James Mundy (June 28, 1907 – April 24, 1983) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer and One of the finer arrangers of the swing era, Jimmy Mundy never became a big name to the general public, but musicians of the era certainly knew who he was.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Mundy began developing his arranging skills in the 1920s while playing with local bands led by Erskine Tate, Tommy Miles, and Carroll Dickerson. In 1932 he wrote and sold a few arrangements to Claude Hopkins, and at about the same time joined Earl Hines' famous "Grand Terrace" ballroom band in Chicago. Hines hired him originally as a saxophonist, for whom he worked over the course of the next four years. During this period Mundy developed a reputation as a prolific arranger in the emerging "swing" style and began writing and selling arrangements to other bandleaders in order to supplement his income.
Late in 1935, Goodman and his band worked their way east to Chicago where they began their historic six-month booking in the Joseph Urban room of the Congress Hotel. After selling one of his arrangements to Goodman, Goodman hired Mundy on a full-time basis. Until 1938, Mundy became one of Goodman's principal staff arrangers, joining Spud Murphy and Fletcher Henderson. From the moment he was hired, it was Mundy upon whom Goodman relied to create up-tempo "flag-waving" musical numbers. Mundy's list of "killer-dillers" include the 1936 (revised) version of "Bugle Call Rag", "Jam Session" (an original composition by Mundy), and the band's 1937 adaptation of "Ridin' High". Mundy was adept at arranging standard popular tunes: "You Turned The Tables On Me" (1936) and "And the Angels Sing" (1939).
Jimmy & Dorothy Mundy
When Gene Krupa left the band in 1938, Mundy left shortly after as well to write for Krupa's new outfit, although he continued to contribute scores to Goodman on a free-lance basis. He briefly led his own band in 1939. Throughout the 1940s Mundy supplied a significant number of original compositions and arrangements to Count Basie (ca. 1940 to ca. 1947), Artie Shaw (1944–45), Dizzy Gillespie (1949), Harry James, Charlie Spivak, Paul Whiteman and many others. He wrote the score to the 1955 Broadway musical The Vamp which starred Carol Channing. The 1957 musical Livin' The Life and the 2010 dance revue Come Fly Away also used some of his music. In 1959, he moved to Paris, where he was musical director for Barclay Records. He returned to the U.S. in the 1960s and continued with his active career as a writer into the 1970s.
Jimmy Mundy led relatively few sessions: a small-group date in 1937, four songs by his short-lived orchestra in 1939, a few existing broadcasts of his 1946 Los Angeles band, and he led two obscure Epic albums during 1958-1959.
Mundy died of cancer at Roosevelt Hospital, New York City at the age of 75.
Johnny "Big Moose" Walker (June 27, 1927 – November 27, 1999) was an American Chicago blues and electric blues pianist and organist.
John Mayon Walker was born in the unincorporated community of Stoneville, Mississippi, partly of Native American ancestry. He acquired his best-known stage name in his childhood in Greenville, Mississippi, derived from his long, flowing hair. He learned to play several instruments, including the church organ, guitar, vibraphone and tuba. Although Walker was primarily a piano player, he was also proficient on the electronic organ and the bass guitar (he played the bass guitar when backing Muddy Waters). He recorded solo albums and accompanied other musicians in concert and on recordings.
He began his musical career as a pianist, in 1947, touring with various blues bands and backing such notable artists as Ike Turner, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Elmore James, Lowell Fulson and Choker Campbell. Walker served in the United States Army from 1952 to 1955, serving during the Korean War. In 1955 he recorded several more or less obscure singles for Ultra, Age and The Blues under variants of his name such as Moose John or Big Moose. "I got the name because of the length of my hair," he explained. "People said I looked like a moose."
These recordings were unsuccessful, but Walker started working more consistently in the mid-1950s, notably backing Earl Hooker and Elmore James. Walker moved to Chicago in the late 1950s and over the next decade accompanied Sunnyland Slim, Otis Rush, Muddy Waters (for whom Walker played bass guitar), Ricky Allen, Little Johnny Jones, and Howlin' Wolf. In 1960, he accompanied Junior Wells on his best-known recording, "Messin' with the Kid". The following year Walker played on James's recordings of "Look on Yonder Wall" and "Shake Your Moneymaker". In 1962, Walker played on Waters's recording of "You Shook Me". During the 1960s, a couple of obscure Chicago-based record labels, Age and The Blues, released Walker's solo singles.
