George Bruns

George Edward Bruns was born on July 3, 1914 in Sandy, Oregon[1] one of three children born to Augusta (née Weyer) and Edward Bruns.[2] He had one older and one younger sister.[2] His father was a lumber mill proprietor, and built the first lumber mill on Mount Hood, which was eventually relocated to Sandy.[2] Bruns expressed interest in music at an early age: He began playing piano at age six, and subsequently learned how to play the bass tuba.[2] He eventually became proficient in 15 different instruments, and began performing with a high school band while still in elementary school.[2]

He attended and graduated from Sandy High School,[2] and went on to study engineering at Oregon State University, where he was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.[3] In the 1930s he worked as a musician with various groups in the Portland, Oregon area, and also performed in a traveling band.[2] In 1946 he was appointed musical director at radio station KEX in Portland, and also was the bandleader for the Rose Bowl room of the Multnomah Hotel. From 1947 to 1949 he performed and recorded on trombone with Portland's Castle Jazz Band, led by banjoist Monte Ballou.

In the late 1940s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he did studio work, performed, and recorded with trombonist Turk Murphy's Jazz Band. In 1953, he was hired by Walt Disney as an arranger, eventually becoming Disney's musical director, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. Despite his retirement, he continued to work on Disney projects.

During the mid-1950s in 1953 at the Disney Studio, his first assignment was when he composed and adapted the music from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty ballet for use as background score in the 1959 Disney film version. In addition to composing live action films such as The Absent-Minded Professor and Babes in Toyland (1961 film), Bruns went on to compose the scores for One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood. Bruns also provided Herbie the Love Bug with his sprightly theme song, featured prominently throughout the series. Among his other works include the song "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" (which he co-wrote with Xavier Atencio) from the Disney theme park attraction Pirates of the Caribbean and later used in the film series based on that ride, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" with Tom W. Blackburn, the title song from the 1956 Humphrey the Bear cartoon In the Bag, and the song "Love" with Floyd Huddleston from Robin Hood.

During his tenure with Disney Studios, Bruns continued to play dixieland jazz, leading his Wonderland Jazz Band on two recording sessions, and playing and recording occasionally with the Disney "house" band, the Firehouse Five Plus Two.

Bruns retired from Disney in 1976 and left California, returning to his native Sandy, Oregon.[2] He instructed music part-time at Lewis & Clark College and continued to perform and compose, including recording at least one locally distributed album of jazz.[1]