Joseph Reisman (September 16, 1924, Dallas - September 15, 1987, Los Angeles) was an American musician (tenor and baritone saxophone, clarinet), bandleader, arranger, and record producer in the swing era.
Reisman studied at Baylor University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. He began his music career as a saxophonist in bands like Glen Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra, Louis Prima, Bob Crosby, Sam Donahue, Frankie Masters, and Jack Teagarden. As an arranger he worked for Ray Bauduc and Gene Williams. At the end of the 1940s he gave up an active career as a musician, and worked as an arranger and producer in the Hollywood studios. He arranged and conducted for Patti Page, accompanying her on her hits "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window", "Tennessee Waltz", and "Mockingbird Hill", and for Perry Como, including on "Catch a Falling Star" and "Papa Loves Mambo". [1] He also worked on productions by Eartha Kitt ("Sho-Jo-Ji (The Hungry Raccoon)"), Sarah Vaughan, June Valli, Georgia Gibbs, Ann-Margret, Lena Horne, André Previn and the Ames Brothers.
In the mid-1950s he was the musical director of several television shows, including NBC's Shower of Stars and The Oldsmobile Hour ; He also worked for RCA Victor and Roulette Records. At RCA and Roulette, he also recorded several albums in an easy listening style, and had a minor hit with a cover version of Ross Bagdasarian's "Armen's Theme". At the beginning of the 1960s, Reisman returned to RCA and then worked as a producer for Henry Mancini for almost thirty years, starting with his album Our Man in Hollywood (1964).
He died of a heart attack one day before his 63rd birthday on September 15, 1987 in Los Angeles. In 1996, his widow donated his collection of scores to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. [2]
Henry Nicola Mancini was an American composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and flautist. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.
William James "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, plunger trombonist Al Grey, and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.
Harry Edward Nilsson III, known professionally as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal overdub experiments, returns to the Great American Songbook, and fusions of Caribbean sounds. A tenor with a 3+1⁄2 octave range, Nilsson was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists to achieve significant commercial success without ever performing major public concerts or undertaking regular tours. The craft of his songs and the defiant attitude he projected remain touchstones for later generations of indie rock musicians.
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer.
Burt Freeman Bacharach is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach's songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. As of 2014, he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.
Neal Paul Hefti was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and arranger. He wrote music for The Odd Couple movie and TV series and for the Batman TV series.
Kim Vincent Fowley was an American record producer, singer, songwriter and musician. He is best known for his role behind a string of novelty and cult pop rock singles in the 1960s, and for managing the Runaways in the 1970s. He has been described as "one of the most colorful characters in the annals of rock & roll", as well as "a shadowy cult figure well outside the margins of the mainstream".
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer, and pianist who was influential in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s. Jenkins worked with The Andrews Sisters, Johnny Cash, The Weavers, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.
Bernard Alfred Nitzsche, known professionally as Jack Nitzsche, was an American musician, arranger, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He first came to prominence in the early 1960s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector and went on to work with the Rolling Stones and Neil Young, among others. He also worked extensively in film scores, notably for films such as Performance, The Exorcist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In 1983, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for co-writing "Up Where We Belong" with Buffy Sainte-Marie.
William McKinley Hutchison, better known as Willie Hutch, was an American singer, songwriter as well as a record producer and recording artist for the Motown record label during the 1970s and 1980s.
Bruce Charles Sudano is an American singer-songwriter, noted for creating songs for artists such as Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire and his wife, the Grammy Award-winning singer Donna Summer. Sudano is the founder of indie record label, Purple Heart Recording Company.
Richard Eldridge Maltby Sr. was an American musician, conductor, arranger and bandleader, most notable for his 1956 recording "(Themes from) The Man with the Golden Arm". He was also the father of the Broadway lyricist and director Richard Maltby Jr.
Les Poupées de Paris was a musical puppet show created, produced and directed by Sid and Marty Krofft, that toured the United States throughout the 1960s.
Om'Mas Keith, also known simply as Om'Mas, is a Grammy Award-winning record producer, musician, composer, engineer, and songwriter from Queens, New York. He has worked with Frank Ocean, Erykah Badu, John Legend, Jay-Z, Kevin Abstract, and Vic Mensa. He is also known as a member of The Sa-Ra Creative Partners, alongside Taz Arnold and Shafiq Husayn.
Uan Rasey was an American musician, best known for his studio work as a trumpet player.
Victor Schoen was an American bandleader, arranger, and composer whose career spanned from the 1930s until his death in 2000. He furnished music for some of the most successful persons in show business including Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Les Brown, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, George Shearing, Jimmie Lunceford, Ray McKinley, Benny Carter, Louis Prima, Russ Morgan, Guy Lombardo, Carmen Cavallaro, Carmen Miranda, Gordon Jenkins, Joe Venuti, Victor Young, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, and his own The Vic Schoen Orchestra.
Don Randi is an American keyboard player, bandleader, and songwriter who was a member of the Wrecking Crew.
Michel Rubini is an American musician and composer, best known for his work composing motion picture soundtracks. He is a professional classical pianist since early childhood. During the 1960s and 1970s, Rubini worked on tours, with such stars as Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, Sonny and Cher and Barbra Streisand.
William Keith Pitman is an American guitarist and session musician.
Joseph P. Lippman was an American composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, and songwriter working in jazz and traditional pop. His musical career was over five decades long, having started at age 19 with the Benny Goodman orchestra in 1934 and writing for television, films, and Broadway in the 1980s. He composed and arranged for Bunny Berigan, Jimmy Dorsey, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker and worked as staff arranger in television for Perry Como and Hollywood Palace.