“One Song”
Composed by Frank Churchill (music) and Larry Morey (lyric); arranged by Art Shaw and Jerry Gray.
Recorded by Art Shaw and His New Music for Brunswick on December 30, 1937.
Art Shaw, clarinet, directing: Norman Ayers, first trumpet; Chuck Peterson and Max Kaminsky, trumpets; George Arus and Harry Rodgers, trombones; Les Robinson, first alto saxophone; Hank Freeman, alto saxophone; Tony Pastor and Fred Petry, tenor saxophones; Les Burness, piano; Al Avola, guitar; Sid Weiss, bass; Cliff Leeman, drums. Nita Bradley, vocal.
The story:
The full-length animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles on December 21, 1937, and went into general release in the United States on February 4, 1938. Despite early doubts from the film industry, it was a critical and commercial success, with international earnings of more than $8 million during its initial release, against a $1.5 million production budget. It became the highest-grossing film of 1938, and briefly held the record of the highest-grossing sound film of all time. (It was displaced in 1940 by Gone With the Wind.) These numbers may seem rather small in the current era of mega box office business. But we must remember that in 1938, the United States was deeply mired in an economic depression, and had less than 50% of the population it has today. Also, the dollar in 1938 was worth approximately fifteen times more than it is today. Bottom line, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a money machine for its producer, Walt Disney, in 1938. And it generated myriad pop culture pictures, cartoons, media stories and songs, including “One Song,” which is heard in the movie.(1)
The story of how Art Shaw started his second band, basically an orthodox swing era ensemble with four saxophones, five brass and four rhythm, after the failure of his first band, which was built around a string quartet, has never been told to my knowledge. And if it has been told, that has happened only in bits and pieces. That second band was billed as: Art Shaw and His New Music. In this post, I will add a few more bits and pieces to that story, courtesy of the great drummer, Cliff Leeman, whom Shaw chose to power that group in early 1937.
The source of the information provided by Mr. Leeman is an extensive interview done of him by the great bassist, Milt Hinton, as a part of the oral history project at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. The interview was conducted in June of 1979. (A link to that interview can be found at endnote (2) below.)
I will pick up Leeman’s narrative at page 44 of that interview. He was talking about just leaving at the end of 1936 a New England band called Dan Murphy’s Musical Skippers (trombonist/arranger Ray Conniff was also a member of that band), and joining another band, led by Henry “Hank” Biagini. (I have done some light editing of Mr. Leeman’s words so that they will flow better for readers.) “He was an old man,(3) but his band then had some of the better musical talents, like John Best on trumpet, and Les Robinson on alto saxophone. They were beautiful. But at that time, Les wasn’t fully developed (as a lead alto player). Anyway, on a Sunday afternoon, somebody said ‘somebody here wants to talk to you.’ We were at the Roseland Ballroom doing a matinee. The old Roseland on Broadway. The other band across from us was Woody Herman, (right after) the Isham Jones band broke up. This person said, ‘Artie Shaw wants to meet you.’ I hadn’t really ever heard of Artie Shaw. But he played clarinet. He was a great clarinetist. And he wanted to see me and John Best and Les Robinson. He wanted to know if we were interested in joining his orchestra. He had just broken up a small group that he had with (drummer) George Wettling at the Meadowbrook, and he was going to form a new band. …We went to a rehearsal on 49th Street, upstairs. We met one of Shaw’s old friends, Tony Pastor there. We were offered $65 a week! I had never heard of such money. We were getting $25 or $30 a week with Biagini. So we all said yes, naturally.”(4) (Above left: Drummer Cliff Leeman with Artie Shaw’s band. Note the small white tom-tom. Leeman later recalled that he had that to play it often behind Shaw who wanted tom-tom rhythms.)
“We were rehearsing stock arrangements, cutting them up to fit Shaw’s style so we could get started as a band. And who walked in with a few arrangements but Big Smack, Fletcher Henderson! He was enough to make us shake in our boots, as kids, you know. He was friendly (with Shaw).” This comment by Cliff Leeman is most interesting in that it reveals that Shaw was casting about after the failure of his first band, which was unconventional, trying to decide what musical policy he was going to follow with his new, conventional, swing band. Fletcher Henderson’s arrangements had helped Benny Goodman to find a successful musical identity for his band in 1935-1936. It took Shaw some time to come to the conclusion that what he did NOT want to be a Benny Goodman clone.
“Artie Shaw was a great alto man, in addition to the clarinet. He played first alto in the studios. He taught Les Robinson how he wanted him to play. He taught him the art of playing lead alto saxophone.”
