Jules Greenberg was born in Philadelphia in 1929 to Mort Greenberg and Rose Bolen. He loved big band music so much that he studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and became a professional musician, starting as a drummer and winding up a versatile percussionist.   

He joined the American Federation of Musicians in April of 1955 and went on to work on Broadway for years, playing shows like An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, West Side Story, 1776, and many others.