Billy May

Emerging from a Pittsburgh high-school band where he first played tuba, he entered the professional world at 17 with Gene Olsen’s Polish-American Orchestra and, by age 22, moved to New York to become chief arranger for the Charlie Barnet Orchestra, a role that demanded four new charts each week and produced landmark recordings such as the celebrated arrangement of Ray Noble’s “Cherokee.” His big-b… Read more

Biography written by WatchMoods, based on public sources