Billy May: Bill's Bag

At the dawn of the 1950s, Billy May was the first arranger to update swing for Hollywood studio orchestras in the LP era. May's scores in 1951 were refreshingly free of classical overtones or a reliance on the blues. Instead, his brassy arrangements were jaunty, imaginative and witty. Gerry Mulligan and Neal Hefti were two other modernist swingers durin…