Allyn Ferguson

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Allyn Ferguson (* 18th October 1924 in San Jose , California ; † 23. June 2010 in Westlake Village , California) was an American jazz - musicians ( piano , flugelhorn ), arranger and composer of film music .

Live and act

Allyn Ferguson learned to trumpet at the age of four; from seven he had piano lessons. During his military service in World War II he was used as a pilot; after the war he studied at San José State University , then with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and with Aaron Copland in Tanglewood , Massachusetts.

As a doctoral student at Stanford University , he founded the Chamber Jazz Sextet in the early 1950s, with whom he performed in the San Francisco Bay Area and recorded three albums, one of which combined jazz compositions with poems by Kenneth Patchen . In 1958 he moved to Hollywood and worked as an arranger for artists such as Sarah Vaughan , Stan Kenton and Andy Williams . In the course of his career he was also the musical director for Johnny Mathis , Steve Lawrence , Eydie Gorme and Julie Andrews . He was best known as the co-composer of theme songs from successful television series such as Charlie's Angels and Barney Miller , for which he was nominated for an Emmy . He was awarded this music prize in 1985 for the music for the TV production Camille . He worked with the composer Jack Elliott on his film scores, for example on the television series The Rookies , Starsky & Hutch , Police Story and Banacek . Ferguson also wrote the music for the feature films Latigo (1970), Lawinenexpress (1979), Nothing New in the West (1979) or The Little Lord (1980).

In the late 1980s Ferguson worked as a music teacher at the Grove School of Music in Van Nuys , where he taught film music composition courses. In 1998 he wrote the arrangements for a Grammy excellent album Count Plays Duke of Count Basie Orchestra ( Ghost band ).

Discographic notes

Filmography (selection)

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