By 1969, Walker had rejoined Earl Hooker and played on the latter's album Don't Have to Worry (ABC Bluesway). After Hooker's death in 1970, Walker played backing for Jimmy Dawkins, Mighty Joe Young and Louis Myers. His debut album, Ramblin' Woman, was issued in 1970 by ABC. He provided piano accompaniment on Andrew Odom's album Farther on the Road and on If You Miss 'Im...I Got 'Im, by John Lee Hooker, featuring Earl Hooker.
In December 1979, Willie James Lyons played guitar on Walker's album, Going Home Tomorrow. Alligator Records used Walker's playing on their Living Chicago Blues series of recordings. He toured Europe in 1979 with the Chicago Blues Festival. In 1982 he made a memorable trip to New Zealand where he ended up living in a native Maori village. With his long grey hair, white beard and exuberant manner he was an arresting figure, and Maori audiences particularly took to him. He became venerated as a member of the tribe.
His second album, Blue Love, was released in 1984. He later toured in New Zealand and Canada. He recorded with Son Seals and performed at the Burnley Blues Festival, in England, in 1991. Walker had a stroke prior to this engagement, and subsequent strokes left him unable to perform. Evidence Music reissued Blue Love in 1996, with five bonus tracks.
Walker lived in a nursing home in Chicago before his death, at the age of 72, in November 1999. The Killer Blues Project placed a headstone for Walker at the Oakridge Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, in 2021.
Brenda Holloway (born June 26, 1946*) is an American soul singer who was a recording artist for Motown Records during the 1960s. She left Motown after four years, at the age of 22, and largely retired from the music industry until the 1990s, after her recordings had become popular on the British "Northern soul" scene.
Holloway was born in Atascadero, California, in 1946 and grew up in the Watts section of Los Angeles; as a child, she learned violin and began singing in church with her younger sister Patrice (who later became a prominent session singer and contributed vocals to Josie & the Pussycats). After singing with the group that later became the Whispers, Holloway's first professional recording was made at age 14, backing 12-year-old Patrice on a locally released single. Brenda herself soon began cutting records on several different L.A. labels, and she and her sister also found work as session vocalists.
In 1964, Holloway performed a rendition of Mary Wells' "My Guy" at a DJ convention in Los Angeles. Motown founder Berry Gordy happened to be there, and he was so struck by the power of her vocals (not to mention her physical form) that he made Holloway his first West Coast signing, placing her on the Tamla subsidiary. Her debut single, "Every Little Bit Hurts," was an R&B smash that also reached number 12 on the pop charts, and was covered by British R&B aficionados like the Spencer Davis Group and the Small Faces; it became the title track of her first album, also released in 1964.
Holloway won a spot on Dick Clark's "Caravan of Stars" tour on the condition that then-struggling Motown girl group The Supremes join them. Holloway also found fans in the Beatles, who gave her an opening slot on their 1965 American tour. Her performances were taped and recorded when The Beatles held their landmark Shea Stadium show on August 15 of that year. Holloway's successes led to her being an in-demand television celebrity.
She scored several more R&B hits through 1965 -- "I'll Always Love You" and the Smokey Robinson-penned tracks "When I'm Gone" and "Operator." However, Tamla scrapped a follow-up album, which would have been called Hurtin' and Cryin', and Holloway began to feel that she was getting the short end of the stick. She frequently travelled from her home in Los Angeles to record in Detroit, and began to feel that the material she was given wasn't always up to snuff, perhaps because of her distance. She began to work more on her own writing, often in partnership with her sister, and with a bit of outside help they co-wrote "You've Made Me So Very Happy" in 1968. Berry Gordy was allowed to change a few notes on the musical composition, giving him a song-writing credit together with the record's producer, Frank Wilson. This led to Holloway's third top-40 pop single, with the song reaching number 39 on the Hot 100 and number 40 on the R&B chart. Holloway's version was a minor R&B hit, but Blood Sweat & Tears turned it into a major pop hit the following year.
