CD Box Review: Artie Shaw and His Orchestra * King of the Clarinet * Live 1938-39 * Hindsight Records (HBCD-502) 1993

 

Artie Shaw - clarinet

Les Robinson, Hank Freeman - alto sax

Tony Pastor, Ronnie Perry, Georgie Auld - tenor sax

Johnny Best, Bernie Previn, Chuck Peterson, Harry Geller - trumpets

George Arus, Russell Brown, Harry Rodgers, Les Jenkins - trombones

Les Burness, Bob Kitsis - piano

Al Avola, Dave Barbour - guitar

Sid Weiss - bass

Cliff Leeman, George Wettling, Buddy Rich - drums

Helen Forrest, Tony Pastor - vocals

After more than a decade of writing this blog, I'm shocked to find I haven't reviewed this CD box. Maybe I took for granted that it was inevitable, or thought it would be too difficult to find enough superlatives, or maybe I thought I'd already done it. However I've managed to maintain this level of neglect, it's mind boggling. 

Of all the great jazz clarinetists, Artie Shaw resonates more personally with me than any other. We share a geographical connection with roots in New York, Connecticut, and Cleveland; an intellectual similarity that makes the world of literature and writing as enticing as music; a fundamental need to wrestle with the meaning of existence; and a musical preference, above all, for what might be termed lyric melody of meaning. That this box might contain what I consider his most important and beautiful recordings may have been why I've neglected to review it. The fact is, despite what one might think, I've tried to stay away from drawing too much attention to his music - not out of some Bloomian "Anxiety of Influence", but simply because I'm never sure I can do it justice. 

You see, I've given historical "lecture concerts" in nightclubs and libraries highlighting the accomplishments of many of the great clarinetists of jazz history. Sidney Bechet, Jimmie Noone, Benny Goodman, Pete Fountain, Hubert Rostaing, George Lewis, and Acker Bilk all come to mind - I've prepared lectures on their life's work and performed tunes in context for them. But never for Artie. It's probably because he's just too close to me - I almost don't know where to start. It's too personal. I can honestly say I've been influenced by just about everyone I've listened to by this point, but Artie is really the bedrock of my style. Here are a couple of quick stories demonstrating how this influence reveals itself: 

Once, while playing at a jam session at a local tavern, I remember an older gentlemen coming up to me between sets, with a puzzled look on his face. 

"It's been bothering me all evening...who you remind me of..." he said, with that odd familiarity with which perfect strangers approach jazz musicians after a set. "Then it came to me! Your playing reminds me of Gustav Mahler!" And he pointed at me knowingly, shaking his finger with a sly smile, as though he'd caught me throwing Mahler excerpts into my solos.  

Another time, while recording my live album at the Bop Stop in Cleveland, also between sets, a very astute trumpet player in the audience commented that he felt my performance of "Go Down, Moses" was a seamless fusion of klezmer and blues. The truth is that neither the similarity to Mahler, nor the fusion was conscious - but they both spoke of the foundational influence of Artie Shaw on my playing. His musical thoughts have worked their way into my language, because they've always been the basis for my musical speech, as it were. 

So maybe this explains why I've taken so long to review these recordings. I think this box might represent the finest documents of Artie Shaw's playing and musical mind. And because of that, for me at least, they might be the greatest performances of what is known as the Swing Era, by any band. They document an important period for Shaw - from just before "Begin the Beguine" catapulted him to nationally recognized fame (and fortune), to his second (but thankfully not final) retirement. These recordings follow him from what he described as the "rat trap" that was the Blue Room at New York City's Lincoln Hotel in the Fall of 1938, through his stay at the Summer Terrace of Ritz Carlton in Boston during the Summer of 1939, to the glamour of the Cafe Rouge at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York, where Shaw snapped at last and, in an effort to preserve his sanity and health, abruptly walked off the stage in the middle of a performance, never to return with this group again. It seemed a career ending move at the time. Fortunately for the rest of us, it wasn't, but even if it had been we'd have no cause to complain, as Shaw and this band left us some of the finest music of jazz history. This box is even more important than the great studio recordings made by the Artie Shaw Orchestra at the time, because it's live.     

With very rare exception, I always prefer live recordings, even with all their flaws. Whether we're talking about Benny Goodman's Madhattan Room Broadcasts, Duke Ellington's All Star Road Band, or classical recordings like Gennady Rozhdestvensky's live cycle of the Vaughan Williams symphonies, there is an immediacy and an interactive excitement that cannot be replicated without an audience. As a performer, both in the classical and jazz realms, I can attest to being more creative and alive on stage than in any rehearsal or studio session. Audiences draw things out of performers that can't be imitated. These recordings are no exception - they are almost all more interesting and exciting than their studio counterparts. Shaw himself was interviewed and served as a consultant for this set, and the booklet provides almost track by track observations from the great clarinetist. 

