Jerry Fielding

Jerry Fielding (June 17, 1922 - February 17, 1980) was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director. Jerry Fielding was born as Joshua Itzhak Feldman to Hiram Harris Feldman and Esther Feldman. After trying the trombone, he took up the clarinet and joined the school band. He was offered a scholarship to the the Carnegie Institute for Instrumentalists. After a short attendance, because of ill health he w... more

Jerry Fielding (June 17, 1922 - February 17, 1980) was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director. Jerry Fielding was born as Joshua Itzhak Feldman to Hiram Harris Feldman and Esther Feldman. After trying the trombone, he took up the clarinet and joined the school band. He was offered a scholarship to the the Carnegie Institute for Instrumentalists. After a short attendance, because of ill health he was bedridden for two years with an undiagnosed ailment. While housebound, he listened to the radio, and became a fan of the big band sound and Bernard Hermann’s music for Orson Welles’s radio dramas. Somewhat recuperated, he worked at Pittsburgh’s Stanley Theater. He worked with Max Atkins (the pit orchestra conductor at the Stanley) who taught him composition and arranging. At the age of seventeen, he left Pittsburgh to work for Alvino Rey’s swing band. His arrangement of Picnic in Purgatory in 1940 became highly popular. This job ended when... less