Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Swing Music, Part Two: Artie Shaw-"Nightmare" and "Concerto for Clarinet"

By 1938, Artie Shaw began to compete for the top spot with Benny Goodman as far as U.S. Swing Band supremacy.  Shaw was a mercurial personality, an intellectual and aloof man repelled at times from his massive fame and the trappings that went with it. 

When he was dubbed "King of the Clarinet" (in deference to Goodman's 'King of Swing' title) he told interviewers that the titles should be reversed.

"Benny just plays the clarinet," Shaw retorted.  "I play music."  

Well, that's a bit over the top in my opinion, but he said it.    

He broke up his band at the height of its popularity in 1939, and went into personal hiding in Mexico to try to escape the riogors of fame.  It was no surprise, therefore, that the title of his band's theme song was called "Nightmare".

 

    From Wikipedia:  "His first interregnum, at the height of his success, was met with disbelief by booking agents. They predicted that Shaw would not only be abandoning a million-dollar enterprise but that nightclub and theater owners would sue him for breach of contract. Shaw's offhand response was, "Tell 'em I'm insane. A nice, young American boy walking away from a million dollars, wouldn't you call that insane?"

But he came  back to the clarinet and the orchestra to entertain soldiers and sailors shortly after America's entry into the world war.  He joined the Navy and his  band played in the Pacific Theater in hot spots like Guadalcanal.  After 18 months of non-stop performing, he had a nervous collapse and was released from active duty.  For most of the rest of his life Shaw pursued many other interests than music (higher mathematics, target shooting, writing novels, undergoing and studying psychoanalysis, marrying and divorcing seven or eight attractive women, mostly movie actresses and so on and so on.)

   He was compelled to testify in 1953 before the US House Committee on UnAmerican Activities for his activity in something called "The World Peace Congress", and later went into voluntary exile in Europe.  (I'm sure many paranoid Americans breathed sigh of relief knowing the "menacing" Mr. Shaw and his "commie" clarinet were over in Paris.)

       In 1982 he reformed a big band and became its conductor.  He continued to lecture on big band music at universities and spoke to documentarians about his career, including Ken Burns for his influential multi-part "Jazz" series.   He also was the first white jazz orchestra leader leader to feature a black singer (Billie Holliday) on tour.  This was in 1938, and hostility to Holliday from white bigots during a swing through the South led to his having to replace her with a white female singer.  

He had a great array of musicians, and here's his group doing  "Concerto for Clarinet" in the 1940 independent film, "Second Chorus". You'll be able to catch the lovely Paulette Goddard and Fred Astaire (the stars of the film) in the beginning of the clip.  Shaw's arrangement starts out melancholy and shifts into high gear when the horn section breaks loose:

 

  

4 comments:

  1. I was not familiar with the first clip, beguiling stuff. The second is a classic of a master at his best.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Nightmare" is something I included to get to the darker frame of Shaw's musical personality. His band could "swing" but he liked to mix in some dread and gloom in there, more so than Goodman or Duke Ellington I'd say.

    I'm quite fond of "Concerto for Clarinet" myself. It is a classic indeed. I was glad to find such a good clip of it with the band in performance mode. Thanks for your comments.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The very roots of funk I'd say, Frank. Well, a branch at least.

    ReplyDelete