Her second album, The Artistry of Brenda Holloway, was released in 1968. However, midway through a recording session with Smokey Robinson in Detroit, she left the studio and returned to Los Angeles. Motown's PR later released a statement on Holloway's departure, saying she had left to "sing for God", but her real reasons were her disillusionment with Motown and with her management, and her fear of being drawn into a lifestyle which conflicted with her religious convictions.
In 1969, Holloway sued Gordy for monetary reasons stemming from the success of Blood, Sweat & Tears' cover version of her single, "You've Made Me So Very Happy", which the group had taken to number 2 on the US pop chart that year. Holloway eventually won her case. She recorded for Holland, Dozier and Holland's labels Invictus and Music Merchant in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With her sister Patrice, she also continued session work into the 1970s, including several sessions with British rock singer Joe Cocker. She married a preacher, Albert Davis, in Los Angeles in 1969, and the couple had four children, Beoir, Unita, Christy and Dontese.
In 1980, Holloway released a gospel album for Birthright Records, Brand New!, that went unnoticed. After several unhappy years, she and Albert Davis divorced in the mid-1980s. Holloway's records remained popular on England's so-called "Northern soul" scene, and in 1987 she travelled to the U.K. to record several Motown-style singles for producer Ian Levine's Motorcity label. She recorded the song "On The Rebound" as a duet with Jimmy Ruffin 1989, then on the album All It Takes, two years later, in 1991. In 1995, motivated by the death of Mary Wells, she returned to live performance around the L.A. area, often in tandem with fellow soul veteran Brenton Wood. She performed in the U.K. as well, and in 1999 she signed with the revived Volt label to record It's a Woman's World, which took a more contemporary urban approach. That same year Holloway was honoured with the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's prestigious Pioneer Award.
Her last album, My Love is Your Love, was released in 2003. Several of Holloway's classic recordings, including "Every Little Bit Hurts", "When I'm Gone" and "You've Made Me So Very Happy" were covered by a variety of acts over the years. In 2003, Vivian Green played Holloway in a cameo appearance on the TV show, American Dreams, where she sang "Every Little Bit Hurts," and, in 2005, Alicia Keys famously covered "Every Little Bit Hurts" for her Unplugged special. In 2005, Holloway appeared on the PBS concert TV special My Music: Salute to Early Motown. In 2011, Holloway recorded a duet with Cliff Richard on his Soulicious album, but did not perform with Richard on his accompanying concert tour in Britain.
Her later live performances have been rare, with her last major UK appearances primarily consisting of Northern Soul festivals and revues, such as her 2018 set at 229 The Venue in London.Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia)(* most sources give June 21st)
Brenda has confirmed the correct date as June 26. Her personal Facebook page uses that date.
Lloyd Arnold (June 25, 1935 - January 10, 1976) was an American country and rockabilly singer.
Of Irish descent, Lloyd Arnold McCollough was born into a musical family as the youngest of seven children. While in high school, he developed a formidable reputation as a baseball player and was torn between a career in baseball or in show business. After the death of Hank Williams on January 1, 1953, Lloyd decided to concentrate on a career in music. His first instrument was the mandolin, which he received as a Christmas present in 1950. All his spare time was spent practising and by the end of 1952 he was performing for friends and neighbours. In 1953 he formed his first band, The Drifting Hillbillies, which consisted mainly of family members. During 1953 and 1954 they recorded several demos / acetates at Sam Phillips's Memphis Recording Service..
Drifting Hillbillies
While suffering with childhood meningitis, Lloyd had lost many school days. Due to this lost time, his graduation from Memphis Technical High School was delayed until May 1954. He was married in the summer of the same year. However, the marriage did not last long. By then he was already somewhat of an established performer. He and the band began to travel, gaining popularity throughout the southern states. His first record was made for the Von label from Booneville, Mississippi, in the fall of 1955. Both sides, "Oh Darling" and "Watch That Girl" were pure country. It gave Lloyd something to sell on his radio shows on KWEM. The two sides of his second record, "Until I Love Again"/"What Goes On In Your Heart" (1956) were mid-tempo country offerings, more polished and professional than the Von sides. Not surprising, given the fact that the backing musicians included Chet Atkins and Jerry Byrd.
