M. Russel Goudey, 94, Retired Bandleader And Composer ; New Englander Lived Many Years In Englewood And Teaneck

M. Russel Goudey, a bandleader, composer, and conductor who lived in North Jersey for 35 years, died Thursday in Walpole Mass. He was 94.

Mr. Goudey died at a nursing home after a brief illness, his daughter, Jacqueline P. Goudey-Megquire said. A Massachusetts native, he moved to Teaneck in 1958 and later moved to Englewood. He left the area in 1993, when he retired in Foxboro, Mass.

A 1929 graduate of Dartmouth College with a major in music, Maurice Russel Goudey played clarinet and saxophone. After graduation, he moved to Europe to continue his studies in jazz, first in Paris and later in Switzerland and Italy. In Europe, he was a member of the Ray Ventura Orchestre,and later moved to Buenos Aires, where he formed the Russ Goudey Orchestra.

He returned to the United States in 1940 and eventually became part of the New York City music scene. He worked in a variety of musical realms, as a composer and arranger and as a musical researcher. He did musical research for the National Broadcasting Co. during the formative years of BMI and wrote music for some of the Walt Disney productions.

In New York, he began writing radio and television jingles for the Ford Motor Co., Black and Decker, and Sunsweet Prune Juice, among others, his daughter said.

During the 1950s, he served as president of the American Society of Music Arrangers and was a charter member of the Composers Guild of America.

Besides his daughter, he is survived by three sons, Frederick of Newton, N.J., Jay in California, and William in Vermont; a sister, Irma Natalie Blankenship in Massachusetts, and six grandchildren.

Services and burial are to be held Monday in Massachusetts. The family requests that memorial donations be made to the National Baha'i Fund, c/o Jacqueline Goudey-Megquire 10 Atherton Road, Foxboro, Mass., 02035.