After a year in junior college in Fort Dodge, Iowa, he received a music scholarship to Drake University in Des Moines.
[2] He attended for two years, but then quit school to begin his professional musical life by accepting a job with the Lee Barron Orchestra, a territory band based out of Omaha.
After serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II, he joined the Carlos Molinas Latin Orchestra, where he also wrote the American dance arrangements.
In 1989, he formed a 16-piece jazz orchestra — The Lew Anderson All-American Big Band — which began playing Fridays from 5:45 to 7:45 PM at the Red Blazer, Too, 349 West 46th Street, Manhattan, New York.
Anderson secured the gig through Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins, who, in 1989, proposed the idea to Denis Carey, co-owner of Red Blazer, Too.
The one-hour program aired June 14, 1997 on Jump's 130 stations, was re-broadcast in August on New York's WQEW and now constitutes Live at the Blazer!
In August 1997, The Lew Anderson Big Band began an open-ended engagement at Birdland, then on the Upper Wide Side of Manhattan.