JazzWax

Artie Shaw: Love of My Life

Artie Shaw's first feature-length film was Second Chorus, in 1940. By then, the 30-year-old clarinetist was earning up to $60,000 a week ($1.1 million in today's dollars), becoming the best-paid and most celebrated music star of the swing era. That same year, he recorded his massive hit Frenesi with a pickup orchestra, married actress Lana Turner and appeared on the radio regularly behind George Burns and Gracie Allen (they each made $5,000 a week). Shaw formed a new band in June, and in October recorded Stardust, another mega hit. The 40-piece orchestra with strings became known as his "Stardust" band. [Photo above of Lana Turner and Artie Shaw]

Amid all of this, Shaw's film starred Fred Astaire, Burgess Meredith and Paulette Goddard. Astaire's trumpet in the film was dubbed by Bobby Hackett while Meredith's horn was dubbed by Billy Butterfield. The film's big song was Love of My Life, written by Johnny Mercer and Shaw, who also arranged. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for best song.

Here's the entire film. If you just want to hear Shaw's "Stardust" band play Love of My Life, move the bar to 33:23...

The song was a Shaw favorite and best expressed his mood and personality. It was one of the few that clung to him through most of his playing career with varying personalities. The melody was bright and yearning, and the pacing was perfect. Shaw would record it five times in the studio—with his Stardust band in 1940, his Musicraft band in '45, his bop band in '50 and his small group in '54 .

Here's his second recording of the song in October 1940, timed to come out at the same time as the movie in December with Fred Astaire's vocal. It was recorded during the same studio session that produced Stardust. This time, with Anita Boyer on vocal and a Begin the Beguine-like intro...

Here's the third recording of the song, my own personal favorite, with his Musicraft band, in 1945..

Here's the song in 1950 for his Thesaurus Transcriptions band, with a stunning all-star personnel...

Love of My Life (1950)

And here's the song in a small-group setting in 1954 on a session that would be among his last before retiring. Shaw displays amazing control and coloration, and superb improvisation...

A special thanks to Milt Cohen.

Pat Moran & Bev Kelly

In the 1950s, pianist Pat Moran led a combo that included bassist Scott LaFaro and singer Beverly Kelly. Pat's piano was strong, confident and swinging—the keyboard sound of a bowling ball streaking down the lane for a strike. Bev had a hip, playful voice and was often joined by Pat's in a harmony pairing that was truly unbeatable. On The Pat Moran Quartet for Bethlehem in 1956, they added a male voice—drummer Johnny Whited. [Photo above: the Pat Moran Quartet in 1956; from left, John Whited, Pat Moran, Bev Kelly and John Doling]

As LaFaro told Martin Williams in an August 3, 1960 interview in the Jazz Review: I don't even like any of my records except maybe the first one I did with Pat Moran on Audio Fidelity."

Here's what Pat and Bev sounded like:

Here's Gone With the Wind...

Gone With the Wind

Here's I Should Care...

I Should Care

And here's Bev Kelly alone backed by the Pat Moran Trio singing I'm Glad There Is You...

I'm Glad There Is You

The reason I'm providing you with these audio clips at the top of this post instead of the bottom is because both of these remarkable women have been interviewed in two separate half-hour conversations by Allan Kroeker:

Here's Patti Moran...

And here's Bev Kelly...

JazzWax interviews: My interview with Patti is here and my interview with Bev is here and here.

Select discography: Here's a list of my favorite albums...

• The Pat Moran Quartet (Bethlehem/1956)
• Pat Moran While At Birdland (Bethlehem/1957)
• Beverly Kelly Sings With The Pat Moran Trio (Audio Fidelity/1957)
• This Is Pat Moran (Audio Fidelity/1957)
• Bev Kelly's Love Locked Out (Riverside/1959)
• Bev Kelly's You Go to My Head, with the Bob Graf Quartet (VGM/1959)
• In Person: Bev Kelly with Pony Poindexter (Riverside/1960)
• Pat Moran on Terry Gibbs's That Swing Thing (Verve/1961)
• Pat Moran on Terry Gibbs's Straight Ahead (Verve/1962)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX98mUeVy7s

Bonus: Here's Bev singing What Was Is Just What Was, the theme to the film The Late Show (1977)...

Here's Patti in church in 2007...

A special thanks to Keith Greenhalf in the U.K.

Joel Evans & Adryan Russ

Typewriter-repair stores are gone. So are most camera shops and sign painters. But songwriting is still going strong. Everything you see on TV, on streaming services and at the movies needs original music drifting in and out. This includes ads. A look at the weekly Billboard pop charts shows that top songs have six or more credited writers attached. But  plenty of songs are still written by songwriting duos—a lyricist paired with a music composer. Like great dancers, these duos can read each other, feel where a song is supposed to go and come up with puzzle halves that fit together seamlessly. As someone who writes about songwriting and songwriters, I can tell you that the craft remains a fascinating creative process.

One of those dream teams is Joel Evans and Adryan Russ. I discovered them a couple of weeks ago when researching Larry Dunlap, the subject of yesterday's post. Larry played on their 2011 album Changing My Tune. All of the songs on the album are by Evans and Russ. The tunes swing, they're hip and they're catchy. The album features the songwriters' singer friends: Dante Marchi, Bart LeMat, Tami Tappan Damiano, Adam James, Michael Dees, Patrick Maier, Mark Winkler and Jenna Mammina. I know, they have a lot of vocalist friends.

Evans wrote all of the musical arrangements, except for There's Never Been a Love Like This. That one belongs to Dave Stout, who orchestrated the tune for the Marquee All Stars Band. The jazzy studio musicians on the rest of the tracks are Chris Tedesco (tp), Noel Jewkes and Terry Harrington (saxes), Larry Dunlap and Joel Evans (p), Brian Kane, Brad Buethe, Brian Pardo, Mark Vincent and Eddie Pasternak (g),Tommy Kesecker (vib), Dan Feiszli and Mario Suraci (b) and David Rokeach and Alan Hall (d).

The album's original songs are Changing My Tune, The Night We Left the Ground, Mirage, Out on a Limb, There's Never Been a Day Like This, The Moments in Life, Watercolor Love, The Devil's Daughter, Boogie With My Baby, Whispers in the Night, Who Needs Love?, Is It Me? (from the movie Doubt), Do That! and You Made a Believer Out of Me.

The choice of singers is interesting. Dante Marchi has a Tony Bennett feel on There's Never Been a Day Like This, Michael Dees on Is It Me? sounds a bit like Sammy Davis Jr., and Do That! with Patrick Maier clearly was inspired by Jon Hendricks's Gimme That Wine. Which makes sense, since albums like this one are recorded by songwriters with hopes of attracting marquee singers to record and perform the songs. Speaking of which, my singer readers may want to shop this album for material.

So who are Joel Evans and Adryan Russ? Both live in California and met at a Society of Composers & Lyricists confab in Los Angeles some years ago. Joel had been writing for film and television and was there hoping to find lyricists. Adryan had been writing pop tunes and songs for musical theater and was looking to write lyrics for catchy composers. Both wound up seeking water in the lobby at the same time and struck up a conversation. 

Joel composes in San Francisco and Adryan composes in Glendale, Calif. They work together via computer. Joel will record his music for songs in mp3 files and send them to Adryan, who then sends back lyrics. Which is how most songwriting duos work today. As long as music continues to be the lifeblood of our happiness, songwriters like Joel and Adryan will be open for business.    

More on Joel Evans here.

More on Adryan Russ here.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Joel Evans and Adryan Russ's Changing My Tune here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Out on a Limb...

Out On A Limb

And here's Mirage...

Mirage