A technically skilled player and a fine jazz improviser, Ronnie Lang has spent much of his career in fairly anonymous settings, working in the studios. He started out playing with Hoagy Carmichael's Teenagers, Earl Spencer, Ike Carpenter and Skinnay Ennis (1947). Lang gained some attention during his two stints with Les Brown's Orchestra (1949-50 and 1953-56) and he recorded a bit with the Dave Pell Octet in the mid-1950's. However in 1958 he became a busy studio musician in Los Angeles (often utilized by Henry Mancini) and, although he has since appeared on many records, the altoist has been mostly a nonsoloing section player whose beautiful tone is heard primarily as part of ensembles; a major loss to jazz. Ronnie Lang's only sessions as a leader were three titles for Capitol in 1955 and a full album for Tops in 1956. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi
