Jazz arranger, TV music composer Pete Rugolo dies

By Wire reports
Pete Rugolo, who helped shape the sound of jazz in the 1940s and 1950s as a composer, arranger and record producer and later wrote several theme songs for television dramas, died Sunday in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 95.


Rugolo, who first gained prominence as a composer and arranger for bandleader Stan Kenton in the 1940s, was an unseen hand behind some of the most innovative and enduring music of the time.

He was a co-producer of one of the most influential jazz recordings in history, Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool, and recorded more than 30 records under his own name.

As a prolific Hollywood studio composer in the 1950s and 1960s, Rugolo called on his jazz training to create the musical backdrop for countless television and film soundtracks, working on everything from big-screen swimming extravaganzas of Esther Williams to television episodes of "Leave It to Beaver." He won three Emmy Awards and two Grammys.

Rugolo seldom appeared onstage himself, and his best work was often done in studios or in the service of others. In 1990, jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "Pete Rugolo may well be the most unfairly forgotten man of jazz."

Rugolo wrote theme songs for two television dramas starring David Janssen, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" and "The Fugitive," whose memorable theme had the dark, noirish feel of a 1940s movie with an insistent percussive pulse that was one of Rugolo's stylistic signatures. His other television credits included background music for dozens of shows, including "I Love Lucy," Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" and "Fantasy Island," as well as the theme songs of "Run for Your Life," "The Thin Man" and "Thriller."

Rugolo had always had his eye on working with Kenton, whose big band was known for its brassy sound and sophisticated harmonies. Backstage at a wartime concert in San Francisco, he introduced himself to Kenton and gave him several of his arrangements.

"I didn't hear from him for a couple of months," Rugolo said in 1993. "Then one day I got a phone call from him in the barracks - 'Stan Kenton calling Pete Rugolo.' ... He said, 'Gee, you write just like I do. As soon as you're out of the Army, you've got a job.' "

After joining Kenton in 1945, Rugolo wrote more than 100 new compositions and arrangements, including "Mirage," "Interlude" "Elegy for Alto" and "Lonesome Road."

Rugolo produced or arranged recordings for Billy Eckstine, Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Peggy Lee. He produced several albums for onetime Kenton singer June Christy, including the sultry "Something Cool" from 1954 and "The Misty Miss Christy" of 1956.

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