Legrand has composed over 200 film and television scores, several musicals, and made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars (out of 13 nominations), five Grammys, and has been nominated for an Emmy. He was 22 when his very first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a virtuoso jazz and classical pianist, and an accomplished arranger and conductor who performs with orchestras all over the world.

In the early 1950s, Legrand was one of the first Europeans to work with legendary jazz innovators Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Stan Getz and Bill Evans.

During various periods of creative work, Legrand became a conductor for orchestras in St. Petersburg, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta and Denver. He recorded over 100 albums with international musical stars (spanning the genres of jazz, variety and even classical). He worked with such musicians as Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Jack Jones, Regine Velasquez, Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como, Lena Horne, Tereza Kesovija , Dame Kiri te Kanawa, James Ingram, Johnny Mathis and Barbra Streisand.