Biography
12 May 1910, Webster Groves, Missouri, USA, d. 24 April 1984, Malibu, California, USA. A distinguished songwriter, arranger and conductor, as a child Jenkins occasionally played organ at the Chicago movie theatre where his father was the regular organist. During Prohibition he played piano in a St. Louis speakeasy and was later employed by a radio station in the same city. In 1936 he became chief staff arranger for Isham Jones, producing skilful charts for this superior dance orchestra, and later composed and arranged for Woody Herman, Lennie Hayton, Vincent Lopez, Benny Goodman and André Kostalanetz. He composed Herman’s theme, ‘Blue Prelude’ (with Joe Bishop), and ‘Goodbye’, which Goodman used as the closing music to hundreds of radio shows. In 1936 he conducted the orchestra for The Show Is On on Broadway, and in the following year settled on the west coast, working for Paramount. In 1939 he began a five-year tenure as musical...
Read the Full Biography of Gordon Jenkins / Moondog / Morton Gould
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