LENNIE NIEHAUS

(11 June 1929 - 28 May 2020)

The American musician, composer, arranger and orchestrator Lennie Niehaus, who has died aged 90, had a long career playing in jazz bands, working with singers and composing for films. He particularly became associated with the films of Clint Eastwood, from Tightrope in 1984 to Gran Torino in 2008. He both wrote for films directed by Eastwood and orchestrated film scores by Eastwood and his son Kyle. Born into a musical family in St Louis, Missouri, Leonard Niehaus first learned to play violin, then bassoon, clarinet and alto sax. He worked with Jerry Wald’s Band and toured with Stan Kenton - both before and after US Army service - where he first met Eastwood. Having begun composing, Niehaus left the Kenton band to work on writing and arranging for television shows with The King Sisters, Mel Tormḗ, Dean Martin and Carol Burnett. From the early 1960s, Niehaus orchestrated for film and TV composer Jerry Fielding on Straw Dogs, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, The Bad News Bears and Demon Seed. Later on he composed his own film scores which generally had an emphasis on jazz, coinciding with Eastwood’s own taste in music. Among the scores he wrote for Eastwood are Pale Rider, Heartbreak Ridge, Bird, White Hunter Black Heart, Unforgiven, A Perfect World, The Bridges of Madison County, Absolute Power, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, True Crime, Space Cowboys and Blood Work. Niehaus also did the orchestrations for The Outlaw Josey Wales, Escape from Alcatraz, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Changeling and Gran Torino, etc. He also worked on other films and TV shows, composing, arranging and conducting. Apart from film scores, Niehaus wrote many jazz works and recorded several albums including many with Stan Kenton, and he won an Emmy Award for the TV show Lush Life. Lennie Niehaus and his wife Patricia have a daughter, Susan.

MICHAEL DARVELL