Jazz Flashes News: R.I.P. Buddy Bregman, Jazz Arranger and Orchestrator

I just heard from my friend Malcolm Macfarlane, of Cheshire, England, that the great arranger Buddy Bregman has passed away in his Los Angeles home at age 86. Born in Chicago in 1930, Bregman came into prominence in the 1950s and '60s, arranging classic albums for the likes of Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Anita O'Day, to name but a few. He also wrote scores for movies such as The Pajama Game, worked on television as the musical director of The Eddie Fisher Show, and in the '60s became much in demand in England as a producer for the BBC and ITV. Songwriting royalty ran in Bregman's family, since the famed songwriter Jule Styne was his uncle, and it didn't take too long for the young Bregman to develop a fascination with jazz and and interest in writing arrangements. His first big break came in the mid-'50s in the form of an offer from none other than Norman Granz to work for his then-new Verve label, where one of his first projects was the highly successful Ella Sings the Cole Porter Songbook with Fitzgerald, who apparently was at first a little wary of Bregman's youth. He was then in his mid-twenties and was beginning to be known for powerful, brassy arrangements that sounded quite modern, something that is evident in the charts he wrote for Crosby's Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings, in my opinion one of the best albums in Der Bingle's vast discography.

Bing Crosby and Buddy Bregman, 1956

While at Verve, Bregman also had the opportunity to showcase his high-octane style on excellent big band albums that were released under his own name. Possibly the best of these is 1956's Swinging Kicks, which features an incredible cast of stellar musicians like Bud Shank, Jimmy Giuffre, Ben Webster, Georgie Auld, Stan Getz, Conte and Pete Candoli, Andre Previn, Frank Rosolino, Alvin Stoller, and Stan Levey, among others—truly the cream of the crop of '50s West Coast jazz. Other albums with Bregman as a leader (Dig Buddy Bregman in Hi-Fi, Swingin' Standards) show a consistently high quality, and in arranging the Count Basie-Joe Williams classic The Greatest!!! Count Basie Plays, Joe Williams Sings Standards, Bregman proves that he has a deep understanding of Basie's hard-swinging style. From the '60s on, Bregman concentrated most of his efforts on television, the medium in which his daughter, soap-opera actress Tracey Bregman, has worked for many years. In his last several years, Bregman suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and it was precisely his daughter that confirmed his passing yesterday evening. Though perhaps not as well known as fellow orchestrators Nelson Riddle or Billy May, Bregman was nevertheless one of the best jazz-based arrangers of the 20th century, and left behind an enormous legacy of recordings with some of the best singers and musicians of his day to prove it, a legacy that is well worth checking out.

Interview with Buddy Bregman

For a very interesting interview with Bregman conducted by Bruce Kimmel, click here.