Alfred Reed was born on Manhattan Island (New York City) in 1921 to parents of an Austrian heritage. He studied trumpet at the age of 10 and soon began to perform professionally with small combos in the hotels of the Catskill Mountains. He began to take an interest in arranging and composing and by 1938, he worked in the Radio Workshop in New York as a staff composer/arranger and assistant conductor. He was assigned to the 529th Army Air Corps Band after enlisting in the Army at the start of World War II. He wrote nearly 100 compositions and arrangements for band during his military enlistment. Reed enrolled at the Juilliard School of Music after the war, and studied composition with Vittorio Giannini. He enrolled at Baylor University in 1953, and was conductor of the Symphony Orchestra while a student. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1955 and his Master of Music degree a year later. He served as executive editor of Hansen Publishing from 1955 to 1966. He then went to the University of Miami as a professor of music. He retired in 1993 and continued to compose and work as guest conductor for musical groups around the world until his death in 2005.