Buddy DeFranco

Clarinetist, bandleader, arranger, conductor and composer, educated at the Mastbaum School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also studied with Meyer Levin and Ross Wyre. At fourteen, he won a Major Bowes competition and a Tommy Dorsey swing contest as a jazz clarinetist. With his brother Lawrence and also Elliot Lawrence, he formed a teenage band which was featured on radio. For sixteen years, he toured in dance bands, and led his own sextet, big band, and quartet. He would later go on to assume the leadership of the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Joining ASCAP in 1960, his popular-song and instrumental compositions include "Warm Evening", "Strings Have Strung", and "Really Swell".