Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

Everything about the swinging music we love to DJ

Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy

Message
Author
User avatar
djstarr
Posts: 1043
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:09 pm
Location: Seattle

Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#1 Post by djstarr » Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:33 pm

So I'm cataloguing Artie Shaw's Self Portrait this week; I'm sure a lot of you have it, a 5 CD set hand picked by Artie himself, presented in chronological order.

I'm having a good time listening to the different versions of his band and noticing how the sideman change the sound.

I always wondered why the 1938 radio transription CD I have is so awesome; come to find out the drummer is George Wettling, who is on the "Condon Mob" Mosaic CD collection, and who's music on that CD is fantastic. Late 1938 - 1939 Buddy Rich joins the band, and I find those tracks a little heavy handed compared to Wettling.

And I always wanted to know who the harpischordist was on the G5 CD - Johnny Guarnieri who is a well known stride pianist: http://stridepiano.com/bios/gen2/johnny.html Always thought he was a violinist myself because of the name!

After the 1938 band I think I like the 1945 band with Roy Eldridge next best. Very polished, but swinging hard. Also has Barney Kessel on the guitar.

Ok, only 2.5 CDs more to go.....

Campus Five
Posts: 251
Joined: Mon May 31, 2004 12:57 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

#2 Post by Campus Five » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:02 pm

I'd take Man from Mars, Carioca and the soundie version of Lady be good over of the stuff Wettling played on. Rich - especially before 1945 - is rippin'.
"I don''t dig that two beat jive the New Orleans cats play.
My boys and I have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating!
--Count Basie
www.campusfive.com
www.myspace.com/campusfive
www.swingguitar.blogspot.com

User avatar
alainw
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2006 12:23 am
Location: Montreal, Qc, Canada

#3 Post by alainw » Wed Apr 18, 2007 10:44 pm

Hi Brenda,

The songs I play from Self-Portrait are:

disc 1
Begin the Beguine (also on Frankie's Favorites)
Back Bay Shuffle
Traffic Jam
Carioca

disc 2
Man from Mars
Diga Diga Doo (also on the Wicked Swing compilation)

Let me know which tunes you end up selecting to spin from this set. I find that with Self-Portrait, the Gramercy Five recordings, and Lady Be Good from another album which I can't think of right now, I've got all the Artie Shaw that I like to spin.

User avatar
Jonas
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:00 am
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#4 Post by Jonas » Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:49 am

djstarr wrote:
[...]

I always wondered why the 1938 radio transription CD I have is so awesome; come to find out the drummer is George Wettling, who is on the "Condon Mob" Mosaic CD collection, and who's music on that CD is fantastic. Late 1938 - 1939 Buddy Rich joins the band, and I find those tracks a little heavy handed compared to Wettling.

[...]

After the 1938 band I think I like the 1945 band with Roy Eldridge next best. Very polished, but swinging hard. Also has Barney Kessel on the guitar.
Hey Brenda, it's gonna be great to hear more comments from you on the "Self Portrait" set, interesting with comparisons against other compilations, for example that 1938 transcription cd of yours.

I've always found Artie Shaw a hard nut to crack when it comes to finding compilations worth the money. There's lots and lots of material, especially from the studio band, but to my taste only a few really good tracks for deejaying. And when getting Shaw material, it's sometimes hard to know which compilations to go for, as they can contain different versions of the same songs, with the "transcriptions/live" recordings being far superior in most cases in my opinion, so anyone shopping around has to look out for track durations and the like.

On the "Self Portrait" set, I find many of the radio transcriptions to be the best tracks (Back Bay Shuffle, Man from Mars, Everything Is Jumping, Carioca, Diga Diga Doo, Traffic Jam), along with some of the G5 recordings (Summit Ridge Drive from 1940, and Grabtown Grapple and Sad Sack from 1945). The set does not, however, contain my favourite G5 recording, Scuttlebutt from 1945 (which I fortunately found on the Roy Eldridge Proper Box set), but instead a lesser 1954 re-recording of the song by a later G5 installment. Apart from that, I don't find much to put in the Christmas tree, and when I on a high-priced set like this can find only around ten top-notch spins out of 95 tracks, it disappoints me. If only the sound quality wasn't so good, I'd get the top tracks somewhere else :)

I don't wan't to derail the thread, but have any of you out there had the chance to compare sound quality on the studio transcriptions between "Self Portrait" and for example "1939 Radio Studio Transcriptions" [Swing Factory #66614] (or any other better compilations you might think of)? Brenda, which "1938 radio transcription cd" is it that you have. This one from Swing Factory maybe? How about sound quality between that one and Self Portrait?

