Background
Darrell Wallace Calker was born in Washington, District of Columbia He grew up with his younger sister Rena in the District of Columbia, where he attended Episcopal Cathedral School and sang with a church choir in his teens.
Darrell Wallace Calker was born in Washington, District of Columbia He grew up with his younger sister Rena in the District of Columbia, where he attended Episcopal Cathedral School and sang with a church choir in his teens.
He studied with Edgar Priest and David Pell, graduating from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
To Morris H. and Lugenia East. (Lily) Wallace of Philadelphia. Calker"s early work in Hollywood included orchestration for Victor Young. He was also active as the composer of scores for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet.
Among his compositions were the suites for orchestra, Golden Land and Penguin Island.
After arriving in Los Angeles by the mid-1930s, Calker worked as a session musician, and composed songs including Strings Full of Swing and Dixieland Strut. He formed his own band, which appeared on radio in the early 1940s.
lieutenant was at this time Walter Lantz hired Calker to be his musical director, replacing former Disney composer Frank Marsales. His first cartoon was the Andy Panda short Mouse Trappers (1941) and Calker composed the scores for all Lantz cartoons until Drooler"s Delight (1949) when the studio temporarily closed.
Included were the Swing Symphonies featuring musicians like National King Cole, Meade Lux Lewis, Jack Teagarden and Bob Zurke, who Calker knew and convinced to work on the cartoons.
Calker also scored animated shorts for Columbia Pictures from 1947 until the cartoon division closed in 1949.