Reisman, Joel

Joe Reisman (1924-1987) was a producer and arranger who worked with many popular music acts and artists, including Henry Mancini, Patti Page, Sarah Vaughan, and Perry Como, primarily for RCA Victor and Roulette Records during the 1950s and 1960s, and, from the early 1970s, as an independent producer.

Reisman began his music career as a saxophonist and arranger with the Herb Miller band and later toured and arranged extensively, meeting Page when both were in the Jimmy Joy band. From 1950-1955 he was her principal arranger and conductor, responsible for her major hits for Mercury Records, including Tennesee Waltz (1951) and the novelty song, (How Much Is) That Doggie In The Window (1953). He also arranged, composed, and produced music for several of Page's television and film projects. In 1955, after Reisman arranged Perry Como's hit Papa Loves Mambo, RCA Victor hired him as Musical Director and Artists and Repertoire producer. He remained there until 1959, when he began a three-year stint as A&R director at Roulette Records, after which he freelanced before returning to RCA in 1963. In 1968 Reisman was promoted to Manager and Executive Producer in charge of RCA's West Coast A&R department. His work at RCA also produced a series of easy listening albums for subscribers to Reader's Digest. In the early 1970s Reisman left RCA to establish his own company, Manor Productions. In addition to Page and Como, Reisman's clients over the course of his career were numerous and varied. Perhaps his most notable collaboration was with Mancini, with whom he worked for over twenty years on many types of projects. In addition to producing his clients, Reisman also arranged and produced his own records. He also occasionally took on television and theatrical music projects of his own, including the Sid and Marty Krofft adult puppet show, Les Poupees De Paris (1964), in which he arranged the music of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen.