Neal Hefti
| Neal Hefti | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Neal Paul Hefti |
| Born |
October 29, 1922 Hastings, Nebraska, U.S. |
| Died | October 11, 2008 (aged 85) Toluca Lake, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Swing, Television music, Big band music |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, arranger |
| Instruments | Trumpet |
| Associated acts | |
Neal Paul Hefti (October 29, 1922 – October 11, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, songwriter, and arranger. He composed the theme music for the Batman television series of the 1960s, and scored the 1968 film The Odd Couple and the subsequent TV series also titled The Odd Couple.
He began arranging professionally in his teens, when he wrote charts for Nat Towles. He became a prominent composer and arranger while playing trumpet for Woody Herman; while working for Herman he provided new arrangements for "Woodchopper's Ball" and "Blowin' Up a Storm", and composed "The Good Earth" and "Wild Root". After leaving Herman's band in 1946, Hefti concentrated on arranging and composing, although he occasionally led his own bands. He is especially known for his charts for Count Basie such as "Li'l Darlin'" and "Cute".
Neal Paul Hefti was born October 29, 1922, to an impoverished family in Hastings, Nebraska. As a young child, he remembered his family relying on charity during the holidays. He started playing the trumpet in school at the age of eleven, and by high school was spending his summer vacations playing in local territory bands to help his family make ends meet.
Growing up in, and near, a big city like Omaha, Hefti was exposed to some of the great bands and trumpeters of the Southwest territory bands. He also was able to see some of the virtuoso jazz musicians from New York that came through Omaha on tour. His early influences all came from the North Omaha scene. He said,
We'd see Basie in town, and I was impressed by Harry Edison and Buck Clayton, being a trumpet player. And I would say I was impressed by Dizzy Gillespie when he was with Cab Calloway. I was impressed by those three trumpet players of the people I saw in person... I thought Harry Edison and Dizzy Gillespie were the most unique of the trumpet players I heard.
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