Saturday 15 December 2018

Buddy Cole born 15 December 1916



Edwin LeMar "Buddy" Cole (December 15, 1916 – November 5, 1964), was a jazz pianist and orchestra leader. He played behind a number of pop singers, including Rosemary Clooney, Jill Corey, Johnnie Ray and The Four Lads, who recorded for Columbia 
Records. As "Buddy Cole and his Trio" he recorded the albums Some Fine Old Chestnuts and New Tricks with Bing Crosby.

Buddy Cole was born in Irving, Illinois, and started his musical career in the theatre playing between movies. He moved to Hollywood and played with a couple of bands, most notably the Alvino Rey big band, before becoming a studio musician.

Joining the John Scott Trotter orchestra as a pianist in 1947, he worked closely with Bing Crosby for a number of years and in 1954 he began a daily radio show with Crosby supported by a trio comprising Vince Terri on guitar, banjo etc., Don Whittaker on bass and Nick Fatool on drums. Cole also played piano on a number of Nat King Cole's early vocal hits, including "Nature Boy," and toured occasionally with him as an accompanist between 1948 and 1952.

Cole played piano and electric organ. He and Crosby built up a large library of songs which could then be inserted into the show. Cole also recorded a similar library of songs with Rosemary Clooney (with whom he had previously toured) and these songs together with those of Crosby's were employed in The Bing Crosby – Rosemary Clooney Show (1960-1962). Examples of Cole's playing and band leadership on recordings include a pair of Bing Crosby's greatest singles, "In a Little Spanish Town" and "Old Man River".

Albums with his combo were recorded on piano and Hammond organ. Cole recorded for Capitol Records as both Buddy Cole and Eddie LaMar and His Orchestra. He did both commercial and transcription recordings for Capitol.

Although primarily known as a pianist, he had an abiding love for the organ, both Hammond and theatre organ. In his capacity as a studio musician, he worked extensively with Henry Mancini, who used his distinctive Hammond organ sound for the sound track to the TV series "Mr. Lucky". He also recorded several albums for Warner Brothers on piano, Hammond organ and theatre pipe organ.

The theatre organ heard on these albums was the 17-rank Wurlitzer organ from the United Artists theatre plus nine ranks from a one-time radio studio Robert Morton theatre organ which he installed in the garage of a former residence in North Hollywood and on which he recorded three albums for the Columbia and Capitol labels. The combined ranks were installed in a specially built studio next to his home.

              Here’s “That Old Black magic” from above album.

                            

Two albums - Modern Pipe Organ and Autumn Nocturne - were recorded for Warner Brothers, as well as two albums done in conjunction with arranger Monty Kelly, one of which contained an arrangement of Richard Rodgers' Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, and the other of which contained transcriptions of big band 
Cole and Hoagy Carmichael

arrangements with spaces for the organ. These two albums - for the Alshire label - were Cole's last disc recordings.

Cole had been suffering from an advanced case of heart disease for a number of years, and beginning as early as 1959, suffered a series of heart attacks as a result. On November 4, 1964, Cole was contracted to record some organ pieces featured in 20th Century Fox's blockbuster hit The Sound of Music including sections of the "End Titles", the reprise of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" and "Processional" and "Maria". In the early hours of November 5, after the marathon six-hour recording session had been completed for the evening, Cole headed home, went to bed and died in his sleep of a heart attack, being found the following morning by a staff member.


Clare & Buddy Cole

Cole married Yvonne King on 17 August 1940, member of the King Sisters, and with her had two daughters, actress Tina Cole and Cathy Cole Green. They divorced in 1953. He married Clare Foley Woodruff on 12 November 1957, who already had two children, Jay and Jeffrey Woodruff, the latter of whom would often assist him in organ tuning. The marriage lasted until Cole's death.

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)

3 comments:

boppinbob said...

For “Buddy Cole - Swingin' at the Hammond Organ - Four Stereo Albums” go here:

https://www88.zippyshare.com/v/p78veCSt/file.html

Disc 1

HAVE ORGAN WILL SWING - 1958
1. THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
2. MEMORIES OF YOU
3. BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
4. EARLY AUTUMN
5. I HEAR MUSIC
6. THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME
7. I COVER THE WATERFRONT
8. TWO LITTLE GIRLS
9. LET'S FALL IN LOVE
10. BLUE LOU
11. IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOU
12. LULLABY OF BROADWAY
SWING FEVER - 1960
13. PAGAN LOVE SONG
14. BRAZIL
15. THE HOUR OF PARTING
16. THE PEANUT VENDOR
17. SOFTLY, AS IN A MORNING SUNRISE
18. OLD DEVIL MOON
19. HEAT WAVE
20. LA ROSITA
21. FRENESI
22. THE MOON WAS YELLOW
23. POINCIANA
24. CRAZY RHYTHM

Disc 2

POWERHOUSE - 1959
1. THE LADY IS A TRAMP
2. I LET A SONG GO OUT OF MY HEART
3. WHAT IS THERE TO SAY
4. RIDIN' HIGH
5. GEORGIA ON MY MIND
6. JUST YOU, JUST ME
7. I'M BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT
8. WILL YOU STILL BE MINE?
9. FULFILLMENT
10. DON'T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE
11. POWERHOUSE
12. ACCENT ON YOUTH
HOT AND COLE - 1959
13. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
14. THE DIPSY DOODLE
15. JUDY
16. I'VE GOT MY LOVE TO KEEP ME WARM
17. LULLABY OF THE LEAVES
18. IDAHO
19. TUXEDO JUNCTION
20. AMOR
21. AS LONG AS I LIVE
22. OPUS # 1
23. I'LL REMEMBER APRIL
24. JERSEY BOUNCE

Buddy Cole is a name that is synonymous with organ playing, be it theatre or electronic. In this instance it is the latter, the one and only original pipeless organ: the Hammond.

Across the 48 tracks on this marvellous 2CD set Buddy is joined by a group of musicians with one object in mind: that of making your day go with a swing, or your evenings turn to romance.

From his early days, Buddy recognised the potential that the Hammond organ offered, and many artists, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney to name but two, engaged him as their accompanist and Musical Director. (Jasmine notes)

A big thank you to Xena Dress @ ACM2 blog for original post

brian said...

reup... maybe!

boppinbob said...

Hello Brian, Couldn't retrieve all the mp3's so reconstructed the playlist from various digital sources. (Album titles in the tags)

https://workupload.com/file/WKhWxGcBE6F