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William James Finegan was born on April 3, 1917 in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in a household full of piano players. While growing up in Rumson, New Jersey, he attended Rumson-Fair Haven High School, and taught orchestration to schoolmate Nelson Riddle. He studied piano with Elizabeth Connelly, piano and musicianship with flautist/alto saxophonist Rudolph John Winthrop., and spent time studying at the Paris Conservatory.

He had his first professional experience leading his own piano trio before being offered a job as a staff arranger for Glenn Miller after Tommy Dorsey bought a copy of his Lonesome Road and recommended him. Finegan remained with Miller until 1942 and arranged such hits as Little Brown Jug, Sunrise Serenade, Song of the Volga Boatmen, Stardust, A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square and Jingle Bells. He arranged these songs in collaboration with Glenn Miller, but also arranged music for films in which the band appeared in the early Forties. He then worked off and on for Tommy Dorsey from 1942 to 1952.

In the late Forties Bill studied in New York City, then lived in Europe from 1948-1950 where he studied with Darius Milhaud and Valérie Soudères. After returning to the States in 1952, along with Eddie Sauter formed an ensemble, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, which remained active until 1957.

Following this collaboration, Finegan found work in advertising, writing music for commercials. In the Seventies, he arranged for the Glenn Miller Orchestra and Mel Lewis’s orchestra. He taught jazz at the University of Bridgeport in the 1980s. He wrote arrangements for cornetist Warren Vaché and the vocal group Chanticleer until his death in 2008.

Pianist, composer and arranger Bill Finegan died from pneumonia on June 4, 2008 in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the age 91.

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