- In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the pianist, conductor and composer worked with Peggy Lee in concerts and on several of her albums. Harnell conducted the orchestra on Lee's albums "Anything Goes: Cole Porter" and "Peggy Lee and the George Shearing Quintet," and played piano on another of her albums, "Things Are Swingin.'" He also worked with singers like Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Pearl Bailey.
- His youngest son, Jason, is a jazz drummer and educator who has performed, recorded and toured with many jazz musicians including Maynard Ferguson.
- He has composed over 400 hours of original music for motion pictures and for television shows.
- In 1973, Harnell moved to Hollywood and worked in film score and television composition, composing for The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, including "The Lonely Man Theme" with which all episodes of The Incredible Hulk ended, playing over David Bruce Banner walking down yet another lonely road, Alien Nation, and V, for which he received an Emmy nomination in 1983.
- Harnell went on to release nearly 20 easy listening albums, on Kapp, Columbia, and Motown among others.
- He became a faculty member at USC's Thornton School of Music as an instructor in film score composition.
- In May 1982, with the release of "Rocky III", Harnell also wrote the famous signature tune for the United Artists logo introducing United Artists movies in the early 1980s, during the MGM merger with United Artists, as well as the theme music for the NBC daytime soap Santa Barbara.
- Starting in 1964, Harnell worked with Grey Advertising as a jingle writer, and from 1967 to 1973, he worked as musical director of The Mike Douglas Show.
- In 1962, he was hurt in a car crash, and while he recovered, Kapp Records asked him to work on writing potential hits in the then-hot genre of bossa nova. Harnell's biggest success was with his arrangement of "Fly Me to the Moon", which was a hit in the US in 1963 (number 14 Pop, number 4 AC) and which won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. The song also peaked at number 6 in Harnell's hometown, on WMCA in New York, on January 16, 1963.
- Eschewing the art-music world, Harnell sought work in pop and jazz, working as a for-hire pianist after returning to New York City in 1950. He played in Lester Lanin's band at this time and found work as an accompanist for singers such as Judy Garland, Maurice Chevalier, and Marlene Dietrich.
- Harnell was also an integral part of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show as the "house pianist" on many episodes. Often at the end of a show Shore would gather round Harnell at the piano and she and her guests that evening would make requests of him for a song they wanted to sing. Some of those guests were John Raitt, Gisele MacKenzie, and very often, Janet Blair. It was a low key and warm way to bring the show to its conclusion. The show ran on NBC from October 1956 to June 1963.
- Harnell began playing piano at age six and was performing in his father's ensembles by age 14.
- Joe's grandson, Jeremy, is a composer and visual artist working under the name JC Harnell (aka Sons of Wolves), and a 2011 winner of the Peoples Music Award for Best Abstract/Experimental Artist.
- His father was a vaudeville performer who also played in jazz and Klezmer ensembles.
- He attended the University of Miami on a music scholarship in the early 1940s, and in 1943 joined the United States Army Air Forces, playing with Glenn Miller's Army Air Forces Band.
- His son, Jess Harnell, is a voice actor and singer, best known as the voice of Wakko Warner on the Steven Spielberg-produced animated television series Animaniacs, Crash Bandicoot in the Crash Bandicoot franchise, and the announcer of America's Funniest Home Videos, which he has announced since 1998.
- Harnell self-published an autobiography entitled Counterpoint in 2000, co-authored with television producer/director Ira Skutch.
- He studied with Nadia Boulanger when stationed in Paris and then under William Walton at Trinity College of Music in London. After his discharge in 1946, he studied at Tanglewood under Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.
- Composer John Williams once referred to Harnell as "one of the genuine masters of the American musical scene. His career as pianist, arranger, composer and conductor spans the richest and most creative period of our country's musical life, and Joe's contribution to it has become a major one.".
- Together with his orchestra and singers, Harnell starred in a sold-out tour of the United States in the Columbia Concerts production of Cole Porter's 100th Birthday Party, as soloist and musical director.
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