Started as arranger for the Chicago-based NBC radio show "Design for Listening", followed by Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" on television. From 1957, worked on Broadway, notably as orchestrator of the original stage version of "West Side Story". He followed this with "The Music Man" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum". Becoming one of the preeminent Broadway conductors led, in turn, to a contract with Disney in Hollywood.