Pietro "Pete" Rugolo (December 25, 1915 – October 16, 2011) was an American jazz arranger and record producer. One of the most important American composers of the twentieth century who has registered 364 compositions with ASCAP, then moved to BMI where he logged a further 508 titles.
Rugolo was born in San Piero Patti, Sicily. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920 and settled in Santa Rosa, California. He began his career in music playing the baritone horn, like his father, but he quickly branched out into other instruments, notably the French horn and the piano. He received a bachelor's degree from San Francisco State College and then went on to study composition with Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland, California and earn his master's degree.
After he graduated, he was hired as an arranger and composer by guitarist and bandleader Johnny Richards. He spent World War II playing with altoist Paul Desmond in an Army band. After the war, Rugolo worked for Stan Kenton. He and songwriter Joe Greene collaborated on songs that made Kenton's band one of America's most popular. The readers of Down Beat magazine voted Mr. Rugolo best arranger five times between 1947 and 1954.
In 1949, Pete became musical director at Capitol records, where he produced recording sessions with big name jazz stars, including Miles Davis (he came up with the title of Davis's ground-breaking album "The Birth of the Cool"), Charlie Parker, Nat 'King' Cole, Dinah Washington, Mel Tormé, Ernestine Anderson, Harry Belafonte, Billy Eckstine and Peggy Lee. He continued a part-time collaboration with Kenton and also arranged for Kenton's former star vocalist June Christy on such albums as Something Cool, The Misty Miss Christy, Fair and Warmer!, Gone for the Day, and The Song Is June!
The 1950's were a busy decade for Rugolo. He had contractual affiliations with Columbia Records and briefly fronted his own band in 1954, featuring Patti Page as his vocalist. He also worked on film musicals at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he was employed as a staff composer/arranger on a number of musicals, including Kiss Me Kate (1953) and Easy to Love (1953).
In the late 1950s he served as an A&R director for Mercury Records. Among his albums were Adventures in Rhythm, Introducing Pete Rugolo, Rugolomania, An Adventure in Sound: Reeds in Hi-Fi, and Music for Hi-Fi Bugs. Rugolo's arrangements for the album The Four Freshmen and Five Trombones propelled the group to recognition in jazz circles. It was their bestselling album. He also arranged for Sarah Vaughan.
In 1962, he released an album of themes from popular television series, TV's Top Themes, which included his composition for the 1961 CBS sitcom Ichabod and Me. Rugolo's small combo jazz music featured in a couple of numbers in the film, Where the Boys Are (1960) under the guise of Frank Gorshin's "Dialectic Jazz Band".In the 1960s and 1970s, Rugolo did a great deal of work in television, contributing music to a number of series including Leave It to Beaver, Thriller, The Investigators, The Thin Man, Checkmate, The Fugitive, Run for Your Life, Felony Squad, The Bold Ones: The Lawyers, Alias Smith and Jones and Family.
He provided scores for a number of TV movies and a few theatrical films, such as Jack the Ripper (1959), The Sweet Ride (1968), Underground Aces (1981) Chu Chu and the Philly Flash (1981) and numerous others. He was nominated for six Emmy Awards, of which he won three. Retiring in 1985, Rugolo was honoured in 1993 by receiving the Golden Score Award from the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers.
He came out of semi-retirement in 1997 to compose and conduct the score for "This World, Then the Fireworks," a thriller directed by Michael Oblowitz. This sound track demonstrated his gift for writing music that is both sophisticated and expressive.
Rugolo died at the age of 95 on October 16, 2011 in Sherman Oaks, California.
(Edited from Wikipedia & IMDb)
Below is a clip from a recording session for "MINOR RIFF" in Hollywood, California on February 19, 1999. Arranged & Conducted by PETE RUGOLO. Trumpets: FRANK SZABO (lead), BUDDY CHILDERS, CONTE CANDOLI (jazz solo) & PETE CANDOLI. Trombones: ROY WIEGAND, GREG SOLOMON, JACK REDMOND, BILL TOLE & GEORGE ROBERTS (bass trombone). Saxophones: STEVE WILKERSON (tenor solo), TERRY HARRINGTON, RAY REED (alto flute), JIM QUAM & JENNIFER HALL (baritone). BARRY ZWEIG (guitar), JOHN LEITHAM (bass), CHUCK FLORES (drums) and JACK COSTANZO (congas). Session produced by ROBERT HICKS, Michael James & Pete Rugolo for the TEXTURES IN HI-FI album. Exclusive video by Clyde Yasuhara. Trivia: Buddy Childers played on the original Capitol recording of MINOR RIFF back in 1947.