Buddy Bregman

Who is Buddy Bregman?

Buddy Bregman is an American musical arranger, record producer and composer.

He has worked with many of the greatest musical artists of 20th Century popular music including; Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, Matt Monro, and Frank Sinatra.

Born in Chicago, he studied at UCLA and during his sophomore year, arranged and conducted Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's "Bazoom" for the Cheers, which subsequently became his first hit record.

As an arranger, conductor and the A&R head of Norman Granz's newly established Verve Records, he also scored and orchestrated many major motion pictures including; 'The Pajama Game, Crime in the Streets, Secret of the Purple Reef and several others.

1956 saw Bregman orchestrate and arrange three albums which subsequently went platinum, and which still remain today one of his greatest achievements.

Two of the albums represented the commencement of Ella Fitzgerald's epic 'Songbooks' project.

Bregman's intelligent and sensitive arrangements for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, and Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook would establish Fitzgerald as an international star, and secure her legacy as one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook. Bregman also arranged several of Fitzgerald's early Verve singles.