[Dixielandjazz] Artie Shaw This Week on Riverwalk Jazz:

[Donald Mopsick]

This week, Riverwalk Jazz features an extended interview with Author
Tom Nolan who wrote the biography of Artie Shaw, "Three Chords for
Beauty's Sake." Performances include Rebecca Kilgore singing "Moon
Ray" and "Any Old Time," Topsy Chapman singing "Travelin' All Alone"
and Harry Allen playing Where or When."

Note to young musicians: when a person in their 70s and 80s walks up
to the bandstand to request "Begin the Beguine," chances are they
don't want to hear it a a beguine, but want to hear a swing version
ala Artie Shaw. It was a monster hit for the Shaw Orchestra Here's
what Wikipedia says about it:

At first, the song gained little popularity, perhaps because of its
length and unconventional form (108 bars). Josephine Baker danced to
it in her return to America in the 1936 Ziegfeld Follies, but neither
she nor the song were successful. Two years later, however, bandleader
Artie Shaw recorded an arrangement of the song, an extended swing
orchestra version, in collaboration with his right-hand arranger and
orchestrator Jerry Gray.

After signing a new recording contract with RCA Victor records in the
summer of 1938, Shaw called up "Beguine" to be the first of six tunes
he would record at his initial recording session on July 24. Until
then Shaw's band had been having a tough time finding an identity and
maintaining its existence without having had any popular hits of
significance; his previous recording contract with Brunswick had
lapsed at the end of 1937 without being renewed.

RCA's pessimism with the whole idea of recording the long tune "that
nobody could remember from beginning to end anyway" sealed its fate as
being released on the "B" side of the record it appeared on ("Artie
Shaw and His Orchestra" issued by Bluebird Records as catalog number
B-7746 B). Shaw's persistence paid off, though, when "Begin the
Beguine" became a best-selling record in 1938, peaking at #3. Despite
Shaw's earlier obscurity, the release of his recording of "Beguine"
skyrocketed Shaw and his band to fame and popularity. The recording,
indeed, became one of the most famous and popular anthems of the
entire Swing Era.

Subsequent re-releases by RCA Victor (catalog number 20-1551[2]) and
other releases on LPs, tapes and CDs have kept the recording readily
available continuously ever since its initial release.

Later on, when composer Cole Porter met the by-then famous bandleader,
he jokingly remarked to Shaw, "I'm glad to finally meet my
collaborator." Shaw reportedly replied, "Does this mean I get half of
the royalties?

mopo

-- 
http://about.me/donmopsick