Have any of you compared sound quality between the G5 recordings on "Self Portrait", "The Artie Shaw Story" [Proper Box #85] (which alas has no transcription recordings) and "The Complete Gramercy Five Sessions" [Bluebird/RCA #87637]?

I'd find it hard to recommend a good combination of buys of Shaw for a dj who is about to delve into the work of that man, and wants value for his or her money, but still good sound quality. I know it's hard, but you gotta give it a try, hey :D

Maybe the Artie Shaw Proper Box and the Swing Factory 1939 Transcription CD, both mentioned above, missing out on "Diga Diga Doo" and the transcription "Back Bay Shuffle" though...

Well, with the money to throw around it'd have to be the "Self Portrait" set in the end anyways I guess, and then building from that :wink:

/Jonas

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#5 Post by Eyeball » Thu Apr 19, 2007 1:32 am

Jonas wrote: Artie Shaw - There's lots and lots of material, especially from the studio band, but to my taste only a few really good tracks for deejaying.
I don't understand how this could possibly be the case. Just in 38 - 39 alone, you have one of the greatest bands in Swing history, but you can find "only a few really good tracks for deejaying"?

User avatar
Jonas
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:00 am
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#6 Post by Jonas » Thu Apr 19, 2007 3:23 am

Eyeball wrote:
Jonas wrote: Artie Shaw - There's lots and lots of material, especially from the studio band, but to my taste only a few really good tracks for deejaying.
I don't understand how this could possibly be the case. Just in 38 - 39 alone, you have one of the greatest bands in Swing history, but you can find "only a few really good tracks for deejaying"?
John, allow me to refer to another thread about "greatness" (it's about Chick Webb), which you started, and which led to a very interesting disussion about what makes a band great in general, and, for this board of particular importance, great for swing dancing. (Sorry Brenda for hi-jacking the thread, ask the moderators to branch this off if you see so fit.)

In that thread, Trevor from Perth cleverly stated "Depends how you measure 'great'.", and followed it up by naming a few things that you could take into account, depending on your preferences "Respect by peers, critics or audience? Ability to cut other bands in contests? Technical proficiency? Legacy/innovations they brought to music? Record sales? Punctuality and dress sense?"

I don't analyse too much (well, I actually do, but I'm not a good enough music theorist to discuss at that level of what's great or not), I just intuitively know what gets ME going as a dancer. If I can't sit still, if it has that rhythm that tells me "DANCE", it's great dance music. If it has a kick-ass lead clarinet but a shitty rhythm section to support it, it probably won't make me want to dance, and then it's off my spin list.

I just think your personal preference about jazz differs from mine, maybe in general, maybe when it comes to dj'ing for swing dancers. Granted, Artie Shaw at his best could compete with anyone (see songs I mentioned, of course not a complete list, I merely listed my favourites from the "Self Portrait" set), but in my view, regardless of his commercial success or technical proficiency or whatever, A LOT of his music just doesn't speak to me in a way that makes me want to get up and bust into dancing. Some is too "strange", for example some of the early stuff with a lot of strings, some is too "sweet" (Begin the Beguine for example is a great composition, and the Shaw 1938 version has a solid rhythm section, but the interplay between Shaw's clarinet and the other winds is at times a little too sugary for me), and some is not right in other ways I can't explain. It's a feeling. And for me swing music is dance music, not something I'd just want to sit down and quietly listen to and afterwards go "yes, thats just great", like I might do with a piece of great classical music.

I hope that explanation, at least partly, makes it clearer as to why I haven't found a lot of stuff with Artie great for swing dancing. Now, please elaborate on why you find Artie to be great, I'm intrigued :D

Jonas wrote: Maybe the Artie Shaw Proper Box and the Swing Factory 1939 Transcription CD, both mentioned above, missing out on "Diga Diga Doo" and the transcription "Back Bay Shuffle" though...

Well, with the money to throw around it'd have to be the "Self Portrait" set in the end anyways I guess, and then building from that :wink:
After looking at some older threads where Artie Shaw is mentioned, I realised that the best route to take when starting a Shaw collection (for swing dancing, if I have to add that on this forum) may be the "King of the Clarinet" [Hindsight #502], which has three full discs of 1938-1939 transcriptions if I have understood it correctly, and then you can fill in with the four discs of "The Artie Shaw Story" [Proper Box #85] to get the "regular" studio recordings of biggest interest.

Both sets have decent to good sound quality from what I've had the opportunity to listen to and from what I've heard other people state.

Any other thoughts?

