Jazz, blues and nostalgia, by Sjaak Roodenburg. Episode: Buddy & Buddy.
We look at two Buddies who passed away early this year. Buddy Bregman was a musical child prodigy. He arranged and directed several of the magnificent Songbook albums of Ella Fitzgerald. In his early twenties, he became the resident arranger of Norman Grantz’s new label Verve and immediately worked intensely with Fitzgerald on her Cole Porter Songbook and the Songbook on Rodgers & Hart. What’s more, he breathed new live into Bing Crosby’s career with the dazzling album ‘Bing sings whilst Bregman swings’. He also worked with artists like Anita O’Day, Ethel Merman, Bobby Darin and Paul Anka.
The other Buddy who passed away was singer, pianist and entertainer Buddy Greco. He worked in the same circles as his friend Frank Sinatra and was kind of the resident artist of gambling city Las Vegas, but also delivered a huge pile of records with his swinging renditions. He was called ‘Mr Excitement of Song’.
In this Palace of Nostalgia, you can also listen to Peter Sarstedt, vocal group The Four Knights, Johnny & Jones, the fresh Puppini Sisters, Betty Roché and Carol Haney.
