Ray Conniff

Genres:	Easy Listening • Holiday & Seasonal • Pop / Rock
Descriptive "tags":	instrumental • easy listening • ray conniff • orchestra • vocal • ray conniff singers
Decades Active:	1950s • 1960s • 1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s
Links online:	BBC Music • Wikipedia

Biography

6 November 1916, Attelboro, Massachusetts, USA, d. 12 October 2002, Escondido, California, USA. Taught to play the trombone by his father, Conniff studied arranging with the aid of a mail-order course while still at college. In 1934, after graduation, he worked with small bands in Boston before joining Bunny Berigan as trombonist/arranger in 1937. After a spell with Bob Crosby’s Bobcats, Conniff spent four years with Artie Shaw and featured on several successful records including ‘Concerto For Clarinet’, ‘Dancing In The Dark’ and ‘St James Infirmary’. During this period he was also studying at the New York Juilliard School of Music in New York.

After army service in World War II Conniff spent some time as an arranger with Harry James, then freelanced while searching for a successful formula for producing hit records. Conniff joined Columbia Records as a house arranger in 1951 and worked with several of their...

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