I've long known that Artie Shaw was outspoken, mercurial and blunt. As a boy wonder in the band business in the 1930s, Shaw was also temperamental and didn't tolerate boredom or repetition for long. But I didn't realize how outspoken he was until I heard a lengthy interview with Shaw that surfaced last week. [Photo above of Artie Shaw]
Pete Neighbour, a clarinetist and saxophonist, alerted me to it. Interviewed by Joe Smith of the Library of Congress on July 1, 1986, Shaw spoke freely. The comments were considered off the record, but Joe and the Library of Congress allowed it to be uploaded to YouTube just days ago.
What I've always admired about Shaw was his take-no-prisoners position on art (I'm the same way) and his bilious rejection of spin and preening (I'm for that as well). I also love that Shaw confirmed what I've long believed—that his 1949 Thesaurus band was his best.
My one regret as a jazz journalist is that I arrived three years too late on the scene to interview him. Shaw died in 2004. Can't have it all.
So today, let's listen to the two-part interview. When it's over, you'll know exactly who Shaw was and why he was way ahead of his time as a musician and uncompromising and restless artist.
Here's Part 1 (click "Watch on YouTube")...
Here's Part 2 (click on "Watch on YouTube")...
Here are three tracks by Shaw's 1949 Thesaurus band:
Here's Gene Roland's arrangement of his own Aesop's Foibles...
Here's Johnny Mandel's arrangement of his own Krazy Kat, which may be this band's and Johnny's best...
Here's Johnny Mandel's equally daring arrangement for Love Is the Sweetest Thing...
And here's Johnny's Innuendo in 1949...
My second-favorite Shaw band was his Musicraft orchestra in 1946 with strings and vocalist Mel Torme, arranged by Sonny Burke. Shaw was at his prettiest here...
And here's Changing My Tune in 1946, with Torme and the Mel-Tones...
To read my complete 2008 JazzWax interview with Johnny Mandel, go here.
Here's Johnny on Artie Shaw...
JazzWax: Your arrangement of Krazy Kat for Artie Shaw's bop band of 1949?
Johnny Mandel: Wow, what a band. Artie picked a bad time to start a band. He had been out of the business for quite a few years. He said that his 1949 band was the best one he ever had. Tadd wrote some of the charts. So did George Russell. I wrote some ballads for him. Gene Roland was writing great stuff for that band, too.
JW: The reeds weren't half bad either.
JM: The saxophones were incredible. Zoot [Sims], Al [Cohn], Herbie Steward, Frankie Socolow and Danny Bank. Jimmy Raney was on guitar. Don Fagerquist was on trumpet. Wow, what a player. And Sonny Russo. If I recall, some of the older-sounding arrangements were by Ray Conniff and Roger Segure.
JW: You composed and arranged for that band. What was Artie like?
JM: If he liked you, musically, he had a great deal of respect for you. He left me alone. Unlike Benny Goodman, he didn’t pick on his players. Artie molded musicians and taught them how to play better. I don’t know what he saw in me. I suppose he liked what he heard. I never played with him. I’d write the charts and give them to his road manager, Lenny Lewis, who would give them to the copyist. Artie was always up at his Connecticut dairy farm. Lenny was a clarinetist, and he'd hire the band and rehearse it. Then Artie would come down from his farm and weed out the lesser players, some of whom were Lenny's pals. Artie's genius was he knew how to form a band and how to make the musicians play the way he wanted. He was a great bandleader. One of the best. And he could do it without beating up on the guys.