Larry Elgart, a saxophonist who formed a popular big band with his older brother, Les, co-wrote the theme song to "American Bandstand," and had his biggest hit album in 1982, a disco-pulsing medley of 1940s standards called "Hooked on Swing."
A precociously talented musician, Mr. Elgart was traveling with bands at 15 to support his family during the Great Depression. He played alto sax in orchestras led by Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Red Norvo, and Charlie Spivak, some of the biggest-name outfits of the day, and was an adventurous-minded player who also helped compose ballet scores and musical tone poems.
He first teamed with his brother in 1947 to start a band with dynamic arrangers, such as Nelson Riddle and Ralph Flanagan, but it proved a commercial failure. Mr. Elgart and Charles Albertine, a saxophonist-composer with avant-garde sensibilities, formed a new orchestra in 1952 and installed trumpeter Les Elgart as the nominal frontman.
It was the last breath of the jazz and swing era, and rock-and-roll soon emerged as the dominant commercial force. But the brothers managed to keep the Les Elgart Orchestra — later renamed the Les and Larry Elgart Orchestra — humming along lucratively for the next 15 years by playing campus proms, country club dates, and cruise ship ballrooms.
They were traveling widely to promote the radio success of one of their first albums, "Sophisticated Swing" (1953) when they landed in Philadelphia and met Bob Horn, who hosted a local TV dance show called "Bandstand."
"My brother said to him, 'If we record a theme for you, would you use it?" Larry Elgart told the Longboat Observer in Florida. "... Our next recording date, we recorded ["Bandstand Boogie," written with Albertine] and took it to Bob Horn, and he said, 'Absolutely. That's it.' ... If you hear Barry Manilow at times, he'll say he wrote 'Bandstand Boogie.' It's not true. He just wrote the lyrics" decades later.
Tracklist:
01 La Cage aux Folles
02 Caravan
03 The Best of Times
04 Harlem Nocturne
05 Bandstand Boogie
06 Puttin' On The Ritz
07 Boogie Woogie
08 Satin Doll
09 Tuxedo Junction
10 Chameleon Days ( From the movie "Zelig") / La Cage aux Folles (Reprise)
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