Allyn Ferguson

Who was Allyn Ferguson?

Allyn Malcolm Ferguson Jr. was an American composer, best known for the themes for 1970s television programs Barney Miller and Charlie's Angels, which he co-wrote with Jack Elliott. In its obituary, Variety called him "among the most prolific composers of TV-movie scores in the past 40 years".

Ferguson was born in San Jose, California on October 18, 1924. He started playing the trumpet when he was four years old and began playing piano at seven. After graduating from San Jose State University, he traveled to Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger and at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland. He established the Chamber Jazz Sextet in the 1950s, combining classical and jazz influences. Ferguson and his Chamber Jazz Sextet collaborated with the poet Kenneth Patchen on a recording in 1957, originally titled Kenneth Patchen with the Chamber Jazz Sextet. Behind Patchen's readings, Ferguson and the Chamber Jazz Sextet performed jazz accompaniment which Ferguson composed for eight individual poems. The group produced "Pictures at an Exhibition: Framed in Jazz" in 1963, a big band-style production of the Modest Mussorgsky piano suite.