Unlike Benny Goodman's Madhattan Room Broadcasts, which were re-released in a six CD box in the 1990s, the tracks from these three discs are not released in strict chronological order, but chosen from the three broadcast locations in New York and Boston, to create three re-imagined "sets." Pete Kline seems to have made the choices for these sets (he's credited as the Box Set producer and compiler). He did an excellent job - the listener might be forgiven for thinking these were three complete performances from three evenings. It also speaks the amazing consistency of Shaw's band over the course of more than a year. The performances from Boston aren't notably different from the ones in New York, either before or after the groups Cinderella success. If you'd told me they were all from the same location, from the same weekend, I'd believe you. 

Most of the arrangements for these charts were done by Artie Shaw, Jerry Gray, and the guitarist for the band Al Avola. They represent the epitome of Shaw's style - lyrical melody, clear dialogue and counterpoint between the sections - nothing pedantic muddying up matters; they're a study of beauty without sentimentality. And slotted throughout the arrangements, some of the finest jazz soloing ever captured. 

Leading off with "Rose Room" from the Ritz-Carlton on August 19, 1939, we hear Artie's lyrical virtuosity at work. I don't know if anyone possessed a melodic gift to the degree he did at this point in his career. In many ways he reminds me of a jazz version of Tchaikovsky. His rhythmic variety alone during his solos, combined with an ability to craft the most intricate melodic ideas all within the space of a chorus (or at times half a chorus) remains, for me, unmatched. When jazz embraced bebop language, it lost some of this lyricism, in my opinion. I've always felt it would be worthwhile to use Artie's lyricism as a starting point, and develop jazz in a different direction - less modernist, more romantic. It's actually what I try to do myself as a player. Anyhow, we hear Artie at zenith here. his solos on "Rose Room", "Carioca", "Yesterdays", "Sweet Adeline", "One Foot in the Groove", "Man from Mars", "Stardust", "Out of Nowhere", "St Louis Blues", "It Had to be You", "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", "I Cover the Waterfront"  and more are classics.  For any musician they are a clinic of creativity, beauty, and invention. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that he wasn't just soloing here, but leading the band as well - and the band is in incredible form - relaxed, warm, swinging - a type of perfection rarely accomplished by any ensemble of any musical genre.

(For those wanting a sample, the recording of "The Carioca" here cannot be surpassed. From a teenage Buddy Rich chirping in the background, to Artie's endless variations - including his stellar choruses over the band at the end, it's a must for any jazz collection).

There is plenty of great soloing by other members of the band in this set, but the star is Shaw. Helen Forrest, my favorite of the girl singers back then, is in top form on these recordings too. Her intelligent, heart rending versions of "Comes Love", "Don't Worry 'Bout Me", and "Two Sleepy People" in particular remain my favorite versions of these tunes by a singer. Tony Pastor, though he was admittedly a bit of a novelty singer in addition to being a solid tenor sax, is in good form here too - adding humor, and even a little pathos to the fine arrangements he sang over. 

When Artie left the bandstand in November of 1939, leaving this band and seemingly his career as a musician behind, it was widely believed that he did it out disgust for the music business and its hassles, along with the wildness of the teenage fans who annoyed him with their antics. But listening to these recordings, once again, this morning, I can't help but wonder if he psychologically needed a break from the intense creating he was doing on a nightly basis. I'm not sure many musicians have sustained such lyrical invention and technical brilliance over the course of a twelve month span as we have documented here. And to do it while leading one of the finest ensembles in the world - it's beyond what I can fathom.

As I wrote above, if he had never returned to music, we would have no reason to be anything but grateful. Fortunately for us, he added more brilliant chapters to his career and to jazz history. As great as those were, however, none surpassed the perfection he achieved in the year spanning from November 1938 to November 1939.               

***

Epilogue: I bought this box, of all places, at Tower Records in New Orleans in 1999. I wasn't aware of its existence until seeing it there, and immediately appreciated the irony of going all the way to New Orleans just to end up buying Artie Shaw discs. It was on the return to Indiana (where I lived as a grad student) that the importance of the purchase became apparent. Driving all through the night from New Orleans to Bloomington, through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, my wife and I played these discs over and over. They were a match for the heartland landscape at night, perfectly engaging, managing  to keep me awake and in a type of elated awe for hundreds of miles. I'll never forget the experience. My admiration for these recordings hasn't flagged in the twenty four years since. 

Sidney Bechet with Tommy Ladnier & His Orchestra * November 28, 1938 * New York City * Bluebird Records

Ja-Da
Really The Blues
When You and I Were Young, Maggie
Weary Blues

Tommy Ladnier, trumpet
Sidney Bechet, soprano sax & clarinet
Mezz Mezzrow, clarinet & tenor sax
Cliff Jackson, piano
Teddy Bunn, guitar
Elmer James, bass
Manzie Johnson, drums


Just a few weeks after his recording debut as a bandleader, Sidney Bechet returned to the studio with his old friend, Louisiana born trumpeter Tommy Ladnier, to cut some sides for RCA Bluebird label.

According to John Chilton (pg 119) this band was hand picked by Hughes Panassié , the French impressario and critic, who wanted to record top notch American jazz musicians. He hunted down Tommy Ladnier, who was then gigging halfway up the Hudson River in Newburgh, New York. Sidney Bechet had to be given permission to record with the group by Irving Mills, and only on the condition he wouldn't be billed as the leader. The resulting records were worth the humility, as they are some of the finest trad jazz sides ever cut.  

