George Siravo; Arranger for Sinatra, Composer

George Siravo, 83, a pop music composer, arranger and conductor who was a longtime associate of Frank Sinatra. Born on Staten Island, N.Y., Siravo learned alto saxophone as a youth and joined Harry Reser’s Clicquot Club Eskimos at 17. Five years later he joined Glenn Miller’s first band and stayed there a year before joining the Gene Krupa band in 1938 as a sideman and arranger. He became a staff arranger and conductor for Columbia Records after working for “Your Hit Parade,” a popular radio show, in the 1940s. While at Columbia, Siravo began arranging up-tempo music for Sinatra’s nightclub show, and in some ways his tunes served as a model for the music Sinatra made when he switched to Capitol Records in the early 1950s. Siravo was the arranger on “Swing and Dance With Frank Sinatra,” “Portrait of Sinatra” and “Frank Sinatra With Red Norvo Quintet: Live in Australia.” He also worked with Tony Bennett, arranging and conducting the singer’s “Who Can I Turn To” album. On Feb. 28 at home in Medford, Ore.