Gary McFarland on Madison Ave.

April 10, 2019

Gary McFarland on Madison Ave.

Following my post on Gary McFarland last week, I nosed around online and found a Fresca TV ad that McFarland wrote, arranged and conducted in 1966. It was posted by Kristian St. Clair, who directed the documentary This Is Gary McFarland. First, here's the Fresca soda ad, with McFarland in the ad conducting...

So I reached out to Kristian to find out more about McFarland's advertising career. Here's what Kristian told me:

Hi Marc. I'm glad you asked. It's definitely one of my favorite Gary McFarland sub-stories. Apparently, Chico Hamilton introduced Gary to the Madison Avenue jingle scene. According to Gail, Gary's late wife, he made more income on jingle writing than the jazz records.

I'm not sure whose idea it was to have McFarland appear in a Fresca commercial, but I know it was McFarland's idea to hire all of his musician friends to appear in the ad playing different instruments than they were known for (Corky Hale on cello, Zoot Sims or Bob Brookmeyer on flute, etc.). As Herb Pomeroy said, it was his single best-paying gig up until that point in time.

McFarland had written the jingle for the launch of Fresca, so he obviously was pretty in-demand by 1966 to get the gig. I think he did a lot of work for the McCann-Erickson ad agency.

In addition to the Fresca ad, McFarland wrote and arranged ad music for Camel cigarettes, Rheinlander beer, Sealtest Ice-Cream (Gary's brother, Gerwin, cited it as one of his personal favorite things his brother had written), Volvo, Tabu perfume and Breck shampoo. Based on print ads for the Soft Samba album, there was probably a tie-in with the Interwoven Sock Co. as well.

Here are links to ads that Kristian sent along:

Here's an outtake from Kristian's documentary focusing on McFarland's advertising career...