/Jonas

User avatar
Mr Awesomer
Posts: 1089
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 10:21 pm
Location: Altadena, CA
Contact:

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#7 Post by Mr Awesomer » Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:53 am

Eyeball wrote:
Jonas wrote: Artie Shaw - There's lots and lots of material, especially from the studio band, but to my taste only a few really good tracks for deejaying.
I don't understand how this could possibly be the case. Just in 38 - 39 alone, you have one of the greatest bands in Swing history, but you can find "only a few really good tracks for deejaying"?
Yeah 38 and 39 was pretty thin on good dance music from Artie.

Being really picky, I can only thing of a few good tracks, like...

Any Old Time
Back Bay Shuffle
Begin The Beguine
Carloca
Diga Diga Doo
Everything Is Jumpin'
I'm Coming Virginia
In The Mood
Indian Love Call
It Had To Be You
Leapin' At The Lincoln
Man From Mars
Moon Ray
Night Over Shanghai
Oh! Lady Be Good
One Foot In The Groove
Prosschai (Goodbye, Goodbye)
Put That Down In Writing
Rosalie
Rose Room
Shine On Harvest Moon
St. Louis Blues
Sweet Sue
The Man I Love
The Yam
Traffic Jam
Reuben Brown
Southern California

User avatar
djstarr
Posts: 1043
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:09 pm
Location: Seattle

#8 Post by djstarr » Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:19 pm

Campus Five wrote:I'd take Man from Mars, Carioca and the soundie version of Lady be good over of the stuff Wettling played on. Rich - especially before 1945 - is rippin'.
I know you are not that fond of the trad jazz feel so this doesn't suprise me. Wettling certainly brings that over Rich, I give Wettling a much higher jank rating. Have you heard any of the tracks that are on the Condon Mob Mosaic Set? If you are at my set at CJ I will play something for you, I think all of it is awesome, including my new favorite version of Dinah.

btw, (and this shows my age), in high school we would make annual trips to the Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle to listen to Buddy Rich's big band; he was a big influence on high school/college jazz musicians then [late 70's]. My band director also had played in the Maynard Ferguson band, and loved all that high showy trumpet; I kind of link Maynard and Buddy Rich together in my mind - not a lot of sublety there.

User avatar
djstarr
Posts: 1043
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:09 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#9 Post by djstarr » Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:45 pm

Jonas wrote:Hey Brenda, it's gonna be great to hear more comments from you on the "Self Portrait" set, interesting with comparisons against other compilations, for example that 1938 transcription cd of yours.
Thanks Jonas! So I loved Reuben's reply to you, a lot of the tracks he listed are on the 1938 CD I have, it's here: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=am ... fqxqlald6e, yes the CD from Swing Factory that you posted.

The sound is a little sketchy on the radio broadcasts on both the 1938 CD and the tracks on Self Portrait that are from the radio, but it's because it was recorded live. I love the tracks where the at the end the radio broadcaster does a speak over "Coming to you live from the Hotel Lincoln...." That's really cool.

On the 1938 CD I have 20 out of 23 tracks marked that I would DJ. I'm done with 3 out of the 5 self portrait discs and have 39 tracks listed that I would DJ, that doesn't include "Any Old Time" which I have on "The Very Best of Artie Shaw" and the Gramercy 5 tracks that are duplicate.

Before I bought Self-Portrait I had "The Very Best of Artie Shaw" which has some good tracks, "The Complete Gramercy 5 Sessions", which is all good, and the 1938 CD, which is all good. With the Self-Portrait I think my Artie Shaw collection will be good enough.

I guess I don't understand either why you wouldn't DJ more of them. Do folks in Uppsala tend to dance to groovier or slower music? At least in Seattle, when I feel I need to bring some "lindy-hop" music and up the energy, if I turn to G5 or the 1938 CD I'm set.

The other great thing about the Self-Portrait is the liner notes come with a long commentary by Artie Shaw. He talks about selecting this set of work to be more complete than the other best-of compilations: "In the end then, I've chosen only those performances that come reasonably close to what I had in mind when I did them --- which is also why this package includes examples from all my different bands".

He also has a pretty funny comment about vocals "I've omitted most vocals because they were usually on banal trifles that I felt woul probably have a life-span of ten to twelve minutes".

User avatar
djstarr
Posts: 1043
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:09 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#10 Post by djstarr » Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:56 pm

Jonas wrote:And for me swing music is dance music, not something I'd just want to sit down and quietly listen to and afterwards go "yes, thats just great", like I might do with a piece of great classical music.
and now that I've finished reading your posts, I did feel when listening to the Self-Portrait that Artie Shaw was taking a similar approach to Duke Ellington; he definitely took a broader interpretation and produced a lot of great music that is not danceable. Another reason why the radio broadcasts are so great - they were recorded live at dances; you get a lot higher ratio of tunes you can spin compared to the typical "best-of" collection.

