A musician, Hefti started his career as a big band trumpeter, but found his calling was more composing and arranging. Called one of the most influential big band arrangers of the 1940s and ’50s” by The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Hefti created major hits for Harry James, Woody Herman, and Count Basie.
“If it weren’t for Neal Hefti,” said trumpeter Miles Davis, “the Basie band wouldn’t sound as good as it does.” In the 1960s he turned his attentions to Hollywood, writing memorable theme music for The Odd Couple movie and series, and the campy Batman TV series.
The Batman theme was difficult for him. “I just sweated over that thing, more so than any other single piece of music I ever wrote,” Hefti once said. “Batman was not a comedy. This was about unreal people. Batman and Robin were both very, very serious. The bad guys would be chasing them, and they would come to a stop at a red light, you know. They wouldn’t break the law even to save their own lives. So there was a grimness and a self-righteousness about all this.” It took him a month to come up with a solution that was “part serious, part silly — just like the series.” He won a Grammy for the effort. Hefti died October 11 at his home, at 85.