The Essential Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw
Tony Pastor, Billy Butterfield, Helen Forrest, Buddy Rich, Roy Eldridge, Hot Lips Page, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne
Producer: Barry Feldman
Bluebird RCA (USA), 2005
2 CD
Catalogue #: 69239
EAN: 0828766923926
UPC: 828766923926
You save: 20%
Personnel include: Artie Shaw (clarinet); Tony Pastor (vocals, tenor saxophone); Hot Lips Page (vocals, trumpet); Helen Forrest, Lena Horne, Leo Watson, Billie Holiday (vocals); Barney Kessel (guitar); Al Hendrickson (electric guitar); Harry Bluestone (violin); Les Robinson (alto saxophone); Georgie Auld (tenor saxophone); Henry "Red" Allen, Manny Klein, Max Kaminsky, Roy Eldridge, Billy Butterfield, Johnny Best (trumpet); George Arus, Ray Conniff (trombone); Johnny Guarnieri (piano, harpsichord); Dodo Marmarosa, Skitch Henderson, Les Burness (piano); Buddy Rich (drums).
Liner Note Author: Lloyd Rauch.
Recording information: 1936 - 1941.
ESSENTIAL is an appropriate title for this double-disc collection of Artie Shaw's music. The temperamental, progressive bandleader and clarinetist was one of the top figures in swing, and his arrangements and recordings of classic songs (Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine," for example) are definitive documents of the era. Shaw's own prowess as an instrumentalist, and his innovative techniques--his use of exotic melodies ("Frenesi") and orchestral strings ("Temptation"), for instance--further heighten his appeal. All of these qualities and more are represented on this comprehensive, superbly compiled set.
Tracklist
Artie Shaw
One of the more complex characters in jazz, Artie Shaw was a consummate clarinetist and musical innovator who was among the first to combine jazz with modern classical music. And at the height of the swing era, he was a superstar who recorded a string of hit songs. However, he detested the rituals of celebrity, and he frequently dropped out of music. After putting together one of his finest groups in the mid 1950s, he retired from music altogether. Shaw then pursued a career as a writer, and his books received glowing praise, though never enough to overshadow the memory of his music. He passed away in 2004 at the ripe old age of 94.
Roy Eldridge
Pittsburgh-born trumpeter Roy Eldridge, affectionately known as "Little Jazz," is one of the key figures in the evolution of jazz trumpet. He started out playing with Midwestern "territory" bands, but from the mid-1930s through the '50s, he was with some of the biggest bands in jazz (Fletcher Henderson, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman) in addition to leading his own group. A pioneer of swing-era trumpet, he was also extremely influential to bebop pioneers such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, though Eldridge himself never embraced the style.
Billie Holiday
The quintessential jazz singer, Billie Holiday seemed to stamp her heart onto everything she sang. With a thin, reedy voice and almost laconic style, she could give even a throwaway pop song a gut-wrenching twist. Her most memorable music is loaded with an intensity of emotion--both playfulness and despair--that few can match. From the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, Lady Day was at her peak, recording numerous sessions with other jazz heavyweights such as Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Lester Young, and many more. In the late '40s, however, Holiday's romantic and substance-related problems led to trouble with the law and declining health, both of which would continue until her death in 1959. Her personal misfortunes ensured she would make headlines in her day; her one-of-a-kind talent made her a legend for the ages.
Lena Horne
Native New Yorker Lena Horne started singing at Harlem's famed Cotton Club in the 1930s, when she was still a teenager, learning about music from the likes of Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Later that decade she sang with the bands of Noble Sissle and Charlie Barnet. In the early '40s she began a career in movie musicals, her appearances in CABIN IN THE SKY and STORMY WEATHER achieving iconic status. By this time, Horne had become a bona fide recording star, and her rarefied beauty made her a ubiquitous pinup girl of the WWII era. Over the ensuing decades, Horne's career encompassed everything from Broadway roles to Grammy Awards, and she continued recording and performing well into the 1990s.
