Russell Garcia

American bandleader, conductor, trumpeter, arranger & songwriter.

Born April 12, 1916 in Oakland, California, USA.

Died November 20, 2011 in Kerikeri, New Zealand.

Garcia wrote a wide variety of music for stage and screen. He was the composer/arranger at NBC Studios (for such shows as "Rawhide" and "Laredo"), MGM films, "The Time Machine" (1960 film) and "Atlantis, the Lost Continent", as well as orchestrated themes for "Father Goose" and "The Benny Goodman Story". He collaborated with numerous artists, including Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Judy Garland, Henry Mancini and Charlie Chaplin doing arrangements and conducting orchestras.

When Garcia was eleven years old, the Oakland Symphony Orchestra performed his arrangement of "Stardust". By the time Garcia was in high school, he was working five nights a week playing music and earning more than his father. He was a trumpeter in dance bands before joining NBC. His popular-song compositions include the instrumental "Adventures in Emotion".