Greg Francis (1947)

Francis

Greg Francis began his professional music career at just 15 years of age - as a trumpet player. He was taught trumpet by his father Bob Pitt who, was a professional trumpet player and had worked with film composers Ken Thorne Tony Osborne and London Palladium bandleader Jack Parnell. Greg went on to take up Keyboards at age about 21, with a view to learning composing, arranging and orchestration. He learnt the art of orchestration from books and went on to compose and orchestrate over 350 titles of original music for AEI Rediffusion and other background companies. Using large orchestras for the latter meant Greg had to get some proper lessons in conducting so, he took lessons from the London based conductor Leonard Davies of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (UK). This was to become of enormous advantage to him later when he became a regular guest conductor and arranger for the BBC Radio Orchestras (from the 26 piece to the 84 piece concert orchestra) and in Germany with the NDR Studio Orchestras in Hamburg and Hannover. Greg also arranged a large amount of the music for Miss World and Miss UK (Thames TV) between 1981 and 1986, and has arranged/orchestrated and/or composed music for most of the major TV companies including Granada TV (Stars in Their Eyes) Carlton TV, and Bazal TV Prods. He became involved in film orchestration when John Murphy and David A Hughes (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels etc) needed some very quick transcriptions having been let down. This lead to a great deal more work with film composer John Murphy. So highly regarded was Greg that John 'flew him over' to Hollywood in 1999 especially to play some Fluegel Horn and Trumpet on the movie Chain of Fools (2000). Greg has himself also composed original music for the BBC, Thames TV and Bazal Productions (for BBC TV programs) as well as the 'wallpaper music' for the background music companies. In 1989 he was asked to provide and direct the orchestra for the film _Memphis Belle (1989)_ (David Puttnam). The orchestra performed so impressively that Puttnam helped Greg to get permission from Warner Bros. to keep the orchestra together as a 'touring band'. This lead to the aquisition of other big bands and Greg now heads the largest big band agency in Europe (The USO Ltd). They manage several Big Bands including the New Squadronaires Orchestra, The Memphis Belle Swing Orchestra, The Glenn Miller Tribute Orchestra and the Blackpool Tower Big Band. The bands are all touring and 'resident' on a rotating basis 7 nights a week at the world famous Blackpool Tower ballroom in Lancashire (UK) and Greg directs the 'Tower Big Band' himself. Greg's son Paul Francis is following in his father's footsteps and has composed a large volume of 'film music' in the style of his heroes John Williams and Danny Elfman. Paul has provided original music for BBC TV programs and despite his age of just 18 years (19 years on 3rd May 2002) he has had very positive comments on his compositional abilities from his peers. Greg now spends a great deal of time doing 'last minute' music arrangements for Radio, TV and Film, and in the studios producing big band recordings. He also went back to his 'roots' recently in taking up playing the trumpet again and leading a jazz group.