Music performer Mike Melvoin dies at 74

Jazz pianist, composer, arranger, former Recording Academy leader and prolific studio music performer Mike Melvoin died on February. 23 in Burbank. He was 74. Sporting a recording resume that incorporated the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" in addition to key tracks from Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, the Jackson 5 and Tom Waits, Melvoin seemed to be active like a film and television composer and launched numerous respected jazz tracks under their own title. Born in Oshkosh, Wisc., Melvoin started singing at 2 and playing piano at 3. He told William Grimm inside a 2003 interview, "(I figured) the alphabet ended with G." He attended Dartmouth College within the late nineteen fifties as well as in 1961 gone to live in La, where he grew to become a fixture within the city's jazz scene, having fun with the kind of Joe Williams and Peggy Lee. Melvoin launched his first album like a bandleader, "Secrets for your Mind," around the Liberty label in 1966, annually which saw him notch studio time around the Beach Boys' "Good Oscillations" single and "Pet Sounds" LP, in addition to Sinatra's "That's Existence." Studio focus on Lennon's "Uphold Me," Barbra Streisand's "Evergreen," the Jackson 5's "ABC" and Waits' live album "Nighthawks in the Diner" would follow. Melvoin started creating for TV and film in early '70s and led scores to skeins "Fame" and "MacGyver." He'd a little role within the Robert P Niro-directed "The Great Shepherd" in 2006. Melvoin was the very first active music performer for everyone as topper from the Recording Academy. He received a Grammy nomination in 2003 for his recording of "Any Nothing whatsoever," in addition to lifetime achievement honours in the Buddies of Jazz at UCLA and La Jazz Society. Ongoing the household tradition, Melvoin's twin kids Wendy and Susannah performed and recorded with Prince within the eighties (using the former developing 1 / 2 of the Wendy & Lisa duo), and the boy Jonathan would be a touring person in the Smashing Pumpkins until his dying in 1996. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com