“I’ll Never Be the Same”
Composed by Matty Malneck and Frank Signorelli; arranged by Ray Conniff.
Recorded by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra for Victor on January 9, 1945 in New York.
Artie Shaw, directing: Paul Cohen, first trumpet; Tony Faso, George Schwartz and Roy Eldridge, trumpets; Ray Conniff, first trombone; Pat McNaughton, Harry Rodgers and Charles Coolidge (Skip Morr), trombones; Les Clarke (Goldberg), first alto saxophone; Tommy Mace, alto saxophone; Jon Walton and Herbie Steward, tenor saxophones; Chuck Gentry, baritone saxophone; Michael (Dodo) Marmarosa, piano; Barney Kessel, guitar; Morris Rayman, bass; Lou Fromm, drums.
The story:
I have posited elsewhere on this blog that Ava Gardner played a substantial role in rehabilitating Artie Shaw after he returned to the U.S. from service in the Navy during World War II.(1) Basically, when Shaw returned to the U.S. (San Francisco) from service in the Pacific Theater of war in mid-November 1943, he was hospitalized at the Oak Knoll medical facility just outside of Oakland, California. He was in a “…malaise that had stricken him somewhere in the Pacific.(1A) His migraine headaches recurred, he felt deeply depressed, and he drifted into a near psychotic stupor.”(1A) Although he was allowed to leave the hospital around Christmas 1943, to visit his wife Betty Kern (daughter of composer Jerome Kern), and their tiny son Steven in Beverly Hills, he returned to Oak Knoll shortly thereafter, where he remained until he was given a medical discharge from the Navy in March of 1944. (Above right: Artie Shaw and his Navy band – somewhere in the Pacific, 1943.)
He then commenced psychotherapy with Dr. May E. Ginsberg Romm in Beverly Hills in an effort to recover from the various traumas he suffered while in the Navy.(2) Shortly thereafter, he and Betty Kern were divorced. He later described himself when he reentered civilian life as being in “a state of dysfunction.” If he played the clarinet at all, I suspect that he simply practiced enough to keep his performance chops in shape. He did not actively seek work.
Artie Shaw’s home in Beverly Hills. After Ava Gardner moved in, it was a place of joy.
In the summer of 1944, Artie bought the house at 906 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. That house was big and beautiful, …and lonely. Although at various periods in his life Shaw attempted to live as a recluse, the summer of 1944 was not one of those times. After being in the Navy for about two years, and spending most of that time in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II, and suffering what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder, Shaw wanted and needed company. That problem was solved when he met the Hollywood movie starlet Ava Gardner at a Hollywood party. (Below left: Ava Gardner in 1944.)
For decades, people who have wanted to understand Artie Shaw as a man, in addition to understanding him as a musician, have had to settle for endless rehashes of the various stories Shaw told about himself in the book he published in 1952 called The Trouble With Cinderella. That book was basically a codification of all of the stories and experiences Shaw chose to include in it from his life up to that point, roughly to age 40. The book was an autobiography of sorts, and as such it suffered from the deficiencies that plague all autobiographies, paramount of which is a lack of objectivity. It also was deficient in that many rather important episodes in Shaw’s life were either omitted entirely, or like his military service, glossed over in some clever way that might have been entertaining, but hardly penetrating. Then, Shaw recycled those stories or partial stories, some of which were apocryphal, for the remainder of his life, over fifty years.
I have found very little information over many decades of searching which would help me to understand what made Artie Shaw tick. That situation has recently improved as the result of the publication of the book called: Nightmare in the Pacific …The World War Two Saga of Artie Shaw and His Navy Band, by Michael Doyle. Mr. Doyle’s rigorous research into official U.S. Navy records, including Artie Shaw’s Navy medical file, which is housed at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, has provided new and valuable insights into Artie Shaw’s personality. Mr. Doyle also took the time and expended the effort to cross-check many stories and anecdotes told by Shaw and others in his Navy band for accuracy. Not surprisingly, he found many of those stories to be either untrue or exaggerated. (References to this book are included in the endnotes as “Doyle.”)
