Neal Hefti, who composed the BATMAN TV theme, passed away Saturday. He was 85...:cry:

Classic theme, but I have no idea what else he did.

I kn ow he also did the theme to "The Odd Couple". I think he might have scored the movie too. Not interested enough to google it at this time.

Neal Hefti, who composed the BATMAN TV theme, passed away Saturday. He was 85...:cry:

That's too bad. I didn't even know that Hefti was still living. He was a talented jazz composer and arranger.

Neal was a great composer and arranger. The Batman theme was not by any means his best work.

He wrote the Odd Couple TV series theme and the theme from How To Murder Your Wife. But, not even these titles were his best work.

His best work was the songs he composed and arranged for the Count Basie Orchestra. Cute was a song that the Johnny Carson theme emulated. Cute was used in the movie called Cinderfella, starring Jerry Lewis when he is dancing to the radio in the Kitchen.

My favorite songong that Hefti wrote was a beautiful ballad called Lil Darlin. The CBO used to do that song to perfection. Although the song was originally meant to be upbeat, they played it soft and slow. It's a classic.

Here's a link to Hefti's Obituary.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/15/arts/16hefti.php

I'm so sad to hear that.

Li'l Darlin' is the one I like best, too. Thanks for the link, Roland; I learned that he also composed Barefoot in the Park. That's another great one, upbeat yet melancholy, and ingenious.

I never saw Barefoot in the Park, but, it must be a good movie.

Hefti said he liked working in Hollywood better than in jazz because he could write for any size band with any kind of instrument.

The article says he wasn't writing new music near the end of his life and that he was spending more time dealing with the copyright issues of his music. Music isn't everything, money is important too. I know a guy that made up a song that did'nt bother copyrighting it. Today, someone else is making royalties off of it instead.