Van Alexander, the 1940s bandleader who co-composed "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" with Ella Fitzgerald and went ahead to score many movie...
Van Alexander, the 1940s bandleader who co-composed "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" with Ella Fitzgerald and went ahead to score many movies and TV demonstrates in the 1950s and '60s, kicked the bucket of heart disappointment Sunday evening at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 100.
A three-time Emmy chosen one for creation and music bearing in the mid 1970s, Alexander was head arranger for the whole keep running of NBC"s "Dignitary Martin Show" (1965-74) and composed scores for some 1960s sitcoms including "Hazel," "The Donna Reed Show," "Dennis the Menace," "The Farmer's Daughter," "Charmed" and "I Dream of Jeannie."
He was likewise the writer of more than twelve 1950s and '60s film scores including "The Atomic Kid," "Cute face Nelson," "Andy Hardy Comes Home," "Young ladies Town" and a trio of William Castle movies that have get to be clique top choices: "13 Frightened Girls," "Strait-Jacket" and "I Saw What You Did."
Alexander was the writer of "First Arrangement," a milestone 1946 how-to book for performers figuring out how to organize symphony. He later penned a personal history, "From Harlem to Hollywood: A Life in Music."
He was conceived in New York, May 2, 1915, and started piano lessons at 6 years old. He turned out to be agreeable with bandleader Chick Webb at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom and sold his first course of action at 19 years old.
Webb's included artist Fitzgerald recommended the thought of making the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" into a jazz number, and they recorded it on Alexander's 23rd birthday in 1938. It turned into her first huge hit and his greatest hit as a lyricist. He went ahead to compose band plans for Benny Goodman and Bob Crosby.
Alexander drove his own band from 1939 to 1944, moving to L.A. in 1945 and beginning to make for movies in the 1950s. His work on "The Atomic Kid" and TV's "The Mickey Rooney Show," both in 1954, prompted a progression of scores for Rooney movies into the 1960s.
Throughout the years, Alexander worked with artists including Gordon MacRae, Peggy Lee, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, Mitzi Gaynor, Lena Horne, Bob Hope, Tony Bennett and others.
In TV, Alexander acted as music executive on various 1960s and '70s assortment specials including ones featured by Gene Kelly, Dom DeLuise and Jonathan Winters. His Emmy noms were for Winters and Kelly indicates and Martin's late spring substitution arrangement "The Golddiggers."
Alexander was a past president of the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers, and served on its top managerial staff for a long time. He got lifetime-accomplishment honors from the Los Angeles Jazz Society in 1997, Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters in 1997 and the ASCAP Foundation in 2002.
Alexander praised his 100th birthday at a top pick bash in May at Catalina Bar & Grill, went to by more than 200 individuals from the jazz, film and TV music group.
His wife Beth, to whom he was hitched for a long time, passed on in 2010. He is made due by two little girls, Joyce Harris and Lynn Tobias of Los Angeles, four grandchildren, and 14 extraordinary grandchildren.
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