Don Sebesky's first professional job after high school was as a trombone player with Kai Winding, and in 1958 he joined Maynard Ferguson's band, contributing arrangements alongside original compositions, before touring and recording with Stan Kenton's orchestra as well. In 1965 he joined Verve Records as a staff arranger, producing hit records including his distinctive arrangement for Wes Montgomery's Bumpin' (1965).

His work for Creed Taylor's CTI Records through the 1960s and '70s set the genre's gold standard, arranging albums including Freddie Hubbard's First Light, Milt Jackson's Sunflower, and Wes Montgomery's Bumpin' and A Day in the Life. Creed Taylor's own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile. His close working relationship with Taylor resulted in 45 albums together, arrangements that helped define what commercial, orchestrated crossover jazz sounded like for an entire decade.

Sebesky was a perennial Grammy nominee across his career, finally winning three awards in quick succession, all for his own recordings: Best Instrumental Arrangement for a version of "Waltz for Debby" on 1998's I Remember Bill: The Tribute to Bill Evans, and two more for 2000's Joyful Noise: A Tribute to Duke Ellington. He also built an extensive Broadway orchestration career, winning a Tony Award for the 2000 revival of Kiss Me, Kate.

Sebesky died April 29, 2023, at age 85.

Sebesky's orchestral arranging, lush strings, big-band horn writing, and pop-attentive structure layered over straight-ahead jazz soloing, was as central to defining CTI Records' commercial sound as the label's engineering and cover art, a genuine architect of crossover jazz's orchestrated wing.