In addition to writing for his own band and those led by others, Waldron wrote and arranged for early play-along records that were published by Music Minus One. Some of these recordings on which Waldron played were released under his name. He also wrote scores for modern ballet in the 1950s and started writing film scores in the following decade. His writing for the film "The Cool World" (released in 1964) was described in "The Oxford Companion to Jazz" as one of the first attempts to stress improvisation rather than composition in a jazz-based film score.