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Been watching a lot of this show again and I was really struck by the music in some of the earlier episodes, particularly Billy Goldenberg's music for "Ransom for a Dead Man" and "Publish or Perish". Like when I noticed all the good music for STAR TREK TOS seemed to be Jerry Fielding and for STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION was Ron Jones, it seems Goldenberg is the unsung hero of COLUMBO with his wonderfully emotive music intriguing effects. I really wish there was a release of COLUMBO music!
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it seems Goldenberg is the unsung hero of COLUMBO
Every time someone brings up Columbo on a film music forum, Goldenberg seems to be the first composer mentioned, without fail (after him, probably Gil Melle). 
You want the unsung musical hero of Columbo? Try Dick DeBenedictis, whose first episode score for the series was the season 2 premiere, Etude in Black, but who wrote 23 series scores total going all the way up to the penultimate episode of the series in 2000, Murder With Too Many Notes (the one about a film composer). Was every Columbo score of his incredible? No, but many of them were very, very good.
Or there's Patrick Williams, who scored 9 episodes spread over both incarnations of the series (starting with the season 7 premiere Try and Catch Me in 1977 and finished with No Time to Die in 1992.)
Or there's Bernardo Segall, who did a whopping 10 scores for the series between 1974-1976, all of pretty consistent quality!
Heck, Oliver Nelson only scored one episode of the series (The Greenhouse Jungle in 1972), and he still seems to get mentioned more than those three guys when the series' music is brought up! (I'm guilty in this regard, because he did my favorite score of the series.)
Yavar
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Surprising considering his stature, but people seem to rarely mention Dave Grusin's score for the original Columbo pilot Prescription: Murder (perhaps because it's fairly different from the Goldenberg/Melle scores which followed next).
The thing is, it's pretty hard to find a bad Columbo score, at least until its second incarnation started in the late 80s (there were still some good scores then, but not-so-good ones also started showing up). All of the 70s scores are excellent, even the really different ones like Jeff Alexander's Forgotten Lady.
Columbo is a rare series where I would happily buy a complete box set of all the 70s scores. I think I calculated once that that would take 10 CDs or more, so something akin to the Star Trek TOS box from LLL. But I think the series had such consistent scoring it deserves it! (The revival would probably do better with a 4CD set of highlights, including some complete scores when there's a stronger one.)
But if a label is too wary of tackling a mega-set with everything from the original series, then it'd be nice if they dipped their toe in the water for a 2CD set of just the season 1 scoring + the two pilot scores. I calculated once how that might work, and discovered that, since the final episode of season 1 was tracked (just about 5 minutes of music from previous scores), the entire original scoring for those nine episodes would actually juuuust fit on a 2CD set.
Yavar
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Yes, I focus more on Goldenberg myself, but Dick DeBenedictis is my strong second.
The rest are also generally very good in the 70's, but these two wrote the music I love the best and wish I could hear away from the shows.
It's like Wild Wild West - also a lot of great music, but it's the Richard Shores scores I go back to time and again.
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All just mere speculuation, but don't you think we would already have the "Columbo" set if it were possible? Seems like there is some kind of issue - like missing tapes.
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I think TV projects (especially big box sets if they decide to go that route) are just a lot more complicated than film and take much longer! I don’t think we should read anything into it. LLL has said they really want to do The Six Million Dollar Man for example, and they have Universal connections… so I guess what I’m saying is: keep the hope alive!
Yavar
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"Just one more question" or "there's just one more thing"... that's TV as good as it gets.
COLUMBO is classic television, I never tire to re-watch any of the classic episodes if I catch one that's on. Just one of the all time great cop shows. And yes, the scores were excellent, often judiciously spotted and inventive scores.
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