[Dixielandjazz] Charlie Shavers 2

[Steve Voce]

I wrote this for Jazz Journal in 2009.
Steve Voce

The worst photo caption I ever saw in this magazine was 'A recent picture of Buddy Childers in formal attire.'

  Buddy had been in the Tommy Dorsey band with Charlie Shavers.

   'Charlie was a dear, dear friend,' Buddy told me. He was one of the sweetest people who ever walked,
and one of the most talented. What a trumpet player!'

   George Duvivier said 'On many of the recordings we made with Goodman there was a lot of tension in
the studio. The one with Charlie Shavers was the most relaxed, however. Charlie
could take the tension out of anything; you really couldn't get serious with
him around.'

   Shavers suffered from diabetes for 18 years before it was identified and also from narcolepsy.
This caused him to fall instantly and unpredictably asleep. Whilst he was in
the Dorsey band he shared a car, and supposedly the hundreds of miles of
driving, with Louie Bellson. In practice Bellson had to do all the driving
himself because at any time Charlie could fall asleep at the wheel. Tommy
Dorsey was particularly cruel when Charlie fell asleep on stage. He would tone
down the volume of the band to practically nothing and the creep up alongside
Charlie and blow a loud blast on the trombone directly into the trumpeter's ear.

   Charlie was a generous and well-liked musician. I've reported here before on the envelopes
containing $50 that he left anonymously at the hotel of the impoverished Ruby
Braff.

   I was fortunate enough to take Charlie on a pub crawl around Liverpool (I reported at length in
the/Jazz Journal/of July, 1964) and found him a delightful companion. He
was then visiting Britain on tour with the Tommy Dorsey graveyard band.

   Let's generalise and say that Charlie was one of the top ten jazz trumpet players. Unfortunately his refinement didn't always
match his virtuosity -- although the enjoyment of his penchant for the florid is
an easily acquired taste. He was certainly the least praised of the trumopet
greats and I find it difficult, because his playing stands out on the
recordings of so many other people, to understand why. The record companies
neglected him too and I find it impossible to reconcile the fact that the
astute Norman Granz used him often in JATP concerts but not too often in the
studios.

   Other record companies made sessions under Charlie's name on which the music seemed listless
and uninspired (some of these are available now as parts of Lonehill's 'TheCharlie Shavers Project').
Potentially stimulating sessions like the Bethlehem one of Gershwin tunes conducted by Sy Oliver and a very cursory history of the
jazz trumpet, the latter destroyed by banal commentary from Al 'Jazzbo' Collins, are most disappointing).

   A cracker to match the Krupa Sextets was a session recorded by the notorious producer Eddie Laguna
on June 9, 1945. In his heartfelt liner for the session Alun Morgan made the
point that it succeeded triumphantly in bridging the gap between the studio and
the listener. Morgan regards the recordings made that day as the epitome of what
jazz is supposed to be about. Aside from Charlie the participants were Nat
Cole, Herbie Haymer, John Simmons and Buddy Rich. There were two splendid
original tunes,/Black Market Stuff/and/Laguna Leap/, both
obviously Shavers compositions but credited to and the latter probably named by
Laguna. The climax of the album is a six-minute track called/Kicks/,
again with Laguna credited as the composer, although the tune is/Honeysuckle
Rose/  with the melody clearly played. Charlie is wonderful throughout, but
on/Kicks/he plays chases with Nat Cole where Cole echoes his phrases in
much the way that Nat did with Les Paul on the famous JATP/Blues./

In the early years Charlie had been part of the tightly disciplined John Kirby band, and his personality permeated the band's music
through that tightly muted trumpet and his many/very/  original originals.
This was a wonderful band of neat and accomplished players, and Charlie's exuberant personality was reined in as part of the general dedication to the
group sound.

   Charlie had a serpentine way with melody in his compositions, perhaps epitomised by/Undecided/,
but also instantly recognisable in his sessions with people like Hal Singer,
Krupa, Hawkins and Byas. The Krupa Sextet tracks, done for Granz, are as good
as any Shavers on record anywhere and also have premier vintage Bill Harris.
Some critics have downgraded the sessions because Krupa is dominant, but the
amiable drummer's role is a minor handicap in the face of Charlie's and Bill's
inspiration. Here is a good example of Charlie's writing and arranging. It was
natural that the drums were prominent in the music of the sextet for Norman
Granz wanted to exploit his star. But the second element was Shavers, whose
personality permeated the sessions through his arranging (presumably Charlie
did what there was of it) and his composition. No disrespect to Krupa, a good
player and a nice man, but he was outclassed in jazz terms by the other
musicians. Apart from Charlie they were Teddy Wilson, Ray Brown, Bill Harris
and Ben Webster or Eddie Lockjaw Davis. On the face of it that was a potent
group and indeed so it proved to be. Critics were suspicious of what looked
like an almost perfect 'name' group and used the minor blemishes to diminish
the praise they gave to it. But one soon becomes used to the emphasis on drums
which in any case fades away the instant Bill Harris or Ben Webster begin their
typically personal solos Charlie was in his element for there was lots of room
for showboating and he was able to display the flamboyant side of his work that
he loved so much -- notable in the statement of the melody in/Jungle Drums/,
where Charlie drops the jazz to concentrate on the exotic melody.

   Shavers was, like many good trumpeters, a swinging and hip singer. Sadly he didn't get much chance
to sing and it's only in infectious performances with Dorsey such as/At TheFat Man's/   and/She's My Buddy's
Chick/  that we hear what might have been.

   Towards the end of  Charlie's life a lump appeared on the back of his neck. It eventually grew to be
the size of a tennis ball, but Charlie was so frightened that he wouldn't seek medical help. It was probably a cyst of some kind.
In the end Charlie's death was virtually ignored because it came, from throat cancer, two days after Louis
Armstrong died and was consequently lost in the universal wailing for Louis.

   There's not much of him in the catalogues now. There's a lovely excerpt from Scandinavian TV of him
and Ben Webster playing/Stardust/  and as mentioned there are several of
his albums in Lonehill's 'Charlie Shavers Project' series. The session with Nat
Cole and the estimable Herbie Haymer's quintet appeared on Black Lion
BLCD760137 and the Krupa Sextets are probably in their best collection on the
Spanish Jazz Factory JFCD22859. There's another outstanding session with
Charlie at his best in Hal Singer's Quintet on OJC CD834. Charlie made many
great recordings with Coleman Hawkins and he's spectacular on what was probably
one of the last of them, 'Hawk Eyes' on OJC CD294.   The four Goodman tracks I mentioned from
Capitol are on Mosaic's four CD complete set of Goodman's Capitol Small Group
Sessions (MD4-148) worth the money for Mel Powell, Jimmy Rowles and Ruby Braff,
amongst others. And there's a well-intentioned set on Topaz TPZ 1064 called
'Young Shavers' that would be wonderful if the recording quality of the 78
transfers had been better. It includes a large helping of the John Kirby band,
some of the best early titles with Hawk amongst a multitude of small group
tracks, and also some of the ones from the 'Kicks' session.

   If you'd like towatch Charlie and Ben Webster playing the blues, go tohttp://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/267.html