Axel Stordahl

Composer/arranger/conductor Axel Stordahl is best known as Frank Sinatra's musical director during the first decade of the singer's solo career, and is often credited with helping to bring pop arranging into the modern age. A native of Staten Island, NY, he was born Odd Stordahl to parents of Norwegian descent on August 8, 1913. He took up the trumpet as a youth, and played in several dance bands around Long Island and the Catskills during the late '20s and early '30s. He also began arranging around this time, and in 1933 he joined Bert Bloch's orchestra in both capacities. Ov...