Tony Pastor - with Shaw and with his own band

[Eyeball]

He has lots of admirers of his tenor sax playing and sly vocal style that first came to light while he was with Artie Shaw's band in 1938 and 1939.

Shaw broke up his band in 1939 and Pastor got a band together pretty quickly and began recording for Bluebird, as had Shaw. Few legit recordings have ever been reissued.

He cast about a bit on a number of labels and I recall some releases on the indie COSMO label (they also had Larry Clinton) around 1946. More pop than Swing. Good dance band, though.

He was back on Columbia at the tail end of the 40s and did at least to 10" LPs for them in 1949 and 1950 which have been reissued on a CD. I just listened to all 24 samples and, once again, there is a great deal of pure dance band material, all well done, plus quite a few novelties where Tony gets to sing as we know he could.

That Pastor band from 49/50 sounds a lot like the Les Brown band of the period - same vanilla style. Good listening, but few Swing thrills.

Tony continued to perform pretty much until the end of his life.

He has CD called Tony Pastor Sings/Plays Artie Shaw. Never heard of it. It seems later in his career, but it might be good.

That's all.