That familiar phrase triggers a wide response inseparably tied to an endless stream of just the right titles to go with just the right music: Fiddle Faddle, The Syncopated Clock, The Typewriter, Sleigh Ride. Music and words were Leroy Anderson's two disciplines, and times in his life he wasn't so sure which would claim him; eventually he became fluent in nine languages. In those formative years that led to a career decision, he spent most of his life (1908-1975) in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard in 1929. There he was into it all, playing trombone in the band, string contrabass in the orchestra, and in that famous glee club. When the conductor of the Harvard Band left the post for graduate study, Anderson took over the job in his senior year as its drum major, goal post toss over included. Not resting on that laurel, he began to score traditional Harvard songs and other Ivy League tunes for the hand, in ways so convincing that people began to notice the difference and the quality of his work.

It is not all that difficult to imagine what the Harvard music faculty must have thought of their magna cum laude graduate associating himself with the nonsensical trivia of a marching band at a football game, even though it was at Harvard. Anderson doesn't seem to have let it bother him in the slightest; he went right on with the job into graduate school. Anderson's subsequent commercial jobs arranging and sometimes playing music for Boston hotels, radio, summer resorts, and a band on board boat trip to Scandinavia helped pay the hills while the experiences fed his need to know how and what to score on order. One of his early accounts, was Ruby Newman's popular society orchestra. Leroy played and wrote for him in Boston while living in New York, where the experience kept his foot in the door of the Music business.

Years ago Harvard Night at the Boston Pops was one of the highlights of the Pops season, which ran seven nights during May and June. Enter maestro Arthur Fiedler. A sold out Symphony Hall on a night he conducted was guaranteed. George E. Judd, manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and also a member of the class that was to celebrate its 25th remembered the good anniversary that year, sounds he had been hearing lately by the Harvard Band at football games. He requested arrangements of Harvard songs for the orchestra.

Enter Leroy Anderson, who on that important night in his career conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra while Fiedler listened and liked what he heard. Some short time later, at Fiedler's request, Anderson put a little tune for the strings of the Pops Orchestra on the maestro's desk. This time Fiedler liked what he saw. Paired later with its counterpart, Jazz Legato, it was Jazz Pizzicato that began Leroy Anderson's remarkable career and created the made in heaven relationship between him and Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.

Even if things really do come in threes, such an alliance as this is still very rare; this one was incredibly productive for everybody. Enter next the publisher, Mills Music, Inc., and the trio becomes a quartet composer, conductor, orchestra, and publisher. R.C.A. Victor Records came automatically with the Boston Pops Orchestra, icing a truly delicious commercial cake that probably had not been baked by anybody since John Philip Sousa. Anderson's career had staying power to match its unusual momentum. Soon after Fiedler had discovered Anderson's orchestration facility, the composer began a series of commissions for special arrangements of music from Broadway shows tailored to the Pops Orchestra and its audience. Anderson produced the selections at intervals between composing original works.

Just as his career began to flower, the U.S. Military called Anderson to serve in World War II. Anderson was assigned to military intelligence and stationed in Iceland, where his fluency in Scandinavian languages took precedence over the music skills he had honed so sharply. Obviously, the two disciplines did not mix; and beside that, Fiedler's belief in Anderson had helped the composer to choose music, not language, as a career. During his time in service, he produced only two compositions, Promenade and The Syncopated Clock. What would the late, late movie on the TV-to-come have done without that one? Yet though he dammed up the creative stream, putting little down on paper, I suspect that more than a few musical ideas continued to lap over the edge, quietly developing in his head.

Denying attractive offers at the end of the 1946, at to sign on with military intelligence, Anderson returned to the life he had left in such high gear. Titles and music began to pour out: Blue Tango, Chicken Reel, The Irish Suite, Serenata, Belle of the Ball, Bugler's Holiday. He composed a grand total of 40 pieces, many of them written in Woodbury, Connecticut, where he had settled quietly with his wife Eleanor and family.

Anderson's success didn't just happen; there were reasons. The composer had a classical education in all the facets of music at the hands of distinguished and demanding teachers. His was an unusual talent, fed by curiosity and marked by all unmistakable instinct to do what was uniquely his. Missing no opportunity, he always seemed to possess the ability not just to learn but also to remember and to apply. After his success he remained a shy individual, So I am told, though he guest conducted widely, matching his interpretations of the Anderson classics on phonograph recordings to those of his illustrious patron.

I never met Leroy Anderson, and we never exchanged letters or calls, but I did know him as he probably wanted to be reached, having recorded all but 2 of his 40 published titles in both his originals for orchestra and the settings for band. Anderson arranged most of the band transcriptions too, scoring them with the same special care that professionals in the orchestral world so admired.

Rehearsal of the Anderson pieces, whether for band or orchestra, takes time, regardless of how familiar they seem; but his deceivingly simple sounding music was conceived for those who can play. From my own experience at the Pops, with its absolute minimum rehearsal schedule, I remember that these miniature orchestral masterpieces came as close as we can imagine to being, and I say this affectionately, conductor proof!