Richard Maltby; Composer of Mambo Hits Led Bands for Popular Singers

Richard Maltby, the composer and trumpeter who fronted bands for several top names in the music industry and became a recording star in his own right during the mambo craze, has died after a long illness. He was 77.

Maltby, who worked with Ethel Merman, Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Vic Damone and Sarah Vaughan, died at St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica on Monday.

A spokesman for his publicist, Jeffrey Richards Associates, did not disclose a cause of death but said he had been in declining health since suffering the first in a series of heart attacks in 1979.

Maltby started in music when his brother gave him a trumpet he had ordered from a department store catalogue. He played in school bands and then toured as a player and arranger with commercial bands in the Chicago area. He moved to New York in 1945 and to California when his health began to fail.

His original composition, “Six Flats Unfurnished,” became a Benny Goodman hit.

In 1954, Maltby had a hit recording with “St. Louis Blues Mambo,” followed by “Stardust Mambo,” “Rat Race,” “The Man With the Golden Arm” and the album “Swinging Down the Lane.”

Maltby also composed and conducted radio and television commercials.

His son, Richard Maltby Jr., is a Broadway director and lyricist whose credits include “Nick & Nora,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Baby” and “Miss Saigon.”

His other survivors include his wife, Phyllis; a daughter; two stepsons, a brother and six grandchildren.