Jack Sperling RIP

[SGUD missile]

Jack Sperling, 81; Jazz Drummer with Top Musicians, on TV Shows

Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2004

Jack Sperling, a jazz and big-band drummer who performed with many of

the great musicians of the 1940s and '50s, died Feb. 26, according to

his son, Matthew. He was 81.

Sperling played with Bunny Berigan in the early 1940s and with Tex

Beneke while in the Navy during World War II and also after the war.

Among the other bands he performed with were those of Les Brown, Bob

Crosby, Dave Pell and Pete Fountain. He recorded with Eddie Miller,

Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet and others.

In the 1960s, Sperling performed with the NBC Orchestra and was the

drummer on such NBC variety shows as those of Steve Allen, Dean

Martin and Andy Williams, and on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In."

His film work included playing with Henry Mancini in "The Days of

Wine of Roses," and he performed live or in the studio with Ella

Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Mel Tormé, Rosemary Clooney, Lena Horne, Doris

Day, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.