As country music's popularity started to wane due to the explosion of rock 'n' roll, Lloyd switched to rockabilly, which was a relatively easy task for him. His third single was in this new style : "Gonna Love My Baby"/ "Cause I Love You" (1956), produced by Murray Nash. His next single, "Half My Fault", again for a different label (Starday), was even better, but it was not released until March 1958, when rockabilly had already gone out of fashion. By that time Lloyd had changed the name of his band to the Rockin' Drifters. Its line-up changed constantly, but they always had plenty of work and not just in the South.
Rockin' Drifters
While working on the East Coast, Lloyd came to the attention of Savoy's Herman Lubinsky, who cut six songs with him, but only two were released, on Savoy's subsidiary label, Sharp. The instrumental "Dixie Doodle" (1960) was the first record to be credited to "Lloyd Arnold", as he now called himself. All earlier singles gave credit to Lloyd McCollough or McCullough. In late 1960, Lloyd recorded (probably in Philadelphia) what many consider to be his best rocker, "Red Coat, Green Pants and Red Suede Shoes". Coupled with the equally strong "Hangout", it had all the right ingredients : hot vocals, blistering guitar and a raunchy sax, but like all his previous records, it sold poorly.
Around 1959, Lloyd had met Buford Cody, a charming, helpful man, who became his manager. Cody also had his own label, Memphis Records, for which Lloyd recorded six singles in 1962-64. These included good versions of "School Days" and "Go Go Go", songs by Chuck Berry, who was a major influence on Lloyd's rock n roll material. Some of the Memphis records were mainstream sixties country, like the very pleasant "Lonesome Finds Me", and by the second half of the 1960s, Lloyd had completely switched to country music, for a succession of small labels in Memphis and Nashville.
In the late sixties and early seventies a tougher bluesy orientated form of country started to emerge. Lloyd embraced this style with passion. He was now recording for John Capps's K-Ark label in Nashville, which released an album and three singles by him (1972-73). Once again Lloyd turned to Chuck Berry songs for inspiration ("Memphis" and a new version of "School Days"), but the LP also featured several of Lloyd's own compositions.
After many years on the road, Lloyd decided it was time to call it a day. He opened a night club, appropriately called "L.A.'s Country", in Memphis and was quite content playing there. McCoullough's father had died in 1968; two years later, his mother followed him. He could not get over these losses for the rest of his life and his health deteriorated visibly; meningitis broke out again. Dogged by misfortune and personal problems, Lloyd tragically took his own life on January 10, 1976 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was only 40 years old. He never had the kind of commercial success he so richly deserved, but he will be remembered by many for his music into which he put his heart and soul.
Milton John Hinton (June 23, 1910 – December 19, 2000) was an American double bassist and photographer. Regarded as the Dean of American jazz bass players, his nicknames included "Sporty" from his years in Chicago, "Fump" from his time on the road with Cab Calloway, and "The Judge" from the 1950s and beyond. Hinton's recording career lasted over 60 years, mostly in jazz but also with a variety of other genres as a prolific session musician. He was also a photographer of note, praised for documenting American jazz during the 20th Century.
Hinton was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States, the only child of Hilda Gertrude Robinson, and Milton Dixon Hinton. He was three-months-old when his father left the family. He grew up in a home with his mother, his maternal grandmother and two of his mother's sisters. At the age of eight, the youngster witnessed a lynching, an event that would remain an indelible memory. Soon afterwards, the family left for Chicago, part of African America's great migration northward. Hinton took violin lessons but, before turning professional, spent a short period involved with Al Capone's booze racketeering. He took up the bass and worked with the city's top leaders, including Boyd Atkins, Tiny Parham, Eddie South, Jabbo Smith, Erskine Tate, Zutty Singleton, and Fate Marable.
