Luther Henderson

Luther Henderson ( born March 14, 1919 in Kansas City, Missouri, † 29 July 2003 in New York City, New York ) was an American composer and arranger of jazz and musicals.

His family moved to Harlem in 1923, where she lived in the neighborhood of Duke Ellington. In 1942 he graduated from the Juilliard School and began after his military service in World War II (partly at the U.S. Navy School of Music) as an arranger for musicals writing, first for Ellington ( who called him his classical arm, but occasionally it into the passed credits ), 1946 in the musical Beggars Holiday and whose Carnegie Hall concerts. In the 1950s he worked for television and arranged and orchestrated Broadway musicals like Is not Misbehavin ', music by Fats Waller, Funny Girl, Flower Drum Song, Play On ( Tony Award nomination ), Jelly 's Last Jam ( about Jelly roll Morton, also nominated for a Tony ).

He was also a longtime arranger for Canadian Brass ( a Canadian brass quintet founded in 1970 ).

In 2004 he was awarded the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship ( but the ceremony reached him only posthumously ).