Conniff, a trombonist and big band leader who made a remarkably prolific and successful transition to orchestral pop composer, leader, and arranger, died at 85 after injuring his head in a fall:
- A top-selling big band leader and trombonist, Conniff made more than 100 albums, 25 of them reaching the top 40, in a career that spanned six decades. His easy-listening albums sold more than 70 million copies.
He earned a Grammy Award for his recording of "Somewhere, My Love," along with two Grammy nominations, more than 10 gold albums and two platinum albums, "Somewhere, My Love" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." The latter brought him a citation as CBS Records' best-selling artist for 1962.
....Said Mitch Miller, a veteran A&R man who hired Conniff as a staff arranger at Columbia Records in the 1950s: "He was a consummate craftsman, and he knew that the simpler, the better ... but it's also harder to do it that way. He arranged the first Johnny Mathis recordings, and they were all hits: 'Chances Are,' 'It's Not for Me to Say,' 'Wonderful! Wonderful!' 'Scarlet Ribbons.' He could take a good idea and run with it, and I think he probably sold more records for Columbia than any other artist we had at the time."
Still touring and recording until he suffered a stroke six months ago, Conniff performed "Somewhere, My Love," the theme from "Dr. Zhivago," on March 16 at the wedding reception of Liza Minnelli and David Gest, an event portrayed in an article by his daughter, Tamara Conniff, music editor of The Hollywood Reporter.
A native of Attleboro, Mass., Conniff learned to play the trombone from his father, who was also a trombonist, and his mother, a pianist. He got his first professional job with Dan Murphy's Musical Skippers in Boston. He played trombone, arranged music and drove a panel truck for the band. Just in time for the birth of swing, he left for New York.
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