BUDDY BREGMAN
Tom Mark
Buddy Bregman conducts Circa mid 1950's
Bing Crosby with Buddy Bregman at their 'Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings' recording sessions - (KHJ Capitol Records, 5515 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles) - June 1956
Buddy Bregman with Sammy Davis Jr whilst arranging and conducting multiple tracks at Decca Records for Davis's:
'Porgy & Bess,' 'Sammy Awards', 'Mr Entertainment' and 'Boy Meets Girl ' albums - Photographs circa 1960
In the early 1960's, Bregman became a Television Director / Producer. After producing several succesful T.V Specials in Europe, in 1964 he was recruited by David Attenborough for the fledgling channel, BBC 2. Later, in 1966, he was appointed Head of Light Entertainment at the weekday ITV company Rediffusion London.
Bregman then wrote Jump Jim Crow - a musical for The Royal Shakespeare Company - and later moved into London-based independent television and film production. Subsequently, he produced and directed a feature film starring Olivia Newton-John and Georgie Fame, The New-Fangled Wandering Minstrel Show.
Upon returning to the U.S. Bregman worked as Producer and Director on numerous T.V productions; both series and specials. (See selected credits at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004300/ )
Buddy Bregman was married to actress Suzanne Lloyd from 1961-1988. He is the father of U.S. daytime television actress and business woman, Tracey E. Bregman.
Recently, Fresh Sound Records produced a compilation album featuring multiple examples of Bregman's early orchetstrations, Buddy Bregman: A Jazz Portrait of the Hollywood Arranger.
In late 2004, I tasked Buddy Bregman with arranging & conducting a brand new 16-track vocal album of old and newer pop/jazz Standards. It featured an 18-piece big band of the West Coast's finest sidemen (Hubert Laws, Ricky Woodard, Charles Owens, George Bohannon, Bobby Rodriguez, Patrice Rushen, Roberto Miranda etc) teaming on a unique and eclectic selection of dramatically re-imagined swing tracks...plus several ballads. These sessions were recorded over 2.5 days in May 2006 at the Quincy Jones / Michael Jackson designed studio 'D' at Westlake Recording Studios - L.A. with the UCLA's and CJO's Charley Harrison serving as Musical Director.
So it was that 50 years (almost to the day) after some of his greatest musical triumphs for Verve Records, Bregman found himself back on the podium - before a talented and highly-expectant Hollywood swing band - conducting his very own charts...for the very last time.
A poignant and quietly-historic collection of 16 autobiographical suites, the album consists of very special musical tributes to many of Bregman's esteemed Show Business friends and contemporaries. It became his passionate and deeply personal self-declared "Swansong" to Hollywood, Broadway and his vintage Verve Records years...and features his "Best Ever" arrangements. It includes several Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart Standards which Bregman has not revisited - let alone comprehensively reinvented - since his now legendary collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald at the former KHJ Capitol Records Studios building at 5515 Melrose Avenue (L.A), in 1956.
1.) All Right With Me / De-Lovely, 2.) Day In - Day Out, 3.) Love, 4.) My One & Only, 5.) As If We Never Said Goodbye, 6.) Journey To The Past, 7.) Lover, 8.) The Best Is Yet To Come, 9.) From This Moment On, 10.) Somebody Loves Me, 11.) Ship Without A Sail, 12.) Good Thing Going, 13.) I Concentrate On You, 14.) It Would Have Been Wonderful, 15.) Living In The Shadows, 16.) It Might As Well Be Spring / It Could Happen To You.
The album, provisionally titled, BEST BUDDY'S was conceived and self-produced by me, (an actor and amateur baritone) principally, because Buddy Bregman and I share a mutual respect and affection for his former friends and legendary collaborators, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. For the record, the bridge from one of the album session tracks - Cole Porter's "From This Moment On" - features in my debut 'Sight & Soundtrack' artwork, "...To Catch And Pass The Cannes Blue Train !!! "
I recorded all vocals at Westlake Recording Studios in May and November 2006. For fun and posterity, Bregman also recorded 'scratch' vocals against each and every one of his own session tracks during studio downtime at Westlake.
In late 2015, Universal Music Group (Verve Records / Decca Records and now Verve Label Group) again declined an exclusive option to release this album, despite the fact that February 1st 2016 marked the 60th (Diamond) anniversary of Norman Granz' founding Verve Records at 451 North Canon Drive Beverly Hills - with Bregman as it's original Head of A&R.
