New York Times:
October 19, 2011
Pete Rugolo, Arranger and Composer, Is Dead at 95
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Pete Rugolo, the chief arranger for the Stan Kenton Orchestra in its late-1940s heyday and a prolific composer and arranger for television and film, including the series “Richard Diamond, Private Detective,” “The Fugitive” and “Run for Your Life,” died on Sunday in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 95.
His death was confirmed by his daughter, Gina Rugolo Judd.
Mr. Rugolo (pronounced ROO-guh-lo) was still in uniform, leading the Army band at Fort Scott in San Francisco, when he handed a half-dozen arrangements to his idol Stan Kenton at the Golden Gate Theater. When he left the service, he was hired by Kenton and went on to write more than a hundred arrangements for that big band, helping establish the progressive sound of its peak years.
After Kenton dissolved the group in 1949, Mr. Rugolo became the music director of Capitol Records in New York. There, in addition to producing Harry Belafonte’s early pop records and the Four Freshmen, he signed the Miles Davis Nonet, which played arrangements by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and others.
In three days of sessions, he helped produce a dozen 78s by the group that introduced a cooled-down interpretation of bebop. The records sold poorly at the time, but Mr. Rugolo lobbied Capitol to release nearly all of them in 1957 on a 12-inch LP, “Birth of the Cool,” one of the landmark albums in jazz.
Mr. Rugolo also recorded dozens of his own albums and wrote arrangements for a long list of singers that included Nat King Cole, June Christy, Dinah Washington and Mel Tormé. He later became a highly sought-after composer and arranger for television and film.
From Jazz Corner NYC.
BN.
October 19, 2011
Pete Rugolo, Arranger and Composer, Is Dead at 95
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Pete Rugolo, the chief arranger for the Stan Kenton Orchestra in its late-1940s heyday and a prolific composer and arranger for television and film, including the series “Richard Diamond, Private Detective,” “The Fugitive” and “Run for Your Life,” died on Sunday in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 95.
His death was confirmed by his daughter, Gina Rugolo Judd.
Mr. Rugolo (pronounced ROO-guh-lo) was still in uniform, leading the Army band at Fort Scott in San Francisco, when he handed a half-dozen arrangements to his idol Stan Kenton at the Golden Gate Theater. When he left the service, he was hired by Kenton and went on to write more than a hundred arrangements for that big band, helping establish the progressive sound of its peak years.
After Kenton dissolved the group in 1949, Mr. Rugolo became the music director of Capitol Records in New York. There, in addition to producing Harry Belafonte’s early pop records and the Four Freshmen, he signed the Miles Davis Nonet, which played arrangements by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and others.
In three days of sessions, he helped produce a dozen 78s by the group that introduced a cooled-down interpretation of bebop. The records sold poorly at the time, but Mr. Rugolo lobbied Capitol to release nearly all of them in 1957 on a 12-inch LP, “Birth of the Cool,” one of the landmark albums in jazz.
Mr. Rugolo also recorded dozens of his own albums and wrote arrangements for a long list of singers that included Nat King Cole, June Christy, Dinah Washington and Mel Tormé. He later became a highly sought-after composer and arranger for television and film.
From Jazz Corner NYC.
BN.
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