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#11 Post by Eyeball » Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:45 pm

djstarr wrote: Another reason why the radio broadcasts are so great - they were recorded live at dances; you get a lot higher ratio of tunes you can spin compared to the typical "best-of" collection.
Actually, a high percentage of the Shaw band broadcasts that have been issued over the years are from his commercial radio show for Old Gold cigarettes and they were played live in front of a seated audience in a radio studio.

And as far as his Blue Room and Cafe Rouge broadcasts - those were big rooms for entertainment in hotels and did not usually attract 'younger' dancers simply because of the price and they were largely evening broadcasts.

Wettling v Rich is a matter of taste.

"Buddy Rich - not a lot of subtlety there."

Listen to him on the Shaw and Dorsey pop tunes and ballads when he is compelled to tone it down, but still keep it interesting. He's brilliant.
Will big bands ever come back?

User avatar
Jonas
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:00 am
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#12 Post by Jonas » Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:21 am

GuruReuben wrote:
[...]

Any Old Time
Back Bay Shuffle
Begin The Beguine
Carloca
Diga Diga Doo
Everything Is Jumpin'
I'm Coming Virginia
In The Mood
Indian Love Call
It Had To Be You
Leapin' At The Lincoln
Man From Mars
Moon Ray
Night Over Shanghai
Oh! Lady Be Good
One Foot In The Groove
Prosschai (Goodbye, Goodbye)
Put That Down In Writing
Rosalie
Rose Room
Shine On Harvest Moon
St. Louis Blues
Sweet Sue
The Man I Love
The Yam
Traffic Jam
What compilations do you have those 1938-1939 recordings off? Many are available from "Self Portrait" and "King of the Clarinet", while some, like "Indian Love Call", "Oh, Lady Be Good", and "The Man I Love" have to be tracked down in other places.

I'm happy to get any pointers as to where the best transfers can be located, for any artists, and I'm as happy to share my viewpoint on what transfers I like best.

Again, I'm aware that tastes about the transfers can differ, and sometimes there can even be some good transfers of some songs on one compilation, having you thinking that, "well, that company is the best", and then another company puts out a compilation that has some of the tracks being better, while some are worse. Example: I started out my Chick Webb collection with "1929-1934" and "1935-1938" from the Chronological Classics series. Then I heard "Lindy Hopper's Delight" and knew I had to get that, and ended up buying "Strictly Jive" from the Scottish "Hep" label, since I couldn't get hold of the Ella Fitzgerald Classics cd with that song. After realising how I liked the transfers on the Hep label compared to Classics, I then got "Rhythm Man" as well (now between those four cd's you've got a huge overlap). For most songs, I like the Hep transfers better, but I still can't get over that I like the rawer "Stompin' at the Savoy" transfer from Classics "1929-1934" better than the more clean transfer on the Hep "Rhythm Man".

Constantly in search for the best available transfers of the songs I love, sometimes even realising that a better transfer may change me into liking a song I didn't like before when heard on a shitty transfer... :oops:

/Jonas

[edited to change the name of one of the Hep Webb albums to "Rhythm Man", not "Rhythm Spasm", which is another Hep album, with the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, that I'd really like to get my hands on]
Last edited by Jonas on Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#13 Post by Eyeball » Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:42 am

Image

User avatar
Eyeball
Posts: 1919
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 5:11 am
Contact:

#14 Post by Eyeball » Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:49 am

Image[/img]

User avatar
Jonas
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:00 am
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

Re: Artie Shaw - Self Portrait

#15 Post by Jonas » Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:01 am

djstarr wrote: [...]

The sound is a little sketchy on the radio broadcasts on both the 1938 CD and the tracks on Self Portrait that are from the radio, but it's because it was recorded live. I love the tracks where the at the end the radio broadcaster does a speak over "Coming to you live from the Hotel Lincoln...." That's really cool.

On the 1938 CD I have 20 out of 23 tracks marked that I would DJ. I'm done with 3 out of the 5 self portrait discs and have 39 tracks listed that I would DJ, that doesn't include "Any Old Time" which I have on "The Very Best of Artie Shaw" and the Gramercy 5 tracks that are duplicate.

Before I bought Self-Portrait I had "The Very Best of Artie Shaw" which has some good tracks, "The Complete Gramercy 5 Sessions", which is all good, and the 1938 CD, which is all good. With the Self-Portrait I think my Artie Shaw collection will be good enough.

[...]
Thanks for the pointers Brenda :)

For deejaying, now that you have some duplicates, would you use the G5 material from "Complete Gramercy 5 Sessions" or from "Self Portrait"? Would you use the broadcast material from the Swing Factory cd or from the Self Portrait set?

/Jonas

Locked