Biography
Pianist and arranger Ted Auletta earned his greatest renown through engagements with television bandleaders Lawrence Welk and Sammy Kaye, although collectors still pursue the 1962 exotica album he cut for the Cameo label. A profile featured on the spaceagepop.com website records his birth in New York City on October 22, 1923, and his subsequent training at New York University, Juilliard, and the Manhattan School of Music. He spent several years as staff pianist and arranger at radio station WNEW before serving as musical director at Tavern on the Green, the Rainbow Grill, and the Americana Hotel. Three additional years leading the house band at the Hotel Lexington’s Hawaiian Room, a Manhattan tiki venue, gave him repeated exposure to island textures and rhythms that later shaped his jungle-themed Exotica. While that recording remains prized by exotica devotees, his remaining albums—Dixieland Dandies, Honky Tonk Rag Pickers, and Magnificent Piano—have drawn little notice. In addition to his television work with Welk and Kaye, Auletta acted as musical director for the NBC summer variety series Showcase ’68. Subsequent tours found him backing vocalists Shirley Bassey, Jane Morgan, Julie Wilson, and Caterina Valente until a fatal heart attack struck during an Irish engagement with Carmel Quinn on January 22, 1979, when he was 55.
Albums
