Phil Moore (1917-1987) was a Black American composer, performer, arranger, star manager, and talent coach best known for his work with various film and musical stars beginning in the early 1940s. His client roster at different times included Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, Tommy Dorsey, Hazel Scott, Pearl Bailey, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Jerry Butler, Diahann Carroll, the Supremes, and many, many others. He contributed music to at least three dozen films and cartoons (many uncredited) during various stints with MGM, Paramount, Columbia, and RKO. His movie soundtrack contributions include productions like Ziegfeld Girl (1941), Dumbo (1941), My Favorite Blonde (1942), The Palm Beach Story (1942), and Cabin in the Sky (1943), as well as arrangements for the U.S. government film The Negro Soldier (1944). In addition, Moore worked for multiple record labels and radio and television programs throughout his career, including periods as the first Black talent director for CBS radio and a chief arranger for NBC. He recorded and released many of his own compositions throughout his life, including “Blink Before Christmas,” “Fantasy for Girl and Orchestra,” “Fugue for “Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra,” “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra,” “Shoo Shoo Baby,” and “Blow Out the Candle.” At the time of his death in 1987 from heart problems, he had been working on a never-published autobiography with the working title Things I Forgot to Tell You.

Moore served a music director for the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Inc. (BFHFI) from 1980 until his death, and the organization received a large donation of his personal materials and artifacts in 1993. The BFCA acquired the materials in 2014 as part of the larger Mary Perry Smith Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Archives Collection and, due to its volume, decided to treat it as its own separate collection.

The Phil Moore Collection contains hundreds of Moore’s papers, business and financial records and correspondences, press clippings, photographs, audio recordings, and musical manuscripts from across his long career. Among these are the drafts, notes, and audiocassette recordings that Moore left behind for his unfinished autobiography (to date, a monograph-length biography of Moore has yet to be published). Along with a large number of Moore’s professional and completed recordings, the collection also contains demo and test audio, dubs, spoken performance notes, and demos across many different audio carrier formats, including instantaneous lacquer and custom-pressed discs, commercial LPs, 78 rpm shellac discs, open reel audio tapes, and audiocassettes.

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