The enthusiasm is there right from the beginning of "Ja-Da." Cliff Jackson's left hand is strong hinting at the boogie woogie craze about to blow, and the band seems comfortable and happy to be together throughout the first choruses. Bechet embellishes the head on soprano saxophone, but takes his solo chorus on clarinet. There is an important lesson here for historians and others who would try to understand Bechet's musical mind, and a potential misconception to correct. I can't remember where I  first read the rumor that Sidney Bechet had abandoned clarinet for the soprano saxophone rather early on, and that he took the clarinet out in later life only because trumpet players like Wild Bill Davison or Bunk Johnson didn't think the soprano appropriate for a traditional New Orleans style front line. I'm not sure about Bunk or Wild Bill's opinions, but whatever they were, and however Bechet might have focused on soprano in the later years of his career, there is a tremendous amount of clarinet and soprano doubling that he does all throughout the '20s, '30s and '40s. Working with trumpet players as diverse as Charlie Shavers, Tommy Ladnier, Louis Armstrong, Mugsy Spanier, and even as a bandleader himself without a trumpet, Bechet routinely recorded clarinet numbers or switched off within the same tune. So for a significant part of his career, the clarinet remained a nearly equal voice with soprano sax, independent of the band in question. Because of that, I think it's probably safe to say the appearance of clarinet on any sides was most likely a decision made by Bechet himself rather than anyone else. Besides, does anyone think the psychology of Sidney Bechet was typically acquiescent to the demands of the trumpet players he worked with? He wasn't known for being obsequious.  

To get back to the recordings, though, "Really the Blues" is a classic blues drag written by Mezz Mezzrow, the feisty clarinetist whose later autobiography (bearing the same name of the tune) was to make an early case against commercialism and big band era arrangements while forcefully arguing in favor of black musicians and bands. On the head of this tune, as the two clarinetists are playing together, it's Mezz who takes the lead line, but when the solos come, we hear Bechet's soprano sax tell the story, delivering vintage soul, the band murmuring assents throughout. The tune itself is excellent, and as one of the first collaborations between Mezz and Bechet, it is important historically.

"When You and I Were Young, Maggie" is a light, toe tapping number featuring Ladnier's trumpet lead, a competent chorus by Mezzrow on tenor, and some ebullient clarinet work by Bechet to round out the cut.

The last track from this session, "Weary Blues" is one of the best known in Bechet's clarinet catalog. From the outset, Sidney's musical voice is dominant throughout, with Mezzrow shadowing in harmony, and Ladnier holding the mellow line as usual. Bechet's clarinet solo opens with growling zest, then gets to wailing with expertly controlled pitch bends--each idea unfolding naturally. The whole session had the relaxed, joyous feel of musicians who understood each other and wanted to work together.  

Stylistically, though one could glean this from any number of recordings by Bechet prior to this, these are excellent examples of Bechet's unique soloing style, which was so much more than variations on a theme. His use of rhythm, meter, playing over the bar, linking his phrases organically rather than through pattern repetition, tend to be underappreciated, generally speaking, by many in the jazz education field. The music, so far beyond conventional analysis, isn't easily taught because it was so connected to Bechet's individual soul. But if our goal is lyricism and originality, if a player wants to learn how to please and surprise an audience simultaneously and consistently throughout a solo performance, recordings like these will always be a template and guide.


Further reading:

Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. John Chilton, OUP, NY (1987)

November 6, 1938 * Sidney Bechet's First Recording Session as a Bandleader

What a Dream
Hold Tight
Jungle Drums
Chant in the Night

Sidney Bechet, soprano sax & clarinet
Ernie Caceres, baritone sax
Dave Bowman,  piano
Leonard Ware, guitar
Henry Turner, bass
Zutty Singleton, drums
Eddie Robinson & Willie Spottswood, vocals

November 6, 1938, New York City


At the spry age of 41, Sidney Bechet finally had the opportunity to record as a band leader. It had been a long six years since his last collaborative session with Tommy Ladnier and their New Orleans Feetwarmers--a session which produced several classic sides. This one would be different in many ways.

Eschewing the standard instrumentation (which is, anyhow, not so standard as some jazz histories would have us believe), the somewhat misleadingly named Sidney Bechet and His Orchestra was actually a sextet consisting of Bechet on clarinet and soprano sax, Ernie Caceres on baritone sax, Dave Bowman on piano, Leonard Ware on guitar, Henry Turner on bass, Zutty Singleton on drums, and a pair of vocalists (Eddie Robinson and Willie Spottswood, 'The Two Fishmongers') featured on "Hold Tight."

The band recorded four tunes that day, all of them originals. Three of them, "What a Dream", "Chant in the Night" and "Jungle Drums", were composed by Bechet. The vocal number "Hold Tight" was composed by Robinson, Spottswood, Ware, Jerry Brandow, and Lenny Kent.

In his biography of Sidney Bechet, John Chilton suggests this session, while bold, is one of Bechet's weaker one, suffