“Shadows”
Composed by Frankie Carle; arranged by Jerry Gray.
Recorded by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra for RCA Bluebird on November 9, 1939 in New York.
Artie Shaw, clarinet, directing Harry Geller, first trumpet; Bernie Privin and Chuck Peterson, trumpets; George Arus, first trombone; Les Jenkins and Harry Rodgers, trombones; Les Robinson, first alto saxophone; Hank Freeman, baritone saxophone; Tony Pastor and Georgie Auld, tenor saxophones; Bob Kitsis, piano; Dave Barbour, guitar; Sid Weiss, bass; Buddy Rich, drums.
NOTE: With this post, we celebrate having hosted over 2,000,000 visitors at our You Tube channels, and almost 600,000 viewers here at swingandbeyond.com. Thanks to everyone who visits, listens, reads and enjoys. More posts about music in the swing idiom and the people who made it are in various stages of planning and production. I will continue to do my best to keep things swinging here at swingandbeyond.com. Swing is King! Mike Zirpolo.
The story:
(Much of the story of what was happening to Artie Shaw in the second half of 1939 is told in the post here at swingandbeyond.com on Shaw’s great recording of “Star Dust.” That story can be accessed at endnote 1.)
For the purposes of this post, we pick up the chronology on October 19, 1939, when Artie Shaw and his band opened what was to be a lengthy stay at the Cafe’ Rouge of Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan. That engagement, which would include many sustaining broadcasts over the NBC radio network, would allow the band to stay in one place for two and a half months (until the end of 1939), and give them time to make recordings for RCA Bluebird, the subsidiary of Victor Records with whom Shaw had signed a lucrative two-year contract in March of 1939. As it turned out, he was able to complete only two Bluebird recording sessions, one on October 26, and the other on November 9 while his band was ensconced at the Cafe’ Rouge. Events were conspiring against Artie Shaw, and he was finding it more and more difficult to function as a clarinet virtuoso, leader of a superb swing band, matinee idol and object of hysterical and unrelenting press coverage, not to mention as a sane human being.
After a lengthy period of stability, the personnel of the Shaw band was about to be destabilized. His star male vocalist and tenor saxophonist, Tony Pastor, unquestionably the most popular musician in the Shaw band after Artie himself, was being besieged by booking agents to start his own band. Pastor had been a stalwart Shaw sideman and an audience-pleasing entertainer since the first Shaw band came upon the scene in mid-1936. In addition, Shaw and Pastor were long-time friends, going back to their apprentice years as teen-aged musicians in Connecticut in the mid-1920s. Pastor discussed this situation with Shaw, and Artie understood completely that Tony was being presented with a golden opportunity to advance his career. They apparently agreed that Pastor would leave the Shaw band sometime during the Cafe’ Rouge engagement, but would not actually depart until Artie found someone to replace him.(2) (Above right: Artie Shaw and Tony Pastor in 1939.)
In addition, Shaw’s star drummer, Buddy Rich, was being wooed by Tommy Dorsey. Rich actually went to Chicago (on TD’s dime – probably while the Shaw band was on vacation in early October), talked with Tommy, listened to the Dorsey band, and told TD he thought his band was corny, and didn’t want to join. He returned to Manhattan and resumed his role as drummer for the Shaw band. Tommy Dorsey was not a man who accepted no for an answer. His blandishments toward Rich continued. It was announced in the November 1, 1939 issue of Variety that Rich by then had come to an agreement with Tommy Dorsey to join his band, and would be leaving the Shaw band on November 13.(3) (At left: Tommy Dorsey and Buddy Rich.)
Replacing these two would not have been possible: They were both unique talents. New men might have come into the Shaw band, but the fundamental character of that group without these two dynamic entertainers would have been different. This bothered Artie.
Another major irritant presented itself when former Victor Records producer Eli Oberstein sued Artie Shaw in late October. Here is a summary of that: “Suit of Eli E. Oberstein, former manager of artists and repertoire of RCA Victor, for $30,000 ($450,000 in dollar value today) against Arthur (Artie) Shaw, was revealed in the N. Y. supreme court Friday (27), when a request was made to examine the defendant (Shaw) before trial. Action claims counsel and advice (by Oberstein) to Shaw from April 1937 through May 1938 and seeks $20,000 on that plea. The second cause seeks 10% of the orchestra leader’s earnings from May 5, 1938, to Dec. 31, 1938. It is asserted that Shaw earned $100,000 in that period. The defense contests the agreement as illegal, made under duress, without a consideration being given and charges fraud and deceit. Shaw asserts that the plaintiff threatened him with the loss of his RCA-Victor contract, if he did not sign the agreement.”(4)
These events and other vexing events then (Shaw had entered into a relationship with Hollywood movie starlet Betty Grable that had become complicated), placed him in a position where he felt that the world was closing-in on him, despite the great success he was enjoying as a bandleader and celebrity, which kept increasing.
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 tales 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 significant episodes in Shaw’s life were either omitted entirely, or like his military service – a time of great importance in his life, 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.”(5) 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.”(6).
So if we try to understand why Artie Shaw left his band at the peak of its success in November of 1939, we need to focus on these observations regarding his personality, made a few years later by Navy doctors: “anxiety”; “insecurity and restless impulsiveness”; “emotionally unstable individual.”
The American circus master P.T. Barnum once said to a newspaperman, “I don’t give a damn what you write about me, just so you spell my name right.” By November of 1939, the P.T. Barnum effect was working overtime to give Artie Shaw more and more publicity, not that he was seeking more publicity. Although he, like most successful show business personalities of that time, was the subject of many feature articles in print media, more than a few of which were unfavorable to him at least in part, these pieces had the effect of making him more well-known to the public. Instead of demand for him and his band going down, just the opposite occurred. As a result of that, pressure on Shaw to do the things celebrities are required to do to remain as popular as possible increased. Consequently, he began having migraine headaches.
Artie Shaw in 1939: No matter what he said or did, he became more popular. The heads in the saxophone section belong to Hank Freeman, Les Robinson, and Tony Pastor; the girl at the microphone is Helen Forrest; the guitarist is Al Avola; the head behind him belongs to Bob Kitsis; the bassist is Sid Weiss.
The exact date Shaw left his band while they were playing in the Cafe’ Rouge appears to be Wednesday evening, November 15, 1939, although there is some confusion about this in contemporary press reports. He remained in New York after that but did not appear with his band. On the following Tuesday, November 21, he began driving to an inexact destination, which turned out to be Acapulco, Mexico, where he remained for several weeks.(7)
His band was initially led at the Cafe’ Rouge by Tony Pastor, but Pastor (and his booking agent) wanted to him organize a new band built around his singing, and then lead it. So Tony soon departed, and young Georgie Auld became the leader of the remnants of the Shaw band. The band lasted into February of 1940, when it dissolved.(8)
The music:
Pianist Frankie Carle composed “Shadows” in 1939. Initially, it was an instrumental, with a lyric added a bit later. It was first recorded by Glen Gray and the Casa Loma band for Decca on August 18, 1939. (A link to that recording is at endnote 9.) It is interesting to listen for the similarities between the Glen Gray recording, and the Artie Shaw recording, which was made three months later. I do not want to suggest that the Shaw recording of Jerry Gray’s arrangement is in any way derivative of we hear on the Gray recording. But the general outlines, especially as to form, are similar.
By November of 1939, Jerry Gray was beginning to write a bit differently for the Shaw band in that he began using blends of instruments that were unlike those he had often used previously. For example, the four-bar introduction spots Harry Geller’s first trumpet, played with a cup-mute, blended with Hank Freeman’s baritone saxophone and the other three saxophones, before Shaw appears playing a deeply melancholy clarinet fragment.
Artie Shaw and his band on the stage of Strand Theater in Manhattan – September 22 to October 3,1939: L-R: Les Jenkins, Tony Pastor, George Arus, Harry Geller, Buddy Rich and Sid Weiss. Shaw is in front.
The first chorus has the saxophone quartet stating the main melody in an unusual voicing with the baritone prominent in the mix, and cup-muted brass providing contrasting sonic colorations. Shaw adds a brief dash of contrasting color on his clarinet before the cup-muted brass (led with distinction by Mr. Geller) take the lead on the secondary bridge melody. The final eight bars of the first chorus present the saxophones in a different, brighter voicing, with Les Robinson’s first alto saxophone now on the top of the mix.They play the main melody in antiphonal fashion, alternating with the muted brass.
Maestro Shaw plays a lovely improvised solo covering sixteen bars, against a sparse rhythm background warmed intermittently by the saxophones (Freeman still on baritone). The mood evoked by Shaw’s playing is somber. On the bridge, Gray reprises the unusual saxophone blend he had used earlier, but this time, it is used as an sonic aureole around the mournful sounding open trombone of George Arus, which carries the secondary melody.
The next sequence contains a marvelous contrast to the quiet, introspective music we just heard: a powerful tutti, with the six brass instruments now being played open, underlined by rich saxophone section chords.
This recording of “Shadows” by Artie Shaw and his band demonstrates that in November of 1939, they were playing magnificently, and were still getting musically interesting arrangements from Jerry Gray.
“Shadows”
Composed by Frankie Carle; arranged by Johnny Watson and Jan Savitt.
Recorded by Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters for the Thesaurus Transcription Service in August of 1939 in New York.
