Relly Raffman

Relly Raffman (1921–1988) was a composer and professor of music at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Early biography Raffman was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, September 4, 1921. He entered Dartmouth College in 1939, by which time he had been performing as a jazz pianist for several years. At Dartmouth, he was pianist, arranger, leader, singer, and saxophonist of the Barbary Coast Orchestra. His Dartmouth education was interrupted by four years in the U.S. Navy in World War II, during which he had a distinguished career as a carrier pilot, flying more than 75 missions and receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals. Jazz performance After receiving his Dartmouth B.A. in 1947, he formed the Relly Raffman Trio and was active in the lively jazz scene of the southeastern Massachusetts area. His jazz activities expanded to New York City while he was at Columbia University earning his Master’s Degree. Compositional study When, in 1950, Raffman arrived at Indiana University to begin work on a Ph.D. in theory and composition with Bernard Heiden, he was doing a complete flip-flop, as he later described it, from jazz to “serious” music. However, it was a fl