The first and most general observation Mr. Doyle reveals in his book about Shaw’s personality is this, from a Navy physician who had examined Shaw in early 1944 at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, California: “His life has been characterized by anxiety, strong drives for achievement, insecurity and restless impulsiveness.”(3) But Shaw’s emotional difficulties were noted well before that, in October of 1942, when he was stationed at the Newport, Rhode Island Naval facility. He had then been experiencing abdominal cramping, and finally reported to sick bay. The doctors who examined him found nothing wrong with his gastro-intestinal tract, but did observe: “…an emotionally unstable individual with anxiety and depressive trends.” In addition, they recommended that Shaw should be studied closely to determine “…(his) exact physical and neuropsychiatric situation and fitness for the Service.” More probing by the doctors revealed that Shaw was “nervously tense and dissatisfied with his position in the Navy.”(4). (Above right: Artie Shaw at the end of 1943, “in a state of dysfunction.”)
Unlike Glenn Miller who basically negotiated with the Army Air Force to obtain a commission as a captain before he enlisted, Shaw impulsively enlisted with no agreement from the Navy as to what they were going to do with him. Consequently, he entered the Navy with the lowest rank possible, apprentice seaman. Here was his take on that as recalled much later in an interview with radio journalist Terry Gross in 1985: “I thought the Navy would have enough rationality to put me into the job I could do best for them and then give me the rate or rank I needed for that. I was very naive. I didn’t realize that the military doesn’t operate rationally. They looked at one stripe or no stripe and they gave me a swab – swab the deck, sailor! Well that’s kind of stupid.”(5)
Shaw eventually worked out some sort of agreement with the Navy about what he could do best for them. He secured the proper orders to recruit top-grade musicians into a band that would be deployed into the Pacific Theater of Operations. Nevertheless, he and the band he organized basically bounced around the Pacific through much of 1943 in pell-mell fashion, often in battle zones, but nevertheless did a remarkable job of raising the morale of the tens of thousands of service personnel they performed for. (Above left: Artie Shaw visits a Navy field hospital somewhere in the Pacific, mid-1943. The expression on the wounded GI’s face says it all.)
The music:
“I’ll Never Be the Same” is a popular song, based on an earlier melody called “Little Buttercup” that was written by Matty Malneck and Frank Signorelli. After several musicians had recorded the instrumental version, a lyric was added by Gus Kahn. The completed song was introduced in 1932 in a recording by Mildred Bailey and Paul Whiteman.
Artie Shaw’s version is an instrumental, with Shaw singing the melody on his clarinet. It begins with a lovely four bar introduction that introduces both the melodic fragment arranger Ray Conniff used in the first chorus as a background, as well as Shaw’s clarinet. The first chorus begins with Artie playing the main melody, swathed in fluffy open trombones. (8 bars)The secondary melody is played by the cup-muted trumpets supported by the richly voiced saxophones. (Four bars) Shaw reappears in this sequence, backed at first by the saxophones, then the four open trombones again.(Four bars) (Above right: Artie Shaw and Dodo Marmarosa.)
The second chorus begins with tenor saxophonist Herbie Steward playing some warm jazz against a minimal background of bass and drums. Steward’s sound here is not yet what he was in the process of evolving – a light Lester Young sonority. That would come soon. (16 bars) Artie returns to play on the secondary theme for 16 bars, this time the backing he receives transitioning from the simple backing Steward had had, to the richly voiced saxophones, to the open trombones again.
Artie Shaw and his band on the stage of the Strand Theater in Manhattan – January of 1945. Front L-R: Barney Kessel, Jon Walton, Tommy Mace, Les Clarke, Herbie Steward, Chuck Gentry, Pat McNaughton, Ray Conniff, Charles Coolidge, Harry Rodgers; Back: Morrie Rayman, Lou Fromm, the partial head visible behind Clarke is likely George Schwartz, the partial head visible behind Steward is likely Paul Cohen; Roy Eldridge is at the right end.
