Billy Vaughn is well known to pop music lovers for his big band arrangements and recordings which have won him more than 20 gold records, signifying sales of one mi/lion or more. As a choral director, he's less well known-which is not to say he's any the less successful in arranging and conducting voices than he is the saxophones and brasses which make up the Billy Vaughn Band.

Once upon a time, toward the close of the Big Band era, there was a Billy Vaughn band which played one-night stands the length and breadth of America. Vaughn hated every minute of it. He hated the traveling, disliked appearing on the stage of a local movie theatre or dance hall, and, when the band broke up, he turned with relief to composing and arranging for others. It took a large dose of persuasion to lure him back in front of an orchestra, even if it was to be only in a recording studio. Once in the studio, Vaughn discovered that it wasn't performing he disliked, but appearing before and audience, He's been into recording studios almost daily since then; his friends at Dot insist you can't keep him out. Vaughn loves to experiment with sound combinations, with new recording techniques, with different musical media. "His arrangements often sound deceptively simple to the ear,"a critic wrote recently, "but they are masterpieces of precision and balance." The reason is simple: Vaughn likes to juxtapose unusual sounds; the wail of the saxophone against brass; the si/very beauty of a flute against bass strings. That's exactly what he's done in this collection of choral favorites.