William "Bill" Russo was born on June 25, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. Remembered as a composer, conductor, musician, teacher, and author, Russo began composing and arranging in his teens. In 1943, he studied composition and improvisation with Lennie Tristano, a leader in the progressive jazz movement and he formed his own band which held performances locally. He joined the Kenton Orchestra as a trombone player in 1950 and a year later became chief composer-arranger for the Orchestra.

Russo also taught at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and the Lenox School of Jazz in Massachusetts. While teaching, he authored the first of three textbooks on jazz composition, Composing for the Jazz Orchestra.

In 1962, he moved to London and worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), where he also founded the London Jazz Orchestra. When he left the Stand Kenton Orchestra in 1954 and continued private composition and conducting studies, then moved to New York in 1958 where he led the 22-piece Russo Orchestra. In 1965, he returned to Chicago, Illinois where he founded Columbia College Chicago's Music Department, became the Director of its Center for New Music, and established the Chicago Jazz Ensemble.

From 1968 to 1974, he also led the Chicago Free Theater. The troupe performed in local theaters and churches around Chicago before becoming the resident professional ensemble of the Columbia College Center for New Music. The theater performed original Russo and others' compositions that specialized in multimedia rock cantatas.

While serving as Chair of the Columbia College Music Department, Russo also was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute of Music of John Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland) and an adjunct professor at Antioch College (Yellow Springs, Ohio). During the 1970s, he also conducted the New American Orchestra, the Peabody Orchestra, and the Chicago Chamber Orchestra. He served as composer-in-residence to the City and County of San Francisco, California from 1975 to 1976 and he worked on film scores in London, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

In 1990, Russo re-established the Chicago Jazz Ensemble in residence at Columbia College and he also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. In June 2002, he retired from Columbia College after serving as Chair of its Music Department for 37 years. He continued to develop the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, composing and conducting up to the week of his death, January 11, 2003.