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Joe Lipman

American jazz pianist, composer and bandleader. Born April 23, 1915 in Boston, Massachusetts. Died January 21, 2007 (aged 91) in Los Angeles, California. He began playing music at the age of seven. His musical career was over five decades long, having started at age 19, quitting college after two weeks to join the Benny Goodman orchestra in 1934 and writing for television, films, and Broadway in the 1980s. He played piano and arranged for Goodman. He composed and arranged for Bunny Berigan, Jimmy Dorsey, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker and worked as staff arranger in television for Perry Como and the television variety program [i]Hollywood Palace[/i]. Lipman was hired to write arrangements for Perry Como's first album, [i]So Smooth[/i], the beginning of a long, successful collaboration (including 8 albums together). Lipman worked on Como's staff from 1957 to 1962 for Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall. Just a couple among numerous of his best known arrangements include "Home for the Holidays" by Perry Como and "I Can’t Get Started" by Bunny Berigan, one of the most famous recordings of the band era, which hit #10 on the U.S. charts in 1938. He won an Academy Award for Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture for [i]Hello Dolly![/i] and was nominated for two Emmy Awards--for Individual Achievements In Music - Arranging in 1966 and Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction in 1980.