Waldrop, Donald

Arranger, bass trombonist, music director, and tuba player from North Carolina who studied music at Stetson University in Florida and Catholic University in Washington, D.C. before embarking on a 35-year career as a session musician in Los Angeles, California.

As you can imagine, that led to quite a bit of film work: Donald Waldrop’s brass stylings can be heard on the soundtracks of Ghost, One from the Heart, nearly all of the Rocky films, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Sting, and True Lies.

He was equally busy in the television industry, appearing on The Carol Burnett Show and contributing to the scores of Deep Space Nine, Matlock, Murder, She Wrote, The Simpsons, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Trek: Voyager.

In the 1960s and beyond, Donald seemingly spent every spare minute in the recording studio. He appeared on A.B. Skhy’s eponymous debut in 1969 and pretty much never stopped working. It’s a Beautiful Day used him on their 1973 release, It’s a Beautiful Day… Today.

A year later, Donald dusted off his classical chops in concert with the Pacifica Brass Quintet as part of the South Bay Chamber Music Society, Inc.’s series of public performances. Their program comprised music ranging from Baroque composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Samuel Scheidt to modern mavericks like Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky.

In 1979, Donald appeared on Frank Sinatra’s Trilogy.

How’s this for doing a 180? He opened the decade of the ‘80s by appearing on a pair of Tom Waits albums, the aforementioned One from the Heart (with Crystal Gayle) and Swordfishtrombones.

1984 was not Orwellian for Donald: He returned to the South Bay Chamber Music Society, as a member of The Modern Brass Quintet, to perform another concert spanning the centuries: Again, Baroque and 20^th-century music were on the menu, including Giles Farnaby’s “Fancies, Toyes, and Dreames” and Leonard Bernstein’s overture to Candide.

He also served as the music supervisor on the public-service documentary, Strong Kids, Safe Kids. Kids of all ages can enjoy his arrangement of Peter and the Wolf, which was performed by the Sonus Brass Ensemble.

As the CD era ensued, more and more of Donald’s music, past and present, surfaced. Some examples of his handiwork can be heard on 1991’s Stan Kenton 50^th Anniversary Celebration: The Best of “Back to Balboa”, 1998’s Brazilian Horizons, Vol. 1, and the 2001 retrospective, Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones.

Donald retired in 2002 and lives in Florida.

He performs here….

Sources:

Waldrop, Donald

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