David Angel (musician)

David Angel (born c.1940) is an American musician, arranger, composer, and teacher.

Life and career

He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and began playing the saxophone as a child, starting to perform in jazz and Latin bands during his teens. By his early twenties, he worked in Hollywood as a performer, composer and arranger. He worked on many popular television series including Bonanza, Lassie, and The Streets of San Francisco, as well as shows starring Jerry Lewis, Red Skelton, and Andy Williams. He also performed in the bands of leading jazz musicians including Woody Herman, Art Pepper, and Kid Ory, and as a session musician, usually in an uncredited capacity. In 1967, at the request of producer Bruce Botnick, he contributed orchestral and horn arrangements to the Los Angeles rock band Love's album Forever Changes, now regarded as a classic of the genre.

In the 1970s, Angel ran regular rehearsal sessions in Los Angeles, as the David Angel Big Band. Recordings of sessions in 1973 and 1975, not originally intended for release, were eventually issued by VSOP Records in 2015, as Camshafts and Butterflies. Band members included saxophonists Bill Perkins, Bob Cooper and Jackie Kelso; trumpeters Hal Espinoza and Jack Coan, trombonists Bob Enevoldsen, Don Waldrop and Morris Repass, bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Chuck Flores.

Angel maintained a career as a music teacher and lecturer, leading classes at Pasadena College, the Dick Grove School of Music, and Los Angeles Valley College. He also lectured in Europe at L'Institut Art Culture Perception (IACP) in Paris, and at conservatories in Norway and Russia; and jointly led the composition and arranging department of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland.