Jeremy,   I cannot be confident of the precise reason for Ken's use of the word 'infamous', but certainly the the album was not originally received with universal rapture.

It was regarded by many then (and possibly still now) as a failure because of what were seen as brash arrangements unsuited to Bing's style, and several otherwise fervent fans of Bing have expressed strong views about it.

As to the track listing it is certainly true that there was an LP issue that contained alternative versions of three tracks, but I think most issues have otherwise contained the same twelve tracks.

In 1956 Bing had relatively recently emerged from the contract with Decca and there was no strong artistic 'guiding hand' left to him. On top of that the 'pop' musical tastes were changing fairly rapidly. Cut loose on his own he was, it seems, willing to try anything. Buddy Bregman was very young - around 25 at the time. He was the nephew of the composer Jule Styne and apparently also a friend of Bing's son Gary, two or three years younger, though I have read this only recently and do not know the level of the friendship.  Bing might have been 'doing a favour' for Bregman due to either or both of those connections. From any viewpoint the meeting was very disproportionate in terms of public awareness, accomplishment and experience.  (The original sleeve illustration was really very apt - a large portrait of Bing wearing a baseball cap looking over his shoulder at a very small image of Buddy!)

The idea behind the album was good - to emulate for Verve the sort of album that Nelson Riddle had been doing with Frank Sinatra. But in my view Bregman was allowed too much freedom to indulge in his own tastes and ideas; he failed to adapt to Bing's style. And possibly it was a step too far for Bing to adapt to that of Bregman. Several commentators have observed that Bing was too good natured and tolerant to challenge him. In this respect Bing was certainly no Sinatra (who knew what he wanted and was determined to get it).

Taken as a whole I suspect that not many listeners even now would rank it very high on Mr. C's list of successes, though some tracks do stand out and I think that the arrangements are no longer seen as quite so outlandish as they appeared to be in 1956.

But whether this background was what Ken had in mind   - -  ?

Jeremy, the album that you refer to - 'The Special Magic of Bing Crosby'' was an early 1970s reissue in the UK on the MGM/Polydor label. I don't think that there was a US equivalent but I am not certain.

The original issue In the US was on Verve and in the UK on HMV in their Verve series.

It is said that Bing was a little reluctant to become involved in this project as he thought that Buddy Bregman’s accompaniment might not suit his style (“too jazzy") but after Bing negotiated a particularly favorable contract (10% of the gross without deduction for recording costs), he participated enthusiastically. This is what Buddy had to say about it.

Question: In between the Ella songbooks, you were responsible for another landmark LP, one that brought Bing Crosby bang up to date. with some hard swinging arrangements, BING SINGS WHILST BREGMAN SWINGS, a tremendous contrast to the somewhat staid arrangements of long term Crosby arranger John Scott Trotter.
Answer: Yes, this was my idea. Bing was at the end of his long contract with Decca, and although he re-signed, it was on a non-exclusive basis, which meant he was free to record with whom he chose. I’d recently worked with Gary Crosby on a Decca session and become friendly with him and I had Bing’s private home telephone number so I rang him to ask about doing an album with me at Verve. I went over to the house and played some things over to him on the piano. He agreed to do it and a deal was worked out, and I was given carte blanche with the arrangements and musicians. He didn’t even insist on his regular pianist Buddy Cole being on the date The only thing Bing stipulated was that he had to record at nine o’clock in the morning, because his voice was best at that time of day.
He wanted to get out on the golf course! You can imagine the state of the musicians falling into the studio at that time of the morning, most of them hadn’t even been to bed!
Question: You would never know it from listening to the album now, everyone sounds as fresh as a daisy. Must have been the coffee/ As I say, this was a real departure for Bing, did he need any extra rehearsing, the liner notes say he hadn’t recorded any of these songs before and he certainly hadn’t recorded with this sort of line up ?
Answer: No, he just came into the Capitol studio and we did the album in two sessions (June 11 & 12 1956)
It’s a really hard swinging album, with some superb solos by the likes of Frank Rosolino, Bud Shank, Harry Edison of course and the drumming by Alvin Stoller really drives it along.
(Buddy Bregman being interviewed in In Tune magazine. Reproduced in Bing’s Friends & Collectors Society Newsletter, February - March 2002)   

This Bing Sings While Bregman Swings must be the first  Crosby record on the HMV label since the Rhythm Boys of the ‘twenties. Like last month’s LP, this is of songs not previously sung by Der Bingle. The accompaniments sound brash and are too loud - he is surely best with an intimate accompaniment of the Buddy Cole type - and the songs include “Mountain Greenery", but with all respect is this really a vocal number?
(The Gramophone, January 1957)

It seems too odd to find Bing Crosby and the HMV dog sharing the same label, but the voice and the manner sound just as happy-go-lucky as ever. “Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings," the first album Crosby has recorded for American Verve, catches him in a typically casual mood. . . . Taken at a slower tempo, “Mountain Geeenery" sounds more rural than the Mel Torme version. . . . Buddy Bregman’s orchestra provides a brisk, carefree setting.
(The Gramophone, February, 1957)

Bing Crosby himself is represented [on an EP] by an extract from his LP of Bing Sings While Bregman Swings including “Mountain Greenery"  which was made for him if ever a song was, on HMV 7EG8475.
(The Gramophone, September, 1959)

Last edited by Malcolm Macfarlane (15/4/2012 7:28 am)

Gentlemen - what can I say..? Thank you all so much for your input. It never ceases to amaze me that so many people are willing to share their vast knowledge of all aspects Bing's career for the benefit of others. I've learned a great deal...

I was almost certain that in my mind's eye I could see the Polydor label on my long-gone "Special Magic of Bing Crosby" LP, but an image of the LP cover found on the internet clearly showed the MGM logo so I amended my original posting. That same image also confirmed my recollection that the track order was different from my Japanese CD release which seems to contain the original album cover notes.

I'm very interested to learn from Richard's contribution that three of the tracks on the LP release were alternate takes. Which tracks were they and have they ever appeared in a digital (CD) format?

I've listened to the album a few more times in the light of the comments pointed out by Jon O.from
Fred Reynolds's book (which I had consulted) and Malcolm's quotations from the Ken Barnes book (which I hadn't).

I have to admit that I don't really have a problem with the arrangements per se. To my mind they are arrangements made by someone who is above all arranging the melody, without too much (if any) thought for the lyrics which set the mood of the song in question. You therefore get an arrangement of a fundamentally intimate song like - for instance - "Cheek To Cheek" with all those crashing brass chords.

With regard to the "suspect chords" that Ken Barnes mentions in the middle of "Heat Wave", I've listened to it several times and I can't detect any suspect harmonies, but it does seem that there's a sort of cross-synchopation on different beats of the bar between band and vocalist that doesn't quite gel. (I can't quite believe that I've just questioned a statement made by Ken Barnes..!)

It might be just a bit fanciful, but I suppose you could argue that the very title of this album suggests that vocalist and arranger have a different agenda. Ken Barnes is, of course, right in saying that this album is no match for Sinatra's "Songs for Swingin' Lovers", but then Bregman is a good arranger, Nelson Riddle is a GREAT one...

Over and above all this, however, is Bing's contribution. As always, what amazes me is Bing's ability to just "sit" on everything he does. From the recording balance of the album, I can't think that Bing would have been in an open studio with the band either in front of or behind him. He must have been in a booth with cans on. (I could, of course, be TOTALLY wrong about this.) This would explain the contrast between the laid-back, rhythmically spot-on vocals and the in-your-face, sometimes blaring arrangements.

Anyway, thanks to Richard, John and Malcolm for their contributions, and I still find it amazing that after more than 40 years of listening to Bing, there is alway something else that is open to fascinating discussion and analysis.

Thanks for that, Richard...

I'll keep an eye open on e-bay for the Australian LP issue.

Do we know whether BCE hold the rights to this album? If so, it would make a great release, with the three alternative takes (at least) as bonus tracks.

I bought a set of the "The Crosby Collection" at the Leeds meeting a couple of years ago. This year I'm hoping to be able to buy Volume 2 of the Gary Giddins biography!

Thanks again, everyone, for all your in-put.

I like this album too. But I do think that Buddy Bregman was suited more towards Ella Fitzgerald than Bing. Bing seemed more at home on the album he did with Bob Scobey. I have a lot of albums by Bregman. While I like him, his band was a little "harsh" for me. He seemed like a wild Billy May...if that is a good analogy.

I'm very fond of the Bregman album, and despite my fondness for Dixieland I am not quite as taken by the Scobey album.  While the intrumental arrangements are different, I find much in common in Bing's ease with swinging between the Bregman album and the more recently released Mozaic set of Bing's CBS radio recordings.

I confess to a personal bias in favor of some of Bing's efforts which expanded his range, for example his more dramatic film rolls, and his rendition of the folk song "Hang Me" (on the "How the West Was Won" album) which certainly was a far cry from more popular fair like "Swinging on a Star."

I should have mentioned when commenting on this topic earlier that, in addition to the METRO partial reissue that John O. mentioned there is an MGM Records reissue of the album titled "Bing Sings The Great American Standards" MGM E4129. It has all of the tracks and in the same order.  So that's another one out there in the used LP racks for people looking for the original, but not finding it yet. Did anyone metion that the original label, Verve, re-issued the album on CD in 2002--very nice packaging with a booklet to boot.  Before I found the original LP, I found a copy of the MGM reissue, then still impatient I ordered a copy of the CD...then eventually I found the original LP.

Paul, I hadn't heard of MFSL before.  I guess the copy you got is on what they call "super vinyl."

This album is one of my favorites of Bing’s although I feel it’s unfair to compare to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers as it’s more of a Come Dance With Me with very brass heavy arrangements by Billy May for Frank. It even shares two songs. I find those two albums more comparable than comparing Swingin’ Lovers. As Swingin’ lovers have a lot more slow paced Swingin’ ones and not as many hard swingers as in Bing Sings or Come Dance.

Lobosco wrote:

I like this album too. But I do think that Buddy Bregman was suited more towards Ella Fitzgerald than Bing. Bing seemed more at home on the album he did with Bob Scobey. I have a lot of albums by Bregman. While I like him, his band was a little "harsh" for me. He seemed like a wild Billy May...if that is a good analogy.

Yes. Although I really enjoy the album (it's often played), the arrangements do sound a little needlessly chaotic, particularly with the drums and cymbals having a wild old time. They remind me a little of when I very briefly attended one of those Rat Pack tribute shows. The drumming subtleties from the era of Frank, Dean and Sammy were completely absent from the on stage band. Having said that, I do so like to hear Bing trying different things. Such is my curiosity with this (and I will go quietly, should any of you wish to just permanently take me away to a quiet place), I even enjoy - with all its attendant rock drumming, the infamously unsuitable "Hey Jude, Hey Bing". There (Gulp!), I've said it! David, I'll fully understand should I find I'm soon unable to log back on to here. 

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (10/3/2022 12:21 pm)

Archiefit wrote:

The only version I ever had of the "Bing Sings Bregman Swings" album was the MGM Metro album I've posted a picture of below.   The best thing about this album was that it was in beautiful stereo, something the original album was not available in (nor the later CD releases).   Yes, it is "fake" stereo but I think it still sounds better than mono.  I later bought the original album of "Bing/Bregman" that was in mono and still later got the CD versions.   But I still like that first fake stereo album better.   Here's how it looks:

Archiefit! You've floored me!!! My tin ears and straw brained memory always took it for granted this was recorded in original natural stereo! This is to the degree had we all been gathered for a pub/bar style Bing quiz and this had arisen as a deciding question, I'd have been screamingly insistent (and against all you experts) that come on, fellas THINK for goodness sake- it had to have been stereo! Then on being dragged away and the evidence being forcibly played (just as I've now slapped on my 2001 Verve CD re-issue - fold out cover, full liner notes, Etc), contrition would have only been the start of it. I would love to hear this in reprocessed stereo, Archiefit. Are there any links to where you can guide me towards for a listen? I only have a copy of the afore mentioned mono CD and the same on an LP re-issue. By the way, your posted cover is super. Just as Jon O mentioned on this thread a decade ago, it's in that lovely "loose" painted style of the time as featured on "I Wish You a Merry Christmas", Etc.

Last edited by Ian Kerstein (13/4/2022 10:54 pm)

Archiefit wrote:

For the record I really enjoy listening to both the Bregman/Bing and the Scobey/Bing albums.  I love their swingin' beat and Bing swings right along.  (Sorry my least favorite is Bing's Hey Jude, talk about an odd couple.)   By the way on the Bob Scobey Bing With A Beat lp the original album version of "Exactly Like You" is a much (in my opinion) better looser Bing vocal and more relaxed fun Bing than the later CD release version.    I like the original album version of that song much better.   Where the clear difference occurs is starting at the 2 min. 11 seconds mark (on the lp version) where Bing starts scatting "Uh ho be, uh huh ahh huh uh huh, uh hoo bee" or sounds to that effect.   The later Verve/Bluebird CD release version the scat Bing does is very different and I don't like Bing's alternate scat on the later CD version.   It's a shame that the CD release did not use the original lp version of Exactly Like You.   I transferred my album version to a CD some years back and now have it on my computer so I can still hear that lp version instead.