Given that examples of his work have already been inducted into The Smithsonian Collection, The Grammy Hall of Fame, and selected by The Library of Congress for inclusion in The National Recording Registry, it is an historical anomaly that Buddy Bregman's very last album - his much treasured FINAL love letter to The Great American Songbook - remains unheard and unreleased to this day.
Sadly, Buddy Bregman passed away in January 2017, aged 86, following a long battle with Alzheimer's disease; something which his daughter, Tracey has posted of frankly and openly in recent years.
EXTERNAL LINKS:
Buddy Bregman at The Internet Movie Database
Buddy Bregman at Haines His Way
Buddy Bregman biography at Allmusic.com
Fresh Sound Records' compilation of Bregman's mid 1950's - 1960's arrangements & orchestrations
Buddy Bregman conducts his very last album sessions in Studio D at Westlake Recording Studios,
7265 Santa Monica Blvd. CA 90046 - May 2006 +++ Photo by kind permission of Faleena Hopkins
May 2006 - Indicative draft album sleeve for 'BEST BUDDY'S,' Buddy Bregman's poignant and quietly-historic final pop/jazz album sessions - Recorded with 18-piece big band at Westlake Recording Studios (L.A)
SAMPLE OF BUDDY BREGMAN'S ALBUMS:
( Either sole or contributing Arranger / Orchestrator / Conductor )
Louis I. Bregman II was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 9th 1930. He is a Musical Arranger, Composer, Conductor, Record Producer and a Television Writer / Director / Producer. He has worked with many of the 20th Century's greatest popular musical artists, incuding: Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr, Peggy Lee, Shirley Bassey, Bobby Darin, Anita O'Day and Matt Monro. He has also worked with: Count Basie & Joe Williams, Oscar Peterson, Jerry Lewis, Ray Bolger, Paul Anka, Eddie Fisher, Buddy Rich, Carmen McCrae, Annie Ross and he became Ethel Merman's personal Manager/Arranger.
A nephew of Britsh-born American songwriter, Jule Styne, "Buddy" Bregman had a high I.Q and was considered something of a musical prodigy - eventually going on to study at UCLA. During his sophomore year, in 1955, he arranged & conducted Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's "Bazoom" (I Need Your Lovin) for The Cheers - which became his first hit record, followed by "Bernie's Tune" - and soon after he was appointed orchestra leader on CBS Radio's Gary Crosby Show.
He would also score and orchestrate several motion pictures around this time: The Pajama Game - featuring Doris Day (Bregman scored all of Bob Fosse's dance numbers), Crime In The Streets, Five Guns West, The Wild Party, The Delicate Delinquent - featuring Jerry Lewis, Born Reckless, Secret of The Purple Reef and The Cat Burglar.
Aged just 25, Bregman became the first Head of A&R at Norman Granz' newly established Verve Records, following a chance meeting with Granz at the home of Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer. He inaugurated the soon to be iconic record label by arranging and conducting their first single "I'm With You" / "The Rock & Roll Waltz" and their first album "Anita," both featuring vocals by Anita O'Day.
1956 saw Bregman arrange and conduct three Verve Records albums which subsequently all went Platinum; they rank amongst his greatest achievements:
Two of the albums represented the commencement of Ella Fitzgerald's epic 'Songbook' series... Bregman's intelligent and sensitive arrangments for Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook and Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Rodgers and Hart Songbook would establish Ella as an international star and secure her legacy as one of the supreme interpreters of The Great American Songbook. (Bregman would also arrange and conduct several of Ella's early Verve Records singles).
Learning that Bing Crosby was out of his exclusive recording contract with Decca Records, in 1956 Bregman conceived, arranged and conducted Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings, which duly also went Platinum. That same year he was also the arranger and conductor on Verve Records' The Greatest!! - Count Basie Plays, Joe Williams Sings Standards and Ella and Louis.
Elsewhere, Bregman arranged and conducted on albums for: Toni Harper, Jane Powell and Ricky Nelson; plus various tracks for his friend, Fred Astaire - including several of Fred's own songs. Bregman also arranged and conducted tracks such as Let There Be Love (Trend Records) for celebrated cabaret artist, Bobby Shaw and The Wayward Wind (Era Records) for Gogi Grant
In addition, he produced a selection of his own instrumental albums such as: The Gershwin Anniversary Album, Funny Face & Other Gershwin Tunes, Swinging Kicks, Swingin' Standards, Dig Buddy In Hi-Fi, Symphony of The Golden West, and more recently: Anita O'Day - Rules of The Road and It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing.
Amongst other things, following his tenure at Verve Records, Bregman became the Musical Director on NBC Television's Eddie Fisher Show, before featuring in his own T.V show, the eponymously titled Buddy Bregman's Music Shop.