RIP Earle Hagen

No more fishing poles, no more ottoman. The veteran trombonist and composer Earle Hagen died Monday at 88. Perhaps few reading blogs today will know or much care about his work with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman or even that he composed one of the great jazz standards, "Harlem Nocturne." But anyone who calls themselves a TV fan will grieve when they learn that Hagen composed the effortlessly evocative theme song to "The Andy Griffith Show," which played while Andy and Opie walked down to the fishing hole, and Hagen did the whistling himself. It set the atmosphere for the show perfectly, a last nostalgic rural idyll for a nation moving into the chaos of Vietnam, race riots and the Woodstock Generation. He also wrote the "Dick Van Dyke Show" theme song with the sudden pause to allow the star his pratfall over the ottoman. His many other compositions for television included the "I Spy" theme, and he wrote music for many movies as well. But the "Griffith" theme guarantees him a small but secure niche in the cultural history of post-World War II America, and in the emotional memories of nearly all the Baby Boom generation.