Lennie Niehaus

Leonard Niehaus (June 1, 1929 – May 28, 2020) was an American alto saxophonist, composer and arranger on the West Coast jazz scene. He played with the Stan Kenton Orchestra and served as one of Kenton's primary staff arrangers. He also played with Ray Vasquez and trombonist and Vocalist, Phil Carreon and other jazz bands on the U.S. West Coast. Niehaus had a close association as composer and arranger on motion pictures produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. He continued to serve as a staff arranger for Kenton into the 1960s. He would go on during that time to write and arrange music for entertainers acts such as the King Sisters, Mel Tormé, Dean Martin, and Carol Burnett.

Orchestrating and composing for television and film By the age of 33, in 1962, he began orchestrating for television and film composer Jerry Fielding. Niehaus worked with Fielding on approximately seventy TV shows and films like Hogan's Heroes, Charlie’s Angels and McMillan & Wife. Films on this list include Straw Dogs (1971), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) by Sam Peckinpah, the comedy The Bad News Bears (1976), and the horror film Demon Seed (1977). After Fielding’s death Niehaus came into his own as a leading film composer; he always did his own orchestrating for his scores, not using any ghost writers.