Artist: Artie Shaw
Genre(s):
Jazz
Discography:
Non Stop Fligh
Year: 1996
Tracks: 18
The Essence of Artie Shaw
Year:
Tracks: 12
Chant
Year:
Tracks: 23
14 Songs
Year:
Tracks: 19
One of jazz's finest clarinetists, Artie Shaw ne'er seemed fully satisfied with his musical life-time, invariably break up successful bands and running away from success. While Count Basie and Duke Ellington were satisfied to lead just one orchestra during the swing eRA, and Benny Goodman (due to unwellness) had two, Shaw lED five, all of them distinctive and memorable.
Later growing up in New Haven, CT, and playing clarinet and alto topically, Shaw spent portion of 1925 with Johnny Cavallaro's dance band and then played off and on with Austin Wylie's band in Cleveland from 1927-1929 before joining Irving Aaronson's Commanders. After moving to New York, Shaw became a shut associate of Willie "The Lion" Smith at block sessions, and by 1931 was a busy studio musician. He retired from music for the first time in 1934 in hopes of composition a book, only when his money started running taboo, Shaw returned to New York. A major turning point occurred when he performed at an all-star big ring concert at the Imperial Theatre in May 1936, surprising the audience by playing with a train quaternary and a speech rhythm section. He used a similar conception in putting together his first-class honours degree orchestra, adding a Dixieland-type front assembly line and a vocalist patch retaining the string section. Despite some fine recordings, that special lot disbanded in early 1937 and so Shaw put in concert a more conventional big band.
The surprisal achiever of his 1938 recording of "Begin the Beguine" made the clarinetist into a sensation and his orchestra (world Health Organization featured the strain of Georgie Auld, vocals by Helen Forrest and Tony Pastor, and, by 1939, Buddy Rich's drumming) into one of the to the highest degree popular in the universe. Billie Holiday was with the band for a few months, although only ane recording ("Whatsoever Old Time") resulted. Shaw establish the pressure of the band business difficult to deal with and in November 1939 suddenly left the bandstand and touched to Mexico for two months. When Shaw returned, his number 1 sitting, utilizing a big cosmic string section, resulted in some other major hit, "Frenesi"; it seemed that he could non outflow succeeder. Shaw's third regular orchestra, wHO had a string segment and such lead soloists as trumpeter Billy Butterfield and piano player Johnny Guarnieri, was one of his finest, waxing maybe the greatest interpretation of "Stardust" along with the memorable "Concerto for Clarinet." The Gramercy Five, a small group formed out of the band (victimization Guarnieri on cembalo), also scored with the million-selling "Peak Ridge Drive."
Despite all this, Shaw broke up the orchestra in 1941, only to reform an even larger one afterwards in the year. The latter group featured Hot Lips Page along with Auld and Guarnieri. After Pearl Harbor, Shaw enlisted and lED a Navy band (unfortunately unrecorded) ahead acquiring a medical put down in February 1944. Later in the year, his new orchestra featured Roy Eldridge, Dodo Marmarosa, and Barney Kessel, and establish Shaw's possess style becoming quite mod, almost boppish. But, with the end of the sweep epoch, Shaw once again skint up his band in early 1946 and was semi-retired for respective eld, performing classical euphony as much as jazz.
His last attempt at a big banding was a short-lived 1, a boppish social unit world Health Organization lasted for a few months in 1949 and included Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, and Don Fagerquist; their modern music was a commercial flop. After a few days of modified musical natural process, Shaw returned one concluding time, recording extensively with a interlingual rendition of the Gramercy Five that featured Tal Farlow or Joe Puma on guitar along with Hank Jones. Then, in 1955, Artie Shaw for good gave up the clarinet to follow his dreams of being a writer. Although he served as the frontman (with Dick Johnson playing the clarinet solos) for a reorganised Artie Shaw Orchestra in 1983, Shaw never played once again. He received mickle of publicity for his eighter marriages (including to actresses Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, and Evelyn Keyes) and for his odd autobiography, The Trouble With Cinderella (which barely touches on the music business organization or his wives), but the outspoken Artie Shaw deserves to be topper remembered as one of the truly nifty clarinetists. His RCA recordings, which were reissued in complete fashion in a perfectly done Bluebird LP series, bear only been made available in step-by-step fashion on CD.
