1916 - 1997
Jack Halloran 1916-1997
After graduating from college in Iowa, Halloran moved to Chicago and studied music at Northwestern University. While at Northwestern, Halloran formed a male vocal group called the Cadets, which he eventually renamed the Jack Halloran Quartet. In the early 1950s, the group began providing background vocals for pop records.
Working with Mahalia Jackson
Jack Halloran was responsible for the overall musical direction of the Mahalia Jackson Show.
The Jack Halloran Quartet consisted of Jack Halloran, Bill Kanady, Bob Tebow, and Bill Cole. On Jackson's show, the Jack Halloran Quartet sang background harmonies behind Jackson on most of her songs.
Halloran was tasked with creating these arrangements, playing tempo change numbers with the quartet, and joking with Jackson between songs.
Russell Jackson recorded demo tapes to give Halloran a feel for her emotion, phrasing, and possible idiosyncrasies of each song. During a rehearsal of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen” for show No. 4, Sheridan, who was trying to figure out the timing, threw Jackson a curveball by suggesting that she shorten her performance by stopping at a point in the song that didn't make musical sense. Halloran helped explain that the song worked in a “sandwich style.”
Fun fact:
Halloran pointed out to Mahalia how to pronounce his name correctly, as she kept calling him “Jack Halloree”...