“Meadowbrook Shuffle”
Composed by Jan Savitt; arranged by Billy Moore.
Recorded by Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters for Decca on December 23, 1940 in New York.
Jan Savitt, directing: Jack Hansen, first trumpet; George Hosfeld and Johnny Austin, trumpets; Al Leopold, first trombone; Ben Pickering and Al George, trombones; George “Gigi” Bohn, first alto saxophone; Ted Duane, alto saxophone; Fran Ludwig and Eddie Clausen, tenor saxophones; Ray Tucci, baritone saxophone; Jack Pleis, piano; Danny Perri, guitar; Howard Cook, bass; Russ Isaacs, drums.
The story:
By the autumn of 1939, Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters were known across the nation as an excellent swing band. They had been the beneficiaries of a lengthy build-up process that was centered around a long stay (February through October) at the Blue Room of Hotel Lincoln in New York, which included many NBC remote broadcasts of the band. (Also a prominent feature of the band were its two excellent vocalists, Carlotta Dale and George “Bob Bon” Tunnell.) The promotional build-up of the band was successful. The band had arrived, but… Savitt was deeply in debt because of it. No hotel job, no matter how much promotion it generated, could pay enough to offset a bandleader’s weekly expenses while he and his band played there. (Part of the build-up of the Savitt band was this cover photo and article in the October 1939 issue of Metronome magazine.)
The Savitt band left the Hotel Lincoln in early November 1939 and began a series of engagements that were intended to balance Savitt’s finances, and put him solidly into the black. At some point during the next six or seven months, after months of one-night stands, Savitt played a successful and lucrative engagement at the Paramount Theater in New York. That engagement may have been the plum that was offered to Savitt to entice him to sign with Music Corporation of America (MCA), get his band off the road for awhile, and help to further stabilize his finances. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Savitt signed with MCA, but the one-nighters continued well into the autumn of 1940.
Then in October of 1940, MCA booked successful but far less lucrative stands at The Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, The Million Dollar Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Hotel Sherman in Chicago for the Savitt band. Despite most of these venues having regional or national radio hook-ups, they did not pay Savitt enough money to offset his band’s weekly expenses. Gaps in the band’s engagement schedule were filled with one-night stands, but they were hit-and-miss in terms of generating enough revenue to keep Savitt in the black. Through much of 1940, Jan Savitt was leading an excellent band which was not being managed in a way that would have allowed it to be profitable for Savitt. MCA however, received a steady stream of commissions from the work the Savitt band did.
Here are Jan Savitt’s own recollections of his relationship with MCA worked-out: “Instead of a theater tour which MCA was supposed to have procured for me, I began an endless string of one-night engagements at weekly grosses far behind the beautiful picture which had been painted for me. (From June of 1940) until October 2, 1941, we played no location spots with air time. A band that had been acknowledged as one of the first ten in the country was allowed to depreciate in box-office value.” Savitt remembered further that: “By April of 1942, I could get no financial assistance from MCA. I had to borrow money on my life insurance to live, and by that time was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”(1) But the Savitt band was working, and generating ongoing commissions for MCA.
Jan Savitt and his band in action at the Panther Room of Hotel Sherman in Chicago – late 1940. Personnel identification subject to correction: front L-R: Jan Savitt, Eddie Clausen, Ted Duane, Gigi Bohn, Ray Tucci, Fran Ludwig; middle: bassist Howard Cook, trombonists Ben Pickering, Al Leopold, ??- possibly Al George; back: drummer Russ Isaacs, trumpeters Johnny Austin, George Hosfeld and Jack Hansen.
All bands that played gigs booked by their booking agency paid commissions to their booking agency. But the bandleaders, not the agency, paid all costs involved in running their bands. Consequently, agencies had minimal costs involved in booking bands, while bandleaders had crushing ongoing expenses, the largest of which was the band’s payroll. With this business model in place, it is no wonder that agencies made a lot of money booking big bands, especially on one-nighters, while many bandleaders went bankrupt.
By the holiday season of 1940, Savitt and his sidemen, along with vocalists Allan DeWitt and Ruth Robin, were exhausted. MCA pulled them off the road for a few days just before the end of the year. They had not been in Decca’s recording studios since the preceding April. Back-to-back recording dates were set-up for December 22 and 23, 1940.
The music:
The basic facts about arranger Billy Moore are contained in the post here at swingandbeyond.com on Jan Savitt’s recording of “Green Goon Jive.” That story and music can be accessed by clicking on the link at (2) below.
