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Sorry to read that Buddy has passed away.
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Malcolm Macfarlane wrote:
Sorry to read that Buddy has passed away.
An obituary, the only on I can find so far, in the Hollywood Reporter here
The album Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings was something of a new departure for Bing.
Bregman was only 26 at the time and whilst some tracks were very successful a few were a little less so.
The coverage on Wikipedia by Malcolm here is interesting.
I remember wearing out my copy of "Mountain Greenery"
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Malcolm,
Very sad news indeed. Buddy Bregman was one of my favorite arrangers, and I love the albums he made with Bing, Joe Williams, Ella, and so many others. As soon as I heard the news from you, I hastened to write an obituary for Bregman in my jazz blog, Jazz Flashes. It's available here:
R.I.P. Buddy Bregman, one of the best jazz-based arrangers of the 20th century.
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Sadly another departs this life.
Remembering he was at Hofstra (or was it Gonzaga?).
Anyway we exchanged hellos.
Enjoyed the album very much.
R.I.P.
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R.I.P. I recently purchased the fabulous 3 LP 180gm reissue of the Cole Porter Songbook by Ella. It is incredibly fine-sounding. I can hear things going on in those great Bregman arrangements that I've never heard before. I highly recommend it.
And I have chimed in here before how much I love the Bing/Bregman album. I play the Mobile Fidelity LP edition often.
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Bregman and Bing on Mountain Greenery is one of my favorite versions. Bregman's stuff with Ella was near perfect.
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Now another Buddy has gone - Buddy Greco - 90. He made some good recordings too. RIP
Hope this is not going to be the start of another bad year like 2016.
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Since the announcement of Buddy Bregman's death I've been listening to "Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings" quite a lot.
This has always been one of my favourite Crosby albums, but I know it has divided opinion amongst Bing fans over the years. I seem to remember that the late, lamented Lionel Pairpoint had a particular dislike for it... (Confirmation - or otherwise - please, Malcolm..!)
I'm going to write an article on the album for possible inclusion in the next issue of "Bing" magazine and would be very interested to hear some other views from contributors to this board.
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Jeremy, I don't remember Lionel talking about the album. It might have been Reg Bristo though. Ken Barnes was critical about it in his book.
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Jeremy, you ought to read Fred Reynolds assessment too in Part 4 of his wonderful Crosby Collection books.
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Thanks Malcolm.
Funnily enough, I was reading the Fred Reynolds "Crosby Collection" entries yesterday, and Ken Barnes's comments are on Malcolm's "Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings" Wikipedia page. Richard provided a direct link to the page earlier in this thread.
I remember that my first experience of these tracks was on an MGM LP release in the early 70s entitled "The Special Magic of Bing Crosby". No liner notes - just a track listing and, "Arranged and conducted by Buddy Bregman".
Finally, apologies to Lionel Pairpoint's memory for mis-remembering his reaction to the album!
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When BING SINGS WHILE BREGMAN SWINGS was released on Australian Verve the alternative takes of three songs were used: 'The blue room', 'Mountain greenery' and 'Cheek to cheek'.
Thanks Anton for your notes on Buddy Bregman who had a remarkable career, didn't he,
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Arne Fogel's 'The Bing Shift' of January 29th pays attention to the death of Buddy Bregman. A lot of Bing with Bregman tracks get a play.
See:
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This was the album - in the UK, at least...
(BTW... I hope you're impressed, Richard, that I've finally mastered the technique of getting an image onto a CFW posting!)
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jeremyrose wrote:
This was the album - in the UK, at least...
(BTW... I hope you're impressed, Richard, that I've finally mastered the technique of getting an image onto a CFW posting!)
Duly impressed. The image you post however is of a 1970s re-issue with a revised title.
The original UK issue was on HMV -
[img] ():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-5918649-1406388885-2782.jpeg.jpg[/img]
I still have a very worn copy.
The design followed the US original on Verve
[img] ():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-3276069-1323532686.jpeg.jpg[/img]
And this design has been perpetuated on many reissues.
In the UK it was also issued on a club label (World Record Club) -
[img] ():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-9320751-1478541055-4235.jpeg.jpg[/img]
(Got one of those too)
and on Music for Pleasure titled merely "Bing Crosby" but with 10 tracks only.
[img] ():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-4006397-1365010121-5929.jpeg.jpg[/img]
(I was not tempted to buy it but was then given it as a present by someone misled by the title and design into thinking that it was something new to me).
I am not aware of any sleeve design variations on US re-issues. If anyone does know of any and can post images, I for one am interested. (Jeremy will help with tutorials on how to do so if the need arises.)
