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Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Mike Melvoin was
raised in Milwaukee,
and was singing by age two, and playing piano by age three. He could read music before he could read
words, and by his own admission, perhaps facetiously, thought the alphabet
ended with G. As a teenager, he
was playing classical music and jazz, sometimes in the local clubs. After graduating high school, he
went on to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire
where he led a dance band called the Barbary Coast,
and The Sultans, a jazz quintet, even though his major was English. He kicked around the East Coast for
a while, but put himself into the L.A.
jazz scene in 1962, and never looked back. It was here he would continue to
receive his unofficial education from a litany of jazzmen, including Plas Johnson.
Before long, he found himself in demand as a session musician,
working with a plethora of artists and groups too long to list here,
including Ed Ames, Herb Alpert, Paul Anka, The
Association, Hoyt Axton, The Beach Boys, Glen Campbell, Bobby Darin, Duane
Eddy, Eddie Fisher, The Grass Roots, John Hartford, Burl Ives, Sammy Johns,
John Lennon, The Manhattan Transfer, Laura Nyro,
The Platters, Jimmie Rodgers, Diana Ross, Carole Bayer Sager, Frank
Sinatra, Mel Torme, The Ventures, and John
Williams. He also arranged,
conducted, and served as musical director on several albums for Peggy Lee,
and arranged all of The Partridge Family albums. Living and working in Los Angeles led to
film and television work, both media in which Melvoin
served as composer, conductor, and keyboardist. He composed and conducted music for
the TV shows Baretta,
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Early Edition, Fame, The Krofft Supershow, Lou
Grant, and MacGyver, and the
movies Armed & Dangerous, The Big Town, and The Main Event, and lent his
keyboard virtuosity to The French
Connection, Play Misty For Me,
and Rocky. You may have also heard him pounding
the piano on the “Theme from Mission:
Impossible” and playing the synthesizer on “We Are
the World”. He served as
National President of the Recording
Academy (the folks
responsible for the Grammys) from 1984 to 1985, the first active musician
to do so, and served on the Board of Directors of the Academy’s
charitable foundation, MusiCares. He has been involved in the Grammys
in a variety of capacities, including composer, conductor, keyboardist, and
musical director. Recently, he
has returned to his roots with the Mike Melvoin
Trio, recording Oh Baby in 2002
and You Know in 2006, and
performing at venues such as The Cutting Room, in New
York City, and Fino, in Washington, D.C. That very same year, the Friends of
Jazz, honoured him with the Musician’s
Musician award, at the University
of California in Los Angeles.
Lalo
Schifrin recordings
All for the
Love of Sunshine (Lalo Schifrin)
Theme from
“Medical
Center” (Lalo Schifrin)
Sources:
1.
http://www.mikemelvoin.com
2.
http://www.opendoormanagement.com/mikemelvoin/index.html#bio
3.
http://www.brokennewz.com/displaystory.asp_Q_storyid_E_988melvoin
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