Through a unique combination of genuine musical talent fused with a keen sense of both commercial trends and evolving recording technologies of the 1950s, arranger/conductor/instrumentalist Ray Coniff emerged as one of the most popular and commercially successful musicians during the dawn of the stereo age in the late 1950s. Coniff carried on the big band sound long beyond the music's original heyday in the 1940s, and charted 53 albums between 1957 and 1974, including two million-sellers, and 13 other LPs that reached the Top Ten and/or went gold.

Coniff was born into a musical family in Attleboro, Massachusetts, on November 6, 1916, and followed in his father's musical footsteps when he became the lead trombonist of the Attleboro High School dance band (in which he also gained his first arranging experience). After graduating in 1934 he pursued a musical career in Boston, and in 1936 moved to New York...