Lalo Schifrin

Creating some of film and television's most iconic soundtracks, Argentinian jazz composer Lalo Schifrin has won four Grammy Awards and has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Born in Buenos Aires, he started playing piano at five and received a scholarship to the esteemed French music college the Paris Conservatoire, where he took classical training during the day and played in jazz clubs at night. He returned to Argentina to lead his own big band before moving to New York in 1960 to play with Dizzy Gillespie and crafted a signature form of Latin-influenced bossa nova jazz on his early albums New Brazilian Jazz (1962), Piano, Strings And Bossa Nova (1963) and Lalole (1968). His made his name in Hollywood by re-arranging the theme to spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and went on to compose many soundtrack albums including Cool Hand Luke (1967), Bullitt (1968), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Enter The Dragon (1973) and, most famously, the classic suspense-filled theme to Mission Impossible (1967). His work was sampled by Portishead on their track Sour Times and he also collaborated with Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and arranged for The Three Tenors, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo.