Dominic Frontiere  incredibly diverse career has successfully cut across at least four musical genres over a half century.

Few people know, along with Art Van Damme and Johnny Hamlin, composer Dominic Frontiere ranks among the leading jazz accordionists.  Growing up in a musical family, Frontiere learned several instruments before choosing the accordion as his main instrument. At just age 7, this child prodigy travelled to New York for lessons with accordion virtuoso Joseph Biviano, by the time he was 12, he was performing solo at New York's famed Carnegie Hall. Starting in High School, Frontiere studied classical music, composition and arrranging. 

In 1949, he joined Horace Heidt's band as the lead arranger, replacing accordionist Dick Contino (who recorded for the Mercury label in the 1950s). In 1952, he left Heidt; moved to Hollywood, enrolled in UCLA, and began to study with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and with Felix Slatkin, a famed violinist and studio conductor. Dominic was one of Dimitri Tiomkin's favorite orchestrators. He found work as Music Director at 20th Century Fox studios, where his mentors Alfred Newman and brother Lionel Newman put him to work scoring various films. 

The early 1960's saw the emergence of a music that came to be known as 'West Coast Jazz' and Frontiere was a part of that scene. He recorded several albums for Liberty Records with his sextet, that also featured Jack Marshall on guitar.

Frontiere also cut other albums, including a Columbia release called "Pagan Festival," which is a good example of 'Exotica' music". The record was (quoting the liner notes) "...an interpretation of ancient Inca rituals, superstitions, and the romance and mysteries of their colorful civilization." His work featured such titles as "Jaguar God," "Temple of Suicide," and "Venus Girl." A couple of years later, Frontiere was arranging and producing stereo albums for the new Capitol label. One such was "The Mighty Accordion Band" which featured a band of some twenty accordions. The "Caravan" track is an 'easy-listening' standard. 

Beginning in the early 1960's, primarily in association with producer director Leslie Stevens, Frontiere began composing music for movies and television. His early music scores included the music for Hero's Island and the television series Stoney Burke, but it was with  Stevens' science-fiction anthology series 'The Outer Limits' that Frontiere made his first mark as a composer. His main title theme and the music that he wrote for the series' first season episodes were among the most innovative and compelling musical scoring ever written for television -- the vertigo-inducing title theme is legendary within the sci-fi genre and some of the best of his background music on three episodes was issued on a soundtrack CD 30 years after the series went on the air. Much of Frontiere's music for the program was superior to a good deal of the music being written for feature films at the time. Although it took 30 years for the program's music to appear on an album, Frontiere became a mainstay of the United Artists music department during the mid-1960's and a familiar name in the credits for television series airing on ABC-TV. 

He wrote the music for such series as 'The Rat Patrol' and 'The Invaders' but also made the leap to feature films permanently, with the scores for films such as Billie and Popi. In 1967, he was engaged to write the music for Clint Eastwood's first American western, 'Hang 'Em High.' At the time, the producers were looking for music that would approximate the sound of Ennio Morricone's scoring of Eastwood's 'Man With No Name' westerns done in Italy for director Sergio Leone. The composer declined, pointing out that his name was Frontiere, not Morricone, and worked in his own style. The result was a title theme that took on a life of its own when recorded by Booker T & the M.G.s, which got a top 10 hit out of the piece. His subsequent movies include 'Hammersmith Is Out,' 'Chisum' and 'The Stunt Man,' which won him a Golden Globe. 

During the 1970's, he became the head of Paramount's music department for a time, one of the last working musicians to head up a movie studio's music unit full-time. He also worked on some highly visible recordings as an arranger and composer, including the title-track of Dan Fogelberg's 'Netherlands,' which he arranged and conducted, orchestrating 'Chicago XI' by Chicago, and the movie 'Modern Problems,' for which he wrote the title song,  'Gonna Get It Next Time,' which was performed by The Tubes. Other films include 'Aviator,' 'Defiance' 'Roar' and Bob Hope's 'Cancel My Reservations.' His television themes and scores also include 'Brannigan,' 'Vegas,' 'Velvet' 'Matt Houston' and many others. 

Since the 1980's Frontiere has been living in New Mexico, continuing to score films such as Beyond the Badge, and garnering a Golden Globe nomination for his song from 'Color of Night. '

Soundtrack albums include: 
Billie, United Artists UAS-5131 
Hang 'Em High, United Artists UAS-5179 
On Any Sunday, Bell 1206 
Popi, United Artists UAS-5194 
Sign of the Gladiator, American International Records AIR 501
Among his recordings are: 
Dom Frontiere and his El Dorado, Liberty LJH 6002 
Fabulous, Liberty LST 7015 
Love Eyes: the moods of romance, Columbia CS 8224 
Mr. Accordion, Liberty LST 7008 
Pagan Festival: An Exotic Love Ritual for Orchestra, Columbia CL1273
Plays the Classics, Liberty LRP 3034 
The Mighty Accordion Band, Capitol ST-1212 
The Outer Limits, GNP Crescendo Records GNPD-8032 
 

http://www.frontiere.fredwest.nl/