Randall Guiver "Ran" Wilde, 96, of heart failure September 26 in Dallas. Ran quit his California job during the Great Depression to form an orchestra for a steamship cruise, and the move grew into a lifetime career as a bandleader. In 1937, his Ran Wilde Orchestra first played in Dallas at the new Century Room at the Adolphus Hotel. He was well received and frequently played in Dallas, where he settled down in 1964. He became a staple of charity balls and society functions in North Texas. Ran was known for his smile, said his son, Tim Wilde of Dallas. "He was always smiling while he was playing," his son said.

Born in Ogden, Utah, Ran grew up in Oakland, Calif., where he graduated from high school in 1927. A piano player since childhood, his first band was a four-piece combo in 1925. He quit a job on the railroad to start a musical career in about 1930. "The Dollar Steamship Line needed a band, and he went there and pitched it, even though he didn't have a band," his son said. Ran hired musicians and rehearsed enough tunes for an audition. "They got the job," his son said.

In about 1933, Mr. Wilde created a new sound by adding a harp and three violins to the standard mix of saxophones, brass and percussion. Ran played the piano while directing his group, which had arrangements by Russell Garcia, who became a film composer. "Those who have heard the band insist it only takes one exposure to the music of Ran Wilde's musicians to become inoculated with the virus," The Dallas Morning News reported in its Dining and Dancing column shortly before his first engagement at the Adolphus.

The Ran Wilde Orchestra had spent its early years on the West Coast, performing at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel and the swank Deauville Club in San Francisco as well as the Palm Room in Portland, Ore. Early on, the group performed six nights a week on NBC's western radio hook-up. Ran came to Dallas in 1937 at the request of oilman E.E. "Buddy" Fogelson, who discovered the band while celebrating a Southern Methodist University football victory in San Francisco. Mr. Fogelson and a friend, Dick Andrade, had rented the Deauville Club in San Francisco, where the Ran Wilde Orchestra was playing. The Texans told Mr. Wilde that they wanted his band to come to Dallas. "We thought they were putting us on," Ran recalled in 1975.

He later performed for years at many society-type functions, exclusive clubs and openings, including that of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, his son said. "He started slowing down and just doing things where people said, 'Please, we've got to have you,' " his son said. Ran was a life member of Local 72-147.