Manny Albam born 24 June 1922

Manny Albam (June 24, 1922 – October 2, 2001) was an American jazz arranger, composer, record producer, saxophonist, and educator. During a career that spanned seven decades, he collaborated with a who's who of jazz greats including Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Getz. He also developed successive generations of new talent as co-founder and musical director of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop. 

Albam was born when his parents were en route from their native Russia to their new home in New York City, and his mother went into labor while their ship was outside of the Dominican Republic port of Samana. At the age of seven Albam discovered jazz after hearing a Bix Beiderbecke record, and soon after began playing the alto saxophone; at 16 he dropped out of school following an invitation to join Muggsy Spanier's Dixieland combo, then Don Joseph (1940) Musgy Spannier (1941), Bob Chester (1942), Georgie Auld (1942 – 5), Charlie Spivak and Boyd Raeburn (1943-5).

During his two years with Spivak, his arranging skills flourished, and he generated an average of two arrangements per week. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, (1945-6) he ubndertook similar work for Sam Donahue (1947), Charlie Barnet (1948-9), Jerry Wald (1949) and others,  and as his interest in writing and arranging grew, he effectively retired from performing in 1950, a decision that coincided with the last gasps of the big band era. 

                                    

Albam quickly emerged as a sought-after freelancer, composing and arranging material for many of the bop era's brightest talents. Within a few years, he became known for a bebop style that emphasized taut and witty writing with a flair for distinctive shadings; flute-led reed sections became something of an Albam trademark. One of his most popular works from that era was "Samana", an Afro-Latin composition he did for the Stan Kenton Innovations Orchestra, named after his birthplace Samaná in the Dominican Republic. 

Albam eventually signed to headline his own LPs for labels including Mercury, RCA Victor, and Dot, bringing together musicians including Phil Woods, Al Cohn, and Bob Brookmeyer for acclaimed easy listening efforts including The Blues Is Everybody's Business and The Drum Suite. His 1957 jazz arrangement of Leonard Bernstein's score to West Side Story so impressed Bernstein that the maestro invited Albam to write for the New York Philharmonic. 

The offer prompted Albam to study classical composition under Tibor Serly (1958 to 1960), later yielding such works as the luminous "Concerto for Trombone and Strings." Albam also wrote for feature films, television, and even advertising jingles, and in 1964 signed on as musical director for Sonny Lester's fledgling Solid State label, which two years later issued his jazz suite The Soul of the City. By that time Albam was increasingly channeling his energies into teaching, however. 

After stints with the Eastman School of Music, Glassboro State College, and the Manhattan School of Music, in 1988 he co-founded the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, assuming the title of musical director from Brookmeyer three years later. 

He died of cancer at his home in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, aged 79, in 2001. 

(Edited from AllMusic, New Grove Dictionary of Jazz & Wikipedia)