Milt with Cab Calloway
In 1935, he joined the prestigious Cab Calloway Orchestra, where with his full tone and tremendous drive became a mainstay of the band's rhythm section. He remained with the band for 26 years. Singing hits such as Minnie The Moocher, Calloway was a popular entertainer who hired the best musicians and worked at the celebrated Cotton Club. Leading his trombones was Keg Johnson, who got Hinton the job and encouraged his early interest in photography, teaching him darkroom procedures while they were on the road and introducing him to Leica cameras. Throughout his Calloway days, Hinton carried a camera in his pocket. He documented the joys and rigours of the travelling life and, in the south, the indignities of segregation. These latter images, depicting eminent jazzmen standing beside "Colored Only" signs, retain an ability to shock, although to Hinton and his colleagues, they were snapshots, made for amusement rather than as political statement.
When Calloway disbanded in 1951, Hinton worked as a freelance in New York, and was soon one of the most sought-after jazz musicians. He played with, anong others, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong's All Stars until a chance meeting with Jackie Gleason changed his life for ever. He knew Gleason, then a television personality, from his days as a nightclub comedian, and it was he who arranged immediately for the bassist to be hired for a record date. There, he was acknowledged by the regulars, all of them white. For Hinton, this recognition went deeper than individual satisfaction, for de facto segregation still kept African Americans out of the studios and the best-paid musical work. He, together with trumpeter Joe Wilder, pioneered the breakthrough. In a musicians' community politicised by the civil rights struggle, he was admired for his diplomatic savvy and respected for his racial politics and demeanour.
Hinton's jazz recordings alone run into the thousands but, by the end of the 1950s, he had become a ubiquitous figure in the commercial studios. To refuse work in such a competitive field was unwise, so he worked around the clock - keeping an instrument at each major studio. Meanwhile, he became an integral part of rock 'n' roll, laying down the beat behind countless hit records. Some of his most notable commercial work involved other eminent jazzmen, and a quartet in which he played with pianist Hank Jones, drummer Osie Johnson and guitarist Barry Galbraith became known, unofficially, as the New York Rhythm Section. In constant demand, Hinton backed singers as diverse as Paul Anka and Jackie Wilson, and was nicknamed "Judge" because of the standard he set.
Milt with Duke Ellington
Harmonic experiments in the 1940s with Dizzy Gillespie made him a forerunner of modern jazz bass players and, later, during the generational consolidation inspired by the black politics of the 1960s, he was among the elder statesmen welcomed on to the bandstand by the most avant-garde of young musicians. In 1970s, he played in the New York Bass Choir, where his presence lent majesty to explorations uniting Ron Carter, Richard Davis, Sam Jones and others. Hinton also taught at Hunter College, CUNY and undertook a few overseas tours and was a member of the band that accompanied Bing Crosby on his final trip to Europe.
For years, Hinton's photography was an insider's secret. Shooting at recording sessions during playbacks and breaks, he provided valuable insight into the priorities of fellow artists. Yet while a poignant image of Billie Holiday at her last session became known, it was not until David Berger, at Temple University, Philadelphia, began cataloguing Hinton's vast collection that the value of his enterprise was revealed. Following the publication of the two books, Bass Line (1988) and Over Time (1991), photographic requests poured in. Hinton was revitalised by this unexpected interest.
Mona & Milt
In 1939 when Hinton returned to Chicago for his grandmother's funeral, he met Mona Clayton, who was then singing in his mother's church choir. The two were married a few years later and remained inseparable for the rest of Milt's life. They had married in the Calloway days, and she played an important role in organising his hectic life. During Art Kane's 1958 Esquire session that produced a famous photograph of 57 musicians on a Harlem doorstep, it was Mona who shot movie footage, and this, with Hinton's own stills, contributed to A Great Day In Harlem (1994), the award-winning movie about that day.
In 1990 George Wein produced a concert as a part of the JVC Jazz Festival in honour of Hinton's 80th birthday. Similar concerts were produced for his 85th and 90th birthdays. By 1996, he ceased performing on bass, due to a number of physical ailments, and he died in Queens, New York, at the age of 90 on December 19, 2000.
Edited from The Guardian obit, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Wikipedia)
Joe Medwick (June 21, 1931* – April 12, 1992) was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter who was the great underground hero of Texas Soul/R&B. Whether it was writing songs or singing them his talents were truly astonishing. But thanks to his preference for the Houston nightlife offered by the city’s notorious Third Ward rather than his career, his name never got outside of the city limits.