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Touché..!
The "Special Magic of..." album was my introduction to these tracks in the '70s and I remember being ushered into a listening booth in Dingles department store in Plymouth while the assistant put the album onto the turntable.
I remember the WRC and MFP releases, but not the original UK album release.
The "Special Magic of..." series included, "The Special Magic of Bing and Satchmo", (the title of which was a clearer indication of the contents) and this album was my introduction to the "Bing and Satchmo" tracks.
I also acquired a lot of early Bing material on the old Decca "Ace of Hearts" label which had to be obtained on special order from another long-since-vanished record store in Plymouth.
Happy days...
Last edited by jeremyrose (04/2/2017 6:37 pm)
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It was all right for you wealthy people. As a 17 year old. I had to buy the album as EPs when I could afford them and I never got the final one.
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What's an EP? (Just kidding!)
By the time I started collecting - on the cusp of the 60s and 70s - EPs had been largely phased out, I think.
I seem to remember that MFP LPs cost 19/11 in pre- and 99p in post-decimalisation money. Still less than a quid whichever way you look at it!
Presumably it was a licensing arrangement which saw the Crosby/Bregman album released on HMV in the UK? Although Verve was acquired by the PolyGram empire in the 70s, I still can't see a direct link to HMV/EMI. Music for Pleasure and its sister label Classics for Pleasure were EMI imprints.
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I don't know the detail as to how the rights went but I do know that many of the Verves (e.g. the early Ella Fitzgerald Songbook albums) were released in the UK on HMV.
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Malcolm Macfarlane wrote:
It was all right for you wealthy people. As a 17 year old. I had to buy the album as EPs when I could afford them and I never got the final one.
To whom might this be addressed? My HMV of Bing/Bregman is worn for a reason. I had an old worn, wrecked and salvaged turntable and a pickup arm that had clearly been designed for heavier weight 78 rpm use and that had a playing weight of a hundred-weight (or two).
(The point being that I was pretty impoverished and struggling to buy records. I hardly had the tools to play them on!. In fact I owned some records for months before being able to play them on my own equipment!).
It was not until some time into the stereo era that I managed to scrape together anything that could reasonably be called "Hi-Fi". My first stereo records? Bing's "How The West Was Won" sometime early in 1960.
.
Last edited by Richard Baker (05/2/2017 6:02 pm)
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Archiefit wrote:
My memory was correct, here is the album I bought back in the 70's of the Bing/Bregman lp, had no idea of the original cover back then and I remembered correctly, this version of the album WAS Stereofied, - - - - . OK here's how my album looked:
It looks from what I can see of the cover that this, like the UK MfP release, had just ten tracks, and it shares the same title, consisting of Bing's name alone. I assume the logo "Metro" implies MGM.
Thanks for this
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The LP I have is on the Karussell label simply titled BING CROSBY with (in small print at the top) 'Bing Crosby, one of the greatest entertainers of our time', made in Australia and 'Distributed by Phonogram Recordings Pty Limited'. Each side of the cover has a large black-and-white photo of Bing's bust with a pipe in his mouth on a black background, unlike any of the other covers which have been pictured. The LP has ten tracks and I've no idea when it was pressed, nor how I acquired it.
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Graham Pascoe wrote:
The LP I have is on the Karussell label simply titled BING CROSBY with (in small print at the top) 'Bing Crosby, one of the greatest entertainers of our time', made in Australia and 'Distributed by Phonogram Recordings Pty Limited'. Each side of the cover has a large black-and-white photo of Bing's bust with a pipe in his mouth on a black background, unlike any of the other covers which have been pictured. The LP has ten tracks and I've no idea when it was pressed, nor how I acquired it.
Something like this? It is Karussell (Cat #635217) and it has those 10 tracks, but it was pressed in Germany. The words you quote appear in tiny print on the white strip at the top left.
[img] ():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-7078940-1433201071-6842.jpeg.jpg#[/img]
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What I find baffling is that there were several 12 inch LP issues which dropped two songs. I cannot imagine what the justification might be. Granted that they might have been on cheap labels but it presumably added to costs as new masters would have been needed, instead of pressing from existing masters.
And why also just title the issue with Bing's name, dropping the distinguishing elements of the title?
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Richard,
Talking of heavy arms - every time I visited my Nana I asked could I play the one Bing 78 stored in the old wind up gramophone. The 78 was 'Thanks' with Black Moonlight' on the reverse. That poor old 78 was so worn that I had to turn the speed dial down to about 60rpm to make it sound like Bing.
Can't alter the speed on turntables these days.
It is a wonder that the old 78's last so long.