The next sequence spots pianist Dodo Marmarosa playing a stimulating sixteen bars of jazz atop drummer Lou Fromm’s softly brushed snare drum sound and bassist Morrie Rayman’s plangent bass. This is an aural suggestion of sparkling diamonds on a black velvet pad. Trumpeter Roy Eldridge follows with his horn open, allowing the listener to hear his lovely, rich sound, projected through 16 bars of jazz. At first, Roy plays against the simple rhythm that had supported Marmarosa (his fellow Pittsburgher), then arranger Conniff adds sounds to the mix – the five softly played saxophones.
The climax to this performance comes next as the eight open brass play a clever bit of melody created by Ray Conniff. As the trumpets take the register higher, the harmonized trombones and saxophones add ballast to the bottom of the sonic mix. Conniff then takes a four bar solo on open trombone (hear the proto boppish trumpet burst he wrote to contrast with the quiet rhythm background), then Artie returns for a dramatic cadenza played against an ensemble of increasing intensity. (At left: Ray Conniff and Artie Shaw: they heard ear-to-ear.)
The recording presented with this post was digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) Here is a link that examines the Shaw/Gardner relationship in some detail, along with a musical tribute from Artie to Ava: https://swingandbeyond.com/2019/08/28/the-grabtown-grapple-1945-artie-shaw-and-his-gramercy-five/
(1A) See Middle-Aged Man Without a Horn, by Robert Palmer, in The New Yorker, May 19, 1962, pages 47 et seq. Although in this article it is asserted that Shaw had suffered a breakdown on Guadalcanal, another source has that happening on Espiritu Santo. See Harold S. Kaye Dave Tough and the Artie Shaw Navy Band in World War II, in Storyville 2000-2001. This lengthy article can be accessed here: https://nationaljazzarchive.org.uk/explore/journals/storyville/storyville-2000-2001/1265124-storyville-2000-2001-0016?q=Dave%20Tough%20with%20the%20Artie%20Shaw%20navy%20band
Bottom line, there does not appear to be any direct evidence as to where or when this happened. My informed speculation is that it happened near the end of Shaw’s service in the Pacific, specifically somewhere in Australia in October of 1943. At that time, Shaw was examined thoroughly by Lieutenant Commander Mark Gerstle, M.D. who concluded that his condition required that he be “returned to the United States.” See Doyle, 168.
(2) May E. (Ginsberg) Romm (October 14, 1892 – October 15, 1977) was a Jewish American psychiatrist, Freudian psychoanalyst, educator, and author. After graduating and establishing a practice in New York, Romm moved to Hollywood in 1938 and influenced psychoanalytic infusion in American film. She was an expert on fetishism and exhibitionism and considered the most influential Hollywood Freudian of the mid-twentieth century. (Wikipedia)
(3) Doyle, 4.
(4) Doyle, 47-48.
(5) “Fresh Air,” with Terry Gross, National Public Radio, December 24, 1985.
Here is a link to another great performance of “I’ll Never Be the Same,” by Ted Heath and His Music, featuring the bravura trumpeting of Bert Ezard: https://swingandbeyond.com/2021/05/05/ill-never-be-the-same-1957-ted-heath-with-bert-ezard/
Here are links to some other great performances by Artie Shaw and his 1945 band playing Ray Conniff arrangements:
https://swingandbeyond.com/2018/02/24/these-foolish-things-1945-artie-shaw/
And here are a couple of earlier Shaw-Conniff collaborations:
https://swingandbeyond.com/2016/03/25/88/
https://swingandbeyond.com/2019/01/25/just-kiddin-around-1941-artie-shaw/
I can’t understand how I could have missed this. I’m grateful to have found it only somewhat late.
Shaw always struck me as an unreliable narrator, though I have hoped his telling of Dave Tough’s Naval physical was true. According to Shaw, the Navy doctor, with Tough at about 100 lbs sitting there, said to Shaw, “This man is entirely unfit for military service,” to which Shaw said he started to shriek, “This man is the greatest drummer in the whole g*ddamned world!!!!!”