He was born Medwick N. Veasey in Houston, Texas, on June 21, 1931, the son of Rayfield Veasey and Renatta Watson. Though mainly noted as a lyricist whose songs were often covered by other singers, Veasey, best-known both personally and professionally as Joe Medwick, also recorded and released material (under pseudonyms) on various labels from 1958 through 1988. A lifelong Houstonian, Veasey grew up in Third Ward and attended Yates High School. As a youth he reportedly adopted the nickname “Joe” as a prefix to his given name because of the national popularity of the major league baseball player Joe Medwick (who first starred for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930s). In his teens Veasey launched his singing career, performing with the Chosen Gospel Singers for approximately four years before turning his focus to secular music.
After serving in Korea with the US Army, he returned to the Third Ward in Houston, where he performed in a blues club, Shady's Playhouse, often with pianist Teddy Reynolds (who later accompanied Bobby Bland), and increasingly spent his time writing lyrics and composing tunes for other blues musicians to sing. According to the Texas State Historical Association: "Medwick was often able to sell the resulting material almost immediately to local music producers. In doing so, he rarely asked for formal contracts to establish proper songwriting credit for himself, instead choosing to peddle the songs outright —thereby surrendering any rights to potential royalty payments — for ready cash. Thus, among his musician peers and industry insiders (if not always supported by publishing documentation), Medwick is commonly known to have written or co-written many songs which became hits for other artists with the writing credits typically attributed exclusively to the person who had purchased (and thereafter registered the copyrights on) the compositions."
TNT Briggs, Don Robey and Bobby Bland
He sold many of his songs to Don Robey, the owner of the Duke and Peacock labels whose major stars were Bobby Bland and Junior Parker. In a few cases, including "Further On Up The Road", Medwick was given a co-writing credit, though it is thought that Medwick in fact wrote the song with Johnny Copeland rather than with Robey. Copeland said: "Joe tied the record up with Mr. Robey, just as he did with every song. Joe sold Mr. Robey maybe five hundred songs, ten, fifteen dollars apiece..." In many other cases, including "I Pity the Fool", "Turn On Your Love Light", "Call On Me", "I Don't Want No Woman", "Driving Wheel", and "Cry, Cry, Cry", it is believed that Medwick wrote the songs but the credit was taken by Robey, often using his song writing pseudonym Deadric Malone. In a 1990 interview, Medwick acknowledged his poor judgement in trading his songs for cash, while absolving Robey of any blame. He also sold his songs to other record producers in Houston, including Huey Meaux.
During the late 1950s, Medwick also recorded his own songs occasionally for Robey, none of which created much interest. During the 1960s he recorded for small local labels including Paradise, Allboy, East-West, Boogaloo and Pacemaker, often using various names. It is thought that his best songs were held back from him, so that bigger stars like Bobby Bland - with whom he later fell out - could record them instead. A handful of releases on Teardrop, Westpark, VE GEO and Kimberly make up the remainder of Medwick's singles output. In '65 he appeared on Monument for one release and a year later he recorded Robert Parker's Barefootin'.
Drinking took its toll during the '70s and '80s, and Medwick languished in complete obscurity through the disco years. In 1978, Huey Meaux issued a compilation LP of many of Medwick's demo recordings, Why Do Heartaches Pick On Me. In the mid-'80s former Little Richard sax titan Grady Gaines came out of retirement and launched The Texas Upsetters, an old-school R&B band that still plays today. Medwick was tabbed as one of two lead vocalists for the combo, with his old friend from the gospel days, Big Robert Smith taking the other slot. Gaines signed with Black Top Records and released two albums, “Full Gain” (1988), and “Horn Of Plenty”, on which Medwick and his songs could at last be heard identified correctly. Fate seemed to finally be smiling on Medwick but then he was stricken by liver cancer and died at his home in Houston on April 12, 1992. As a military veteran, Veasey is buried in Houston National Cemetery.
(Edited from Wikipedia & Bear Family liner notes)(*other sources give 1933 as birth year.)
