Med Flory

Med Flory was an American actor and bandleader who played jazz saxophone. He was born in Logansport, Indiana, where his mother, an organist, encouraged him to learn the clarinet as a boy. After earning a philosophy degree at Indiana University he worked in Claude Thornhill's and Woody Herman's bands during the early 1950s, then led his own group in New York City. He settled in California in 1955, played the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival, and later performed on tenor and baritone saxophone with Terry Gibbs and Art Pepper. He appeared in twenty-nine episodes of The Ray Anthony Show, an ABC variety program, between 1956 and 1957. In the 1960s he worked mainly as an actor and screenwriter, appearing in many television series and in films such as The Nutty Professor (1963) and The Night of the Grizzly (1966). He also prepared Charlie Parker transcriptions and in 1972 co-founded Supersax, whose debut album won a Grammy Award.