“We were a ballroom band. We played and kept developing it, changing musicians and arrangements. Artie had Jerry Gray as an arranger. Artie used to give him a chart (probably a sketch) and he told Jerry how he wanted to style it, and then Jerry Gray would write the arrangement.” (At left: Artie Shaw and Jerry Gray. They developed a musically excellent collaboration in the years 1937-1939.)
The Shaw band was getting better all through 1937, and by the end of that year was very good musically. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons that basically relate to how the business side of the band was being managed, their public profile was rather low. Early in 1938, Shaw and his management team decided to make a move that would raise the Shaw band’s public profile – that Shaw would hire the unique and wonderful vocalist, Billie Holiday. Artie himself was fully on-board with this decision. He was well aware of who Billie was as a performer, and understood her strong jazz orientation. He thought, rightly, that her presence would be salutary for his band jazzwise and swingwise. And of equal importance, Billie’s presence in Shaw’s all-white band created unending media attention, which helped raise the public profile of the Shaw band, and also raise her public profile.
Cliff Leeman remembered Billie’s association with the Shaw band well: “Artie Shaw insisted on what he wanted in life, and he wanted Billie Holiday. She was just as great then as she was the day she died. Si Shribman had the idea that Billie should come on as a single, and that there should be a white vocalist who sat on the bandstand and performed with the band. My first wife, her name was Selma Cort.(3) Artie hired her as a singer. She had sung around the clubs in Boston, and she was very young but she had a good voice. Artie gave her the name Nita Bradley. We were married while we were on the road with Artie Shaw. She sat on the bandstand and sang with the band, and she roomed with Billie.” (Above right: Billie Holiday – Her presence lifted Artie Shaw’s band musically and commercially.)
Leeman described some of the incidents of racial discrimination that Billie and the band had to deal with. These involved Billie not being allowed into hotels with the rest of the band, 
or not being admitted to restaurants with the rest of the band, or indeed of not being allowed to sing with the band, simply because she was black. Leeman summarized that as, “…We went through several scenes that way.” Basically, Artie and the band tried to support Billie. “They wouldn’t let Billie eat in the diner or the restaurants unless she went and sat in the kitchen. So we all sat in the kitchen with her.” But dealing with the racial discrimination was an ongoing problem for Billie, Artie and the Shaw band. Consequently, Nita Bradley sat on the bandstand and acted as the girl vocalist for the band, and Billie Holiday was presented a couple of times throughout each show as a special feature with the band. (Above left: Nita Bradley.)
The music:
The arrangement the Shaw band plays here is provides a glimpse into their future. All bands had to play current pop tunes. But if they could play them in a way that put their stamp on them, they had a chance of forging an identity that was recognizable by pop music fans. That of course would set them on their way to having their own style. This chart is simple without being simplistic. It has a beginning, middle and end, and it builds logically to a climax. Along the way, it has plenty of room for Shaw’s clarinet, setting forth the attractive melody in the first chorus, a second chorus vocal by Nita Bradley which is sung very effectively by her, an eight-bar tenor saxophone solo, probably played by Fred Petry, and then the climax with the band playing as as a unified ensemble, and some high-note clarinet by Mr. Shaw. All of this is done very smoothly and professionally, with good swing.
Late in Artie Shaw’s life, after Jerry Gray had died (1976), he began taking more and more credit for the arrangements that Jerry Gray had written for his band. This created a situation where historians began to try to untangle who had written what for the Shaw band in the period 1937-1939. There is no doubt that Shaw was very involved in the creation of arrangements for his band during that period, and indeed later. There is also no doubt that Jerry Gray’s ability to write arrangements that were excellent examples of music in the swing idiom increased during his time with Shaw, and that Gray’s skill continued to increase in the years 1940-1944, during his association with Glenn Miller. My take on this, after decades of listening and research, is that both Artie Shaw’s ability and Jerry Gray’s ability as arrangers in the swing idiom increased greatly in the period 1937-1939. Gray, writing literally dozens of arrangements each month in the period 1937-1944, became an absolute master arranger. Shaw, being a virtuoso instrumentalist and celebrity bandleader, had far less time to develop his skills as an arranger, though he tried to do that in the spring of 1941, by studying with composers Hans Burns and David Diamond. Nevertheless, he never achieved the arranging mastery Jerry Gray did. He did however, continue to develop new ideas for how he wanted the music of his bands to sound, and did in fact work in collaboration with various arrangers, principally Lennie Hayton and Ray Conniff, to continue to leave his “thumbprint” on much of the music his bands played in the years 1940-1945.