(I could only find two photographs of Joe on the web and one of them is taken from the video below)
Lalo Schifrin (June 21, 1932 – June 26, 2025) was an Argentine and American pianist, conductor and arranger. He was the composer of some 100 works for classical and jazz orchestras and of more than 150 scores for film and television, but he will inevitably be remembered for just one piece of music he wrote in five minutes in 1966 – the theme to Mission: Impossible.
At the age of six he began studying piano with Enrique Barenboim, the father of Daniel Barenboim. In case music did not work out he went on to read sociology and law at the University of Buenos Aires. As a student he declared his determination to pursue a career in jazz but was admonished by his parents for choosing a life full of “drugs, alcohol and ladies of the night”. Tango, he added, “was considered lower-class and was forbidden”, though he grew familiar with it while working as Astor Piazzolla’s pianist in the 1950s.
He went to lectures given by the composer and theorist Juan Carlos Paz, who had been a student of Schoenberg in Vienna and who spoke about Webern, Berg and the history of modern music. “I asked him if he would teach me privately,” he said, adding that “thanks to him I won a scholarship to the Paris Conservatoire.” There, he worked with the composer Olivier Messiaen. “I had a double life. I would study at the Conservatoire with him during the day and play in jazz bands at night in places like the Club Saint-Germain,” he said. “Messiaen didn’t like jazz, but he was a very nice man, a Catholic mystic.” After Saturday evenings spent in jazz clubs he attended Mass the following morning simply to hear Messiaen play the organ.
There he wrote Gillespiana, an extended work for big band that was both a tribute to the trumpeter and an exploration of the Latin rhythms that were an integral part of Gillespie’s repertoire. It marked the start of a period making music with Latin dance orchestras across the city interspersed with touring the world accompanying such legends as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis. Over the next decade he produced more than 100 jazz albums, including for Gillespie and Stan Getz, and was the mastermind behind organist Jimmy Smith’s Grammy-winning album The Cat (1964).
Meanwhile, in 1963 he moved to Hollywood, where he wrote his first film theme, for the African adventure Rhino! (1964). He was much influenced by both Henry Mancini and Bernard Herrmann, but his finest work was altogether tougher than theirs, and adeptly set the mood for the hard-edged pictures for which he so often wrote, notably Once a Thief (1965), with Alain Delon, and Coogan’s Bluff (1968), with Clint Eastwood, while for television he composed the music for Dr Kildare and the private-eye series Mannix. In 1966 Schifrin took a call from the CBS television producer Bruce Geller, who needed a theme tune in a hurry. Within a matter of minutes he had produced the bones of the Mission: Impossible theme, a breathless beat played on the bongos combined with a sexy flute line.
This unmistakable tune helped to turn a TV show about secret agents into a hit, eventually spawning a vast film franchise culminating in this year’s $400 million Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. “It had to be like a call to the viewers to watch,” the composer explained of the music’s urgency. He them worked on the Oscar-nominated score for Cool Hand Luke (1967), the prison drama featuring Paul Newman. The director Stuart Rosenberg later called him in for The Amityville Horror (1979), based on the supernatural experience of a family from Amityville, New York, and was rewarded with a chilling score, again nominated for an Oscar, featuring creepy playground singing.
Schifrin, who spoke English with a melodious Spanish accent, lived in Beverly Hills in a large but homely house that had once belonged to Groucho Marx. He described how his studio, with leather sofas, a grand piano and a desk strewn with manuscript paper, was done up “like an English pub”. It was crammed with books, awards and antique scores, as well as a large collection of pipes collected on his travels.“People ask me how it is that I’m so versatile,” he once said. “But I say, ‘I’m not versatile. I just don’t see limits. To me all music is one music… The biggest difference between me and composers of the 19th century is that I embrace two art forms that didn’t exist then, jazz and movies.”
In 2008 Schifrin wrote an autobiography, Mission Impossible: My Life in Music. He had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was a Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters, and held the position of adviser on cultural affairs to the Argentinian government. In 1988 he was given a lifetime achievement award by the BMI and in 2018 Clint Eastwood presented him with an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of his unique musical style, compositional integrity and influential contributions to the art of film scoring."
Schifrin died from complications of pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles, on June 26, 2025, at the age of 93.
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