Billy Byers

Although arthritis forced Billy Byers to give up playing piano as a teen, he still became a prolific arranger. Byers switched to trombone and later played in his Los Angeles hometown with Karl Kiffle's Hollywood Canteen Kids. Following Army service in 1944 and 1945, Byers worked as an arranger and trombonist in the bands of Georgie Auld, Buddy Rich, Benny Goodman, Charlie Ventura, and Teddy Powell in 1949 and 1950. Then he joined the staff of WMGM in New York, writing music for radio and television. He did similar duties in Paris for Ray Ventura in the mid-'50s and also recorded a combo album as a bandleader. Byers returned to Europe in the late '50s, playing with Quincy Jones' orchestra, and played for Harold Arlen from 1959-1960. Byers was Jones' assistant at Mercury Records for five years in the '60s; he did the arrangements for a series of Count Basie albums and also recorded some arrangements of Duke Ellington pieces under his own name. He later did extensive work as an arranger and conductor on film scores, and toured Europe and Japan with Frank Sinatra in 1974.