Artie Shaw and his band in the early summer of 1938. L-R: back: Sid Weiss, Cliff Leeman, John Best, Claude Bowen, Chuck Peterson; middle: Harry Rodgers, George Arus, Russell Brown; front row: Les Burness (back to camera), Al Avola, Tony Pastor, Les Robinson, Ronnie Perry, Hank Freeman; in front: Nita Bradley and Artie Shaw.
After a brief, bright introduction, Shaw steps forward to play/paraphrase the melody. Artie’s ability to do this effectively was second to none during the swing era. He was often assisted in his melodic expositions by the backgrounds arranger Jerry Gray fashioned for him to play against. Here, the singing and gently rhythmic saxophones support him in the first eight bars, then on the repeat of the melody, the saxophones hum while the straight-muted brass add another, contrasting instrumental color.
A modulating transition that starts with the whole band playing and then quiets down with just the saxophones leads to the vocal chorus, sung by Nita Bradley.(3) Ms. Bradley was a good singer and an attractive lady. She sang on pitch, and had good voice quality and range.
The situation that was created in the Shaw band when Billie Holiday was added to the band’s presentation could not have been comfortable for Ms. Bradley. Good as she was, comparisons with Billie were inevitable, and Ms. Holiday’s talent as a singer was augmented by her great personal magnetism and beauty. When Billie was onstage, all eyes were on her, whether she was singing or not. It appears that Nita Bradley left the Shaw band, probably in April of 1938, for a time but then returned, no doubt because Artie charmed her, and stayed with the band into September, when Helen Forrest was hired.
I find it strange that Nita Bradley, who lived until the end of 2001, was never interviewed regarding her interactions with Billie Holiday or Artie Shaw over a period of several months during her time with the Shaw band in 1938. I’m sure that she would have had some very interesting impressions to share about that. (Above right: summer 1938 – Artie Shaw plays while Nita Bradley listens.)
The backgrounds Jerry Gray provided for Ms. Bradley’s vocal chorus are excellent: the singing saxophones, the cup-muted trumpets, and finally the the brass played open but softly and pointed down, creating a warm, velvety sound. These backgrounds provide some harmonic color and gentle rhythmic propulsion.
The final chorus spots the entire ensemble swinging, a brief tenor saxophone solo from Fred Petry, then the climax courtesy of Artie Shaw’s upward- spiraling clarinet.
As 1937 ended and 1938 began, this band was on the cusp of greatness.
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) The basic information about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs comes from the Wikipedia post on it. Among the other songs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: “Heigh-Ho,” “Whistle While You Work,” and “Someday My Prince Will Come.”
(2) Here is a link to the interview of Cliff Leeman referred to above: https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/68087/
(3) Although Cliff Leeman referred to Hank Biagini as being an “old man” in 1937, he was actually no more than 40 years of age then.
(4) Trumpeter John Best joined Artie Shaw’s band in the spring of 1937, but he quit the following September after a disagreement with Shaw. Artie charmed him into returning in the spring of 1938. Best quit again after an argument with Shaw in late August of 1939, and succumbed to the blandishments of Glenn Miller to join his band. Their association, which lasted until Miller broke up his band to enter the Army Air Force in late September 1942, was highly productive. Best then joined the Bob Crosby band briefly, but was once again charmed by Artie Shaw, this time to enlist in the U.S. Navy so he could be a member of Shaw’s Navy band. Best did not really like Artie Shaw as a person, but respected his ability as a bandleader and instrumentalist.
(3) Per researcher, swing historian and friend of swingandbeyond.com David Fletcher, here is some information about Nita Bradley: She was born Sarah Selma Cort on December 19, 1917 in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The Cort-to-Bradley name change looks to have happened when she left the Lee Shelley band in Pittsburgh to join Shaw in late 1937. (She was with Rudy Vallee before Shelley.) It’s curious too that Cort and Shaw drummer Cliff Leeman had a publicized romance underway before she joined Shaw. (They were soon married after that). Later, she married Boston dentist David Romanow in the late 1940s (2nd marriage for both), and died on December 31, 2001 in Florida.
Side note: pianist George Cort was her half-brother.
Attached is a shot of Selma/”Nita” in ’37 from her time with the Lee Shelley band (Pittsburgh Press, 27Aug1937 p28). Her promo shots in ’38 sported an updated hairdo, which makes me wonder if the band shot is from earlier in the year? The Boston Globe spoke of her singing as a solo act (“formerly with Artie Shaw”) in April of ’38 at the Hi-Hat Club. Now… another wrinkle, as the June issue of “Down Beat” suggested that Shaw was carrying three vocalists: Billie Holiday, Tony Pastor, and a “returned” Nita Bradley. Absent any confirmation, I’m inclined to think that Nita had left by early April and that the June DB (which went to press in late May) hadn’t caught up with that.
Be the first to comment