At some point in 1940, probably in the autumn, the Savitt band played at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. That venue, with its network radio remote connection(s), and for several other reasons, was one of the best locations for a band during the swing era. Nevertheless, it could not and did not pay the bands that played there big money. Bands that played there were usually paid just about enough each week to break-even. Bandleaders accepted this because of the promotional value radio broadcasts from The Meadowbrook provided them. To commemorate what was undoubtedly a pleasant if not lucrative stay at the Meadowbrook, Savitt had arranger Billy Moore write an arrangement on one of his originals, designed to show off his band’s prowess as a performing unit. The result is the minor-key riff “Meadowbrook Shuffle,” which is presented with this post, performed beautifully by the Savitt ensemble and soloists.(3)
The music:
The Savitt band was very much in their shuffle rhythm mode for this performance. They get right down to business here, with a minimal vamping introduction. The main melody consists of a saxophone riff answered by the oo-ah trombones. The bridge has the straight-muted trumpets in front, with the jungly trombones adding coloration behind them.
A brief interlude filled with drummer Russ Isaacs’s tom-toms bring trumpet soloist Johnny Austin forward. He continues the jungle sounds for 16 bars by using a pixie straight mute in the bell of his trumpet, and fanning it with either a plunger cup or his derby mute. Behind him are roiling saxophones. The bridge is taken by the trombone trio, led in robust fashion be Al Leopold against syncopated saxophone section chirps. Austin returns to play the last eight bars of the chorus with an open horn.
The entire band blasts away leading into tenor saxophonist Eddie Clausen’s bright-toned solo, played against warm open brass.
Drummer Isaacs returns with more of his tom-toms, this time gradually ebbing in volume. Then the band starts to build dynamically moving the music toward the climax, provided by trombonist Al Leopold, who pops out bursts of ever-higher notes.
Arranger Billy Moore effectively blended the trademark shuffle-rhythm approach of the Jan Savitt band with strong doses of the elements often used by Duke Ellington in his music to create this rousing swing opus. (Above right: Billy Moore.)
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) This quote is taken from the liner notes for Jazz Band CD 2188-2, Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters Orchestra-1938 and 1939 Broadcasts, (2002) by Gary Letts.
(2) Here is a link to the Savitt recording of Billy Moore’s “Green Goon Jive”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2020/12/30/green-goon-jive-1941-jan-savitt-billy-moore/
(3) It is interesting to note that the composer credit for “Meadowbrook Shuffle” on the Decca record the Savitt band made of it is in the name of Jan Savitt only. We know that Billy Moore was very protective of his composer credits. Before his association with Jan Savitt, Moore and Jimmie Lunceford had a dispute over that issue because Lunceford insisted on putting his name as co-composer on Moore’s compositions, even though he contributed nothing to the composing of them. That disagreement led directly to him leaving Lunceford’s employ. The details of that situation can also be accessed at the post here at swingandbeyond.com on Jan Savitt’s recording of “Green Goon Jive”: https://swingandbeyond.com/2020/12/30/green-goon-jive-1941-jan-savitt-billy-moore/
Given Billy Moore’s attitude about this, I think it safe to assume that Jan Savitt did in fact compose both “Meadowbrook Shuffle” and “Green Goon Jive,” and then handed the basic outlines of those compositions to Billy Moore to arrange.
Here are links to other fine recordings by Jan Savitt:
https://swingandbeyond.com/2016/08/14/you-go-to-my-head-jan-savitt-carlotta-dale/
https://swingandbeyond.com/2019/07/04/ring-dem-bells-1939-live-jan-savitt-and-his-top-hatters/
And here is an excellent summary of the Jan Savitt band’s activities prepared by big band historian Christopher Popa. This summary includes an illuminating interview with Savitt’s star trombonist and Philadelphia music legend, Al Leopold: http://www.bigbandlibrary.com/jansavitt.html
Ed Clausen ran a music store in the 1960s that I would frequent. A very nice guy. And an underappreciated player
Great article, Mike! Philip Read mentioned in a book that the Meadowbrook Ballroom was “arguably America’s greatest music venue of its time.” My dad (Harry Gozzard), with Donahue band, played there the same year Savitt played there. My dad moved to California and joined Savitt’s band when Donahue got drafted into the Navy. Maybe Savitt and Harry first met at Meadowbrook.
About 1955 I took up learning the tenor sax at the age of 13. I took lessons at Eddie Clausen’s music store in Philadelphia. Eddie came over my house to talk my parents into buying a Martin tenor sax. The Selmer was much more, about $500.00 at the time. Eddie was one of my teachers. Now many years later I thought about those days and came across this article on the internet searching for something about Eddie.