I couldn't believe it either when I first discovered the original Bing/Bregman album was recorded in mono, having only the Metro album up until then I assumed the original was also in stereo.   It seems incredible that this type of album which just begs for a big band stereo sound could have been recorded in mono especially in the late 1950's.   Though to be fair, I do remember as a little kid in the early '60's looking through records most EVERYTHING was in mono back then.  It wasn't until about 1967 when all albums started coming out in stereo even then there was still a mono or a stereo version you could choose from.

Maybe it just never occurred to anyone back in the '50's to record in stereo since most people back in the '50's and early '60's didn't have stereo sets.   Though being professionals surely they would have realized this just as those involved with Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra's records in the '50's knew this.   I guess some had foresight to see what was coming and others just acted as if the technology of that moment would forever be the technology in the future.   Likewise most '50's and '60's TV shows were in b/w BUT some with foresight filmed their shows in color, Adv. of Superman, Cisco Kid, Lone Ranger, even Gene Autry's last TV season was in color.   Even though TV was still only broadcast in b/w they knew one day it would all be broadcast in color so they wisely filmed in color preparing for the future.   

I've always wondered why Bing never got with great arrangers like Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins (though I think his "Return To Paradise.." lp was with Jenkins).  I have long thought why in the world did Bing waste his time on those rinky-dink organ accompaniment recordings and those sing along albums.   Talk about a total waste of such an immense talent.   Why couldn't have Bing recorded albums with great orchestras and arrangers like Nat Cole and Sinatra used?   I bet they wouldn't have been caught dead with an organ as their back-up "orchestra".  

Very strange indeed, I'd have loved to ask Bing why did you make those choices that maybe only a beginner singer with no other options would have been forced to make.   He must have had better options, did he never consider Riddle or Jenkins?   Think of the great musical team Bing would have made with them.  I listen to Nat King Cole albums and to be honest the best thing about them is the arrangements Nelson and Gordon used with him.   Those albums with Nat and Sinatra with their lush arrangements and or their swingin' big band sound were phenomenal.   No reason in the world Bing could not have made albums just like those classics.  My mind even wonders what if Bing and John Scott Trotter had made some great sounding stereo albums both swinging and lush ballads.   They recorded all kinds of music together in pre-stereo Decca days, think of the great sound they could have made teaming again for stereo albums.  Once again such a waste and a wasted opportunity for truly great recordings Bing could have done in the '50's and early '60's.  Certainly his voice was still top notch, just listen to his Christmas album from 1962, his voice seemed better than ever.

As John Greenleaf Whittier said, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.”
 

I agree with you 100%!

It was so refreshing even on Bing's 1940s recordings to hear Bing sing with someone other than John Scott Trotter. This board also knows what I think about Buddy Cole. I never understood Bing's choice of records to make post 1950. He could make and album so great with Louis Armstrong, but then make the dreadful Singalong albums.

Many if he had a different manager or agent, they would have steered Bing to better record choices especially in the 50s and 60s. I wish Bing would have had a Ken Barnes in his life back then. Thank God for Ken in the 1970s.
 

I covered this Bregman LP in my book "Just Remember This".I note Bing's lack of committment, still giving the nod to 5 titles.I also note ;he literally runs out of gas" (page 326). / There is a similar problem with his (then) contemporary " Songs I Wishe I Had Sung   LP , in which I picked only 2 titles worth it.I also noted the slightly later "Bing With A Beat" LP. I consider Bob Scobey's MUCH better, backing as Bing's only SOLO album performance that found him committed to EVERY title. Even when Bing slides a bit on "Mack The Knife", Scobey's jazz band saves it. / Bing  IS excellent on  the Hight Society  LP , but this is with other artists,  No, Bing was hardly an LP  ( 12 inch) entity , except for  his  very good LP with Rosemary Clooney  & Billy May & his fab 1962 Christmas LP for Warner Brothers. You can list his  Decca LP "Merry Christmas " , as still popular, noting the 12 inch product started in the later 1950s-all reissues-mostly 1940s singles..THIS ONE also does well over the hump of 2000-even NOW!  Later Christmas fodder was good, yet not on major labels. Ken Barnes did some good things with the (even)  older man.Let's call it  all nice.With no disrespect, for this kind of pop (LP) concept,Nat King Cole,Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin,- were more involved,committed.