Ray Conniff birthday November 6

Joseph Raymond Conniff (November 6, 1916 – October 12, 2002) was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s.

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Floyd Cramer (October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997) was an American Hall of Fame pianist

Cramer was one of the architects of the "Nashville Sound." He popularized the "slip note" piano style where an out-of-tune note slides effortlessly into the correct note. This was a major departure from the percussive piano style which was popular in the late 1950s.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Cramer grew up in the small town of Huttig, Arkansas, teaching himself to play the piano. After finishing high school, he returned to Shreveport, where he worked as a pianist for the Louisiana Hayride radio show. After Cramer relocated permanently to Nashville, Allen "Puddler" Harris, a native of Franklin Parish in northeastern Louisiana, replaced him as the pianist for the Hayride.

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Syd Dale (20 May 1924 – 15 August 1994) was born in York, England.

Dale was a self taught composer and arranger of funk, easy listening and library music. His music played an important role on TV, radio and advertising media of the 1960s and 1970s. It is still extensively used today. Syd Dale started as an apprentice engineer at Rowntree's chocolate factory at 16. Soon Big Band music, very popular in the 1940s, became his passion. He spent as much time as possible listening to the Big Bands and studying the arrangements. Three years later, in 1945, he left the factory and joined several local bands as pianist and arranger. Many years later, in the middle 1960s, his talent was widely recognized. Syd Dale's music, which emphasized melody and harmony with intricate arrangements, was ahead of its time. He worked on many television and radio projects. He was musical director on Oh Boy, Six-Five Special and Braden's Week. He had also co-arranged and co-produced some 007 themes as many other commercial successes. Another of his many production music pieces, the bongo drum and harpsichord-driven "Cuban Presto" (originally released on the 1966 KPM album Accent on Percussion), was used by WPIX (Channel 11) in New York City as the theme for its late-night movie show, The Channel 11 Film Festival, from the late 1960s to the 1980s. In 1971 he founded Amphonic Music record label, with the special purpose of recording and producing his compositions and supply music to TV, film and radio business. Thirty years later, the company is still working. In the mid 70's he also released one of his more memorable tracks to the disco/teen market "The Flasher", creating a dance craze of Skipping backwards and forwards on the dance floor widely demonstrated at Spenborough Youth Club, West Yorkshire.

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EDMUNDO ROS dies, age 100

Band leader Edmundo Ros, the man credited with popularising Latin American music in the UK, has died at the age of 100. His death was confirmed by showbusiness charity the Grand Order of Water Rats. Secretary John Adrian said: "He died last night peacefully at his home in Spain, two months short of his 101st birthday". Ros received an OBE for services to entertainment in the New Year Honours of 2000. Edmundo William Ros OBE (7 December 1910 – 21 October 2011) was a Trinidadian musician, vocalist, arranger and bandleader who made his career in Britain.

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Ethel Gabriel Beautiful instrumentals record producer

Ethel deNagy Gabriel, birthday November 16, 1921, is one of America's first female record producers in American music business with a 4 decade career at RCA Records.

Gabriel grew up in the Philadelphia area, learning the music business as a trombone player and bandleader of her own dance band in the 1930s. She later started working at RCA's record factory in Camden, New Jersey to earn a living in support of her music studies at Temple University. She eventually became a producer at RCA, achieving notability as the first woman to become a record label producer, and became head of the "Pure Gold" label. She won six Emmy Awards and produced fifteen Gold records out of over twenty-five hundred releases to her credit. Gold records include hits by Elvis Presley, Perry Como, Al Hirt, Roger Whitaker, Henry Mancini, among others. Throughout the 1950s, her work with George Melachrino's Strings and Orchestra was sold as life-enhancing soundtracks for relaxing, dining, studying, daydreaming, romance or building courage and confidence. Her Living Strings series, introduced in 1959, enjoyed a 22-year run, featuring orchestras playing the pop hits of the day. She was also primarily responsible for igniting a mambo craze in the United States, when her production of Peréz Prado's "Apple Pink and Cherry Blossom White" spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard chart in 1955.

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Ethel Gabriel at Wikipedia

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George Cates birthday October 19

George Cates (October 19, 1911 – May 12, 2002) was an American music arranger, conductor, songwriter and record executive known for his work with Lawrence Welk and his orchestra.

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October 16 Birthday of Bert Kämpfert

Bert Kaempfert (born Berthold Kämpfert; 16 October 1923 – 21 June 1980) was a German orchestra leader and songwriter. He made easy listening and jazz-oriented records, and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, such as "Strangers in the Night" and "Spanish Eyes".

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Roger Williams, Mr. Piano has died at age 87

Roger Williams, the pianist whose lush versions of familiar tunes like “Autumn Leaves” and “Born Free” became hit recordings in the 1950s and ’60s and who continued to perform in concerts into his 80s, died on Saturday,8 October, 2011 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87.

Roger Williams (born Louis Weertz, October 1, 1924 – October 8, 2011) was an American popular music pianist. As of 2004, he had released 116 albums.

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Malcolm Lockyer birthday October 5

Malcolm Lockyer (5 October 1923 - 28 June 1976) was a film composer and conductor. His biggest successes in composition were for the BBC series Friends and Neighbours in 1959 for which he wrote the theme. He wrote the scores for at least three films: Island of Terror (1966), Sandy the Seal (1969), and La Loba y La Paloma (1974). He also composed the music for the 1965 film Dr. Who and the Daleks, some arrangements from that film have since been released on a CD called The Eccentric Dr. Who. Lockyer conducted frequently throughout the 1960s. Among the many orchestras he led were those for: the BBC Radio Home Service's radio musical version of Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (1962) and the films Our Man in Marrakesh (1966) and Deadlier than the Male (1967). From the early '60's he was conductor of the BBC Revue Orchestra and subsequnetly the principal conductor of the new BBC Radio Orchestra and the BBC Big Band when both ensembles were formed in 1967.

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