Les Robinson | Old Time Blues

Clarinetist Artie Shaw does everything his advisors tell him not to do. He shouts down other bandleaders, kicks music publishers out the back door calling them racketeers, scowls at his admirers, refuses to turn on the charm or be civil, says he’s there to make music and not to pose. When kids come to dance, he plays what he likes, thinks they should like it. He plays no request numbers. In other words, he does as he damn pleases.

— Esquire’s Jazz Book, 1944

Artie Shaw, October 1939. Down Beat photo by Ray Rising.

I’ve been meaning to try and work some more swing music into the busy schedule here on Old Time Blues, and with today (May 23) being Artie Shaw’s birthday, it seems like a prime opportunity.

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky was born on May 23, 1910 in New York City, his father hailing from Russia and his mother from Austria. He took up the saxophone at the age of thirteen, and soon switched to clarinet. In the mid-1920s, Shaw worked with Austin Wylie’s orchestra, before moving on to Irving Aaronson’s Commanders, and later Roger Wolfe Kahn’s orchestra and others. Into the 1930s, he found steady work as a studio player like so many other New York jazz musicians of the day. By the middle of the 1930s, Shaw had started his own orchestra, recording for Brunswick as “Art Shaw and his New Music”. He began a contract with the RCA Victor Company in 1938, with whom he produced his largest volume of hits, including “Begin the Beguine”, “Back Bay Shuffle”, and his theme song “Nightmare”. Where Benny Goodman was the “King of Swing”, many proclaimed Shaw the “King of Clarinet”, though Shaw felt it ought to have been the other way around, as “Benny Goodman played Clarinet. [He] played music.” In 1940, Shaw made his feature film debut with Fred Astaire in Second Chorus, which Astaire considered “the worst film he ever made”, and caused Shaw to swear off movie appearances. During World War II, Shaw enlisted in the Navy and led a band in the Pacific, while Glenn Miller was doing the same in Europe, and received a medical discharge after eighteen months. Throughout the 1950s onward, he experimented with artistic variations on jazz music. Artie Shaw was by his own admission “a very difficult man”, and was married eight times (probably making him the runner up for the title of “Most Married Swing Bandleader” after Charlie Barnet, who was married eleven times). Shaw died of diabetes at the age of 94 in 2004.

Bluebird B-7746 was recorded July 24, 1938 in New York City. The band consisted of Artie Shaw on clarinet, John Best, Claude Bowen, and Chuck Peterson on trumpets, George Arus, Ted Vesely, and Barry Rogers on trombones, Les Robinson and Hank Freeman on alto saxes, Tony Pastor and Ronnie Perry on tenor saxes, Les Burness on piano, Al Avola on guitar, Sid Weiss on string bass, and Cliff Leeman on drums.

First up is Artie Shaw’s famous rendition of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine”, described by Shaw as “a nice little tune from one of Cole Porter’s very few flop shows.”

Begin the Beguine. recorded July 24, 1938 by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra.

Tony Pastor sings the vocal on Shaw’s swing rendition of the famous “Indian Love Call”.

Indian Love Call, recorded July 24, 1938 by Artie Shaw and his Orchestra.

December 12 marks the monumental occasion of the one-hundredth anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s birth. For such an occasion, I’d love to post Sinatra’s first record with Harry James’ orchestra. Unfortunately, I don’t own a copy, so here’s the earliest Sinatra record I do have, this classic swing with Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra in 1940.

Francis Albert Sinatra was born December 12, 1915 in Hoboken, New Jersey, the only son of Italian immigrants. Sinatra began singing as a child, and idolized Bing Crosby. In 1935, he joined a local vocal trio called the 3 Flashes, which became known as the Hoboken Four after Sinatra joined. After a successful performance on Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour, they embarked on a tour of the United States and Canada. Following that engagement, Sinatra found work as a singing waiter in a New Jersey roadhouse, and he began to perform on WNEW in New York. In 1939, Sinatra began performing with Harry James’ orchestra, and made his first commercial recordings for Brunswick that year. Before long, he left James band to replace Jack Leonard as vocalist for Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra. After great success with Dorsey, by 1942 Sinatra wanted to go solo, and he parted ways unceremoniously with the bandleader. Rumor has it that Sinatra’s mobster godfather Willie Moretti forced Dorsey to release Sinatra from his binding contract at gunpoint. After going his way, Sinatra signed with Columbia records while the musicians’ strike and subsequent recording ban was in effect, and his first solo recordings were quite successful. The rest, as they say, is history, with Sinatra going on to huge success, the Rat Pack days, all with a few slumps in between, for the next five decades or so, until his death in 1998.

Victor 26525 was recorded on February 26, 1940 in New York City, not long after Sinatra joined Dorsey’s orchestra. The Dorsey orchestra is in fine form , and on these earlier recordings, Sinatra sings a bit higher than he did in his greatest fame, and to my ear, honestly resembles a better Ray Eberle. Nonetheless, as always, he had a very pleasant voice. In the band are Zeke Zarchy, Ray Linn, and Jimmy Blake on trumpets, Ward Silloway and Lowell Martin on trombones, Johnny Mince on clarinet and alto sax, Les Robinson and Fred Stulce on alto sax, Paul Mason and Babe Russin, on tenor sax, Bob Kitsis on piano, Benny Heller on guitar, Gene Traxler on string bass, and the great Buddy Rich on drums.

First up, Old Blue Eyes croons the Eddie DeLange and Jimmy Van Heusen tune, “Shake Down the Stars”.