Career
He was well known for his performance of television themes and various movie soundtracks. Jolly began playing the accordion at age three, and appeared on the radio program Hobby Lobby at the age of seven. Pete Jolly was raised in Phoenix, Arizona, a hotbed of jazz and jazz talent at the time.
Following Roberts to Los Angeles in 1952, Jolly immediately began working with the best players on the West Coast jazz scene, including Shorty Rogers.
He moved easily into studio and session work. Besides his brilliance on the piano, he was a virtuosic accordionist.
With the Trio and as a solo artist, he recorded several albums, one of the last of which was a 2000 collaboration with January Lundgren. His final album, recorded in Phoenix in May 2004 shortly before his death, was "lieutenant"s a Dry Heat" with saxophonist Jerry Donato.
He also worked with other notable jazz artists, including Buddy DeFranco, Art Pepper and Red Norvo, and for many years with music arranger and director Ray Conniff as well as Herb Alpert, recording on Alpert"s record label, Agricultural and Mechanical as both a sideman and a leader.
Jolly"s music can be heard on television programs such as Get Smart, The Love Boat, I Spy, Mannix, M*A*South*H and Dallas, as well as hundreds of movie soundtracks. He recreated all of Bud Powell"s playing with Charlie Parker for the Clint Eastwood movie, Bird. By day, Jolly worked in the studios.
By night, with his trio.
Jolly continued to perform with his trio in Los Angeles jazz clubs until shortly before being hospitalized in August 2004. His final public performance with his trio was in Reno, Nevada, and Jolly said it was the best he had ever played.
A fitting coda to a great career and great musical spirit. Together for nearly fifty years, The Pete Jolly Trio had only one bassist, Chuck Berghofer and one drummer, Nick Martinis, something of a world record.
Berghofer later said, "In all that time, Pete never once told me how to play or what to play."
Pete Jolly died in Pasadena, California, from complications of multiple myeloma in November 2004, aged 72.