dave Liebman, the Buddy Rich Orchestra, the Dave Stahl Big Band and the Dalton Gang. He served as composer/arranger for Servisound Music Productions for three years, producing music for advertising and films. In addition, he performed extensively on recording dates, Broadway theater orchestras and in local jazz venues.

In 1985, Boras was appointed director of the New York University Jazz and Contemporary Music Studies program. Alongside his academic work, Boras maintained a professional career in performance and composition. He worked as a free-lance performer in many different ensembles, and wrote the music for an off-Broadway play, Jack's Last Ride, based on the life of Jack Kerouac. He also wrote the music for Signs and Wonders, a musical which was produced at New York University in 2000. In 1994 he released a CD of his work, Three Houses, and, in 2001, finished One Couple, a three-movement work for two pianos. Boras's final project was the completion of his book, Jazz Composition and Arranging. He died on March 12, 2003.

Source: "Tom Boras," accessed May 27, 2011,

Scope and arrangement

The Tom Boras scores contain Boras's compositions and arrangements. Most of these are for jazz big band and feature Boras's compositions as well as his arrangements of music by Dave Liebman, Charles Lloyd and Gerry Mulligan, among others. The collection also contains music for chorus, orchestra, concert band, chamber groups, piano, violin, and several pieces with unique instrumentations. In addition, there are songs Boras co-wrote with several lyricists; a musical, Signs and Wonders; music Boras wrote for commercial advertising; and unfinished sketches.

The collection also contains a single open-reel tape with no content listing or other information. Inquiries regarding this item may be directed to the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound (rha@nypl.org). Audio materials will be subject to preservation evaluation and migration prior to access.

The Tom Boras scores are arranged in two series:

  • Series I: Compositions for Jazz Big Band
    1962-1993

    This series contains Boras's compositions and arrangements for jazz big band, divided into two sub-series: one for Boras's compositions and the other for his arrangements of the music of other composers. Boras mostly used a standard instrumentation of five saxophones (often replacing the lead alto with soprano), four trumpets, four trombones, and a rhythm section of guitar, piano, bass and drums. Unless noted otherwise, all the charts in this series have a full score and parts.

  • Series II: Compositions for Other Instrumentations
    1965-2001

    Apart from big band music, Boras's musical output consisted of a variety of instrumentations and formats. These include pieces for orchestra; concert band; chamber groups; percussion; solo piano; solo violin; eight contrabasses; chorus; a double quartet of woodwinds and brass; and several unique combinations. Notes accompanying each piece in the box and folder list describe its instrumentation. The piece for contrabasses, Stargazing, was commissioned by the International Society of Bassists for their annual convention. Two of the most unusual instrumentations are Trilogy, written for saxophone, electronic keyboard and computer; and Within Every Creature, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, bass/baritone, cello and two tape recorders. The only arrangement in the series is Hair, a piece for concert band based on the musical composed by Galt MacDermot.

    Also in this series is a script and scores, both in-progress and final, for a musical, Signs and Wonders, with lyrics by Herschel Garfein and book by Chris Smith. Based on White Jazz, a play by Marc Alan Zagoren, the musical was developed at New York University and performed there in workshop form in 2000. A program from these performances is in box 17, folder 5. The scores are mostly piano/vocal reductions but also include full piano/bass/vocal scores in the final versions, as well as bass and drum parts.

    Boras worked on another musical, never completed, called Casey and David, for which there is only a brief script and sketch score. The lyricist or other authors for this project are unknown.

    This series also contains songs on which Boras collaborated with lyricists, most often Bari Gilbert, but also with Mike Ventimiglia and, in one case, a song set to lyrics by Amiri Baraka (credited as Leroi Jones), and dedicated to Baraka's daughter, Kellie Jones. The songs mostly consist of lead sheets, but some of the songs Boras wrote with Gilbert and Ventimiglia have arrangements for piano trio and vocalist, or sketches of arrangements.

    Finally, this series contains music Boras wrote for commercial advertising, sketches of unfinished music, and a folder of eight compositions by Wen Loong-Hsing, a friend of Boras's.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Donated by Suzanne L. Boras, 2005.

Processing information

Compiled by Matthew Snyder.

Processing consisted of foldering and ordering scores and parts, and deaccessioning duplicates.

Using the collection

Location

Music Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor

Conditions Governing Use

For permission to publish, contact the Chief, Music Division, The New York Library for the Performing Arts.