Marty Paich

• Born 23 January 1925, Oakland, California
• Died 12 August 1995, Santa Ynez, California

ne of the hardest-working arrangers of the Hollywood studio and jazz scene in the 1950s and 1960s. Paich grew up in Oakland and worked along with Pete Rugolo as an arranger for Gary Nottingham, a local band leader. During World War II, he led a band in the Army Air Corps, and afterwards took advantage of the GI Bill to study with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco at UCLA. He finished his Masters degree at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music in 1951 and immediately entered the music business in LA. He provided arrangements for a variety of bands, accompanied Peggy Lee, played piano and arranged for Shorty Rogers' Giants, toured with Dorothy Dandridge, and arranged and played on the score for Disney's The Lady and the Tramp.

Paich moved easily from studio work to the busy West Coast jazz scene and back. He played on, arranged, composed, and/or produced on a remarkable number of West Coast jazz recordings, including albums by Shelley Manne, Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, Dave Pell, Mel Torme, Ray Brown, Anita O'Day, Stan Kenton, Terry Gibbs, Ella Fitzgerald, and Buddy Rich. He also wrote for a number of television series, such as Hong Kong.

In the 1960s, he focused more on arranging and producing pop musicians, providing Al Hirt and Andy Williams, for example, with some of their best recordings. Paich led the studio orchestras for a string of television variety shows--The Glen Campbell Good-time Hour, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (replacing Nelson Riddle), and The Sonny and Cher Show--from the late 1960s into the mid-1970s.

Paich, by the way, rhymes with the letter "H".

For more information about Marty Paich, including a comprehensive discography, visit the Marty Paich Archive website at www.martypaich.com.-->