Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer, and pianist who was influential in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s.
18 Facts About Gordon Jenkins
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Gordon Jenkins began his career writing arrangements for a radio Station in St Louis.
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Gordon Jenkins was hired by Isham Jones, the director of a dance band known for its ensemble playing, which gave Jenkins the opportunity to develop his skills in melodic scoring.
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In 1944, Gordon Jenkins had a hit song with "San Fernando Valley".
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Gordon Jenkins wrote the score for the Broadway revue, Along Fifth Avenue, starring Nancy Walker and Jackie Gleason, which ran for 180 performances in 1949.
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Gordon Jenkins made a rare excursion into film work in 1952 when he scored the action film Bwana Devil, the first 3-D movie shot in color.
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Gordon Jenkins headlined New York's Capitol Theater between 1949 and 1951 and the Paramount Theater in 1952.
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Gordon Jenkins appeared in Las Vegas in 1953 and many times thereafter.
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Gordon Jenkins worked for NBC as a TV producer from 1955 to 1957, and performed at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964.
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Also while at Decca Records Gordon Jenkins arranged and conducted several songs for Peggy Lee including her 1952 major hit recording of Rodgers and Hart's "Lover", which she performed in the Warner Bros.
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Lee had chart successes with the Gordon Jenkins-arranged "Be Anything " and "Just One of Those Things".
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Gordon Jenkins wrote the music and lyrics for Judy Garland's 1959 album The Letter which featured vocalist Charles LaVere, and conducted several of Garland's London concerts in the early 1960s.
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Gordon Jenkins produced a diverse set of charts for his critically acclaimed 1960 album Gordon Jenkins Presents Marshal Royal, a jazz-pop crossover project with Count Basie's alto saxophonist which included both strings and a swinging rhythm section.
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Gordon Jenkins worked with Harry Nilsson, arranging and conducting A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, an album of jazz standards.
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The Nilsson sessions, with Gordon Jenkins conducting, were recorded on video and later broadcast as a television special by the BBC.
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Gordon Jenkins composed both the "Future" suite and the entire "Future" section of Sinatra's 1980 concept album Trilogy: Past Present Future, and scored the music for the 1980 film The First Deadly Sin, which starred Sinatra in his last major film role.
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Gordon Jenkins died of Lou Gehrig's disease in Malibu, California, eleven days shy of his 74th birthday.
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In 1966, Gordon Jenkins received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist for Frank Sinatra's rendition of the song "It Was a Very Good Year".