Biography
Composer, songwriter, author, conductor, lecturer and arranger, educated in preparatory school and a student of Leslie Taylor, Lennie Tristano, and Jimmy Hamilton. He authored several magazine articles and wrote a syndicated jazz column. He also conducted several Esquire Magazine jazz polls and produced and directed Esquire Jazz Concerts between 1944 and 1947. He organized the first Carnegie Hall jazz concerts, and the only two jazz concerts at the original Metropolitan Opera House. He was the jazz editor for Playboy Magazine from 1956, and directed the first Playboy jazz festival in 1959. His network radio show "Platterbrains" aired between 1953 and 1958, and he also produced the radio series "Jazz Club, USA". He also served as a consultant to the NBC educational series "The Subject Is Jazz" in 1958., and he composed special material for Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, Pearl Bailey and Dinah Shore. Joining ASCAP in 1945, his chief musical collaborators included Andy Razaf, Dory Langdon Previn, Steve Allen, Milton Raskin, Dick Hyman, Langston Hughes and Djalma Ferreira. His popular-song and instrumental compositions include "Mighty Like he Blues", "Jamming the Waltz", "Bebop Waltz", "Bass Reflex", "You Can't Go Home Again", "Signing Off", "Salty Papa Blues", "Dinah's Blues", "Panacea", "Lonesome as he Night is Long", "You're Crying", "Meet Me Halfway", "Get Rich Quick", "Where Were You?", "Love Is a Word for the Blues", Mound Bayou", "A Whole Lot O' Women", "Sounds of Spring", "Man Wanted", "Snafu", "Evil Gal Blues", "Blowtop Blues", "Twelve Tone Blues" and "The Bossa Nova".
