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Fred Karlin, 1936-2004
Composer, arranger and trumpeter Fred Karlin died in Culver City, California, on March 26, 2004, at the age of 67, following a battle with cancer.
An exceptionally versatile musician, Karlin wrote more than 130 scores for films and television productions, won both an Academy Award and an Emmy, and became particularly admired for his ability to move effortlessly between jazz, folk, rock, classical and electronic music.
Frederick James Karlin was born in Chicago on June 16, 1936. He began playing trumpet and studying jazz while still a teenager, learning composition with William Russo before attending Amherst College, where his honors thesis was a string quartet. After moving to New York in 1958 he worked as a composer and arranger for musicians including Benny Goodman and Harry James, while also writing for documentaries, commercials and Radio City Music Hall.
Karlin entered feature films with Robert Mulligan’s Up the Down Staircase (1967), starring Sandy Dennis. He quickly became a sought-after composer, following it with Yours, Mine and Ours (1968), Robert Mulligan’s western The Stalking Moon (1968), and Alan J. Pakula’s The Sterile Cuckoo (1969). The latter featured “Come Saturday Morning,” with music by Karlin and lyrics by Dory Previn; the song became a hit for the Sandpipers and earned an Academy Award nomination. Read more…
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