Eddie Sauter

Eddie Sauter (1914-1981) was a musical arranger, orchestrator, and composer. He arranged music for the 1977 Sesame Street album Big Bird Leads the Band and scored the 1980 album Big Bird's Birdtime Stories.

Sauter played trumpet in Red Norvo's band and began arranging music. When Norvo's group broke up Sauter joined bandleader Benny Goodman in 1939, arranging and composing new songs, notably "Benny Rides Again" (a showcase for Goodman's own clarinet playing). During the 1940s, he wrote songs for Artie Shaw and arranged for Ray McKinley's band, but was still primarily associated with Goodman, writing the music for "All the Cat's Join In," played by Goodman's orchestra in the 1946 Disney feature Make Mine Music.

In the 1950s, Sauter joined fellow arranger Bill Finegan to form their own group, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra. The group served as the house band on Vaughn Monroe's The Camel Caravan (1952-1954), with Sauter occasionally playing kazoo solos. He spent a stint in Germany from 1957 to 1959, as the leader of the Sudwestfunk Radio Station Band of Baden-Baden. Back in the states, Sauter wrote themed albums for saxophonist Stan Getz, notably his 1961 entry Focus. He scored the 1965 Warren Beatty film Mickey One, but worked more often on Broadway, as orchestrator of Milk and Honey, It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, 1776 (including the film version), and the Danny Kaye musical Two By Two (1970). Sauter also composed the theme and background score for Rod Serling's Night Gallery.