Jan Savitt, directing: Jack Hansen, first trumpet; Jimmy Campbell and Johnnie “Zulu” (Augostino) Austin; Al Leopold, first and solo trombone; Robert “Cutty” Cutshall and Dominic “Miff” Sines (Sinischelcci), trombones; George “Gigi” Bohn, first alto saxophone and clarinet; Jack Ferrier, alto saxophone; Eddie Clausen and Gabe Galinas, tenor saxophones; Gene (De Paolo) De Paul, piano; Guy Smith, guitar; Morris Rayman, bass; Russ Isaacs, drums.
The story and the music:
In this post, I have reversed the chronological order of the recordings presented, with the later one coming first. I have done this because the Shaw commercial recording of “Shadows” was very popular, indeed the most popular one made of that tune during the swing era, with the Casa Loma recording a distant second. The recording of “Shadows” made by Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters was made as a transcription, intended for radio-play only. Transcription recordings, as was most often the case in the 1930s, did not identify the band. But it appears that the Thesaurus disk that contained this recording did identify the performers as the “Jan Savitt Orchestra.” Consequently, after it was made in August of 1939, despite its brilliance, it was basically something that swing fans could hear occasionally on radio, but would not be able to buy as a commercial record that they could play on their phonographs.
The Jan Savitt band that made this recording was in the middle of a nine-month run at the Blue Room of Hotel Lincoln in Manhattan, which included many sustaining broadcasts over the NBC radio network. The purpose of this was to build the name of the band and familiarize listeners with the music, style and overall excellence of the Top Hatters. (A link to the post here at swingandbeyond.com that explains what was going on in the Savitt band when this recording was made can be accessed at endnote 10.)
This recording is a great example of the ensemble unity of the Savitt band, and the skill of arranger Johnny Watson. After a colorful introduction that begins with brief sequence that features the trombone trio (playing with open horns) and the bass, playing in unison to create a skulking ostinato, we hear a near screaming sound of the straight-muted trumpets with a clarinet on top – a rather large contrast. The ostinato continues as the muted trumpets and open trombones complete the introduction. (At left: Jan Savitt – He was a masterful conductor whose bands always delivered impeccable performances.)
The Savitt saxophone quartet (led brilliantly by Gigi Bohn) then steps forward to deliver their exposition of the main melody. To say that they were together would be an understatement. They sing and swing, ever so gently, through their first sixteen bars, with warm cup-muted brass adding coloration behind. The brass take the bridge, then the saxophones return to sing through the final eight bars of the first chorus.
The saxophone section of Jan Savitt’s band in mid-1939. L-R: Eddie Clausen, Gigi Bohn, Jack Ferrier and Gabe Galinas. Behind them: drummer Russ Isaacs, guitarist Guy Smith and pianist Gene De Paul.
A burst of the bright sounds of the open brass and low saxophones fill an brief interlude between choruses. The trombonist Al Leopold, this band’s main soloist, plays a melodic paraphrase of the main melody for sixteen bars. Leopold was one of the great technicians of the swing era on his instrument, often called upon to play swashbuckling improvised solos at brisk tempi. Here he treads lightly, smoothing out his sound, which is cushioned by soft saxophone counterlines. The saxophones once again sing-out the secondary bridge melody for eight bars to finish this chorus.
Then the entire ensemble changes key, led by the powerful open brass (Jack Hansen on first trumpet), to take the music to a dynamic climax, denouement and finish.
The recordings presented with this post were digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) Here is a link to the story of what was happening to Artie Shaw in the second half of 1939: https://swingandbeyond.com/2017/10/21/star-dust-1940-artie-shaw/
(2) Variety, November 8, 1939, 33.
(3) Variety, November 1, 1939, 32.
(4) Variety, November 1, 1939, 31.
(5) Nightmare in the Pacific …The World War Two Saga of Artie Shaw and His Navy Band, by Michael Doyle, 4. Hereafter Doyle.
(6) Doyle, 47-48.
(7) New York Times, November 22, 1939, 23.
(8) The remnants of Artie Shaw’s band under the direction of Georgie Auld made two recording sessions for the Varsity label in January and February of 1940 yielding eight sides. The band was quite good, but without Shaw, good as they were, they were just another band.
(9) Here is a link to the Glen Gray recording of “Shadows”: https://archive.org/details/78_shadows_glen-gray-and-the-casa-loma-orchestra-frankie-carle-jules-loman-chet-thomps_gbia0011837a
Glen Gray and Frankie Carle had collaborated successfully a bit earlier when Gray recorded Carle’s composition “Sunrise Serenade,” with Carle at the piano, for Decca on February 19, 1939. That recording became a hit. Then Glenn Miller recorded a cover version of “Sunrise Serenade” on April 10, 1939 on RCA/Bluebird that became an even bigger hit.
(10) Here is a link to the story and music of the Jan Savitt band during their big radio build-up while they were playing in the Blue Room of Hotel Lincoln in New York in 1939: https://swingandbeyond.com/2019/07/04/ring-dem-bells-1939-live-jan-savitt-and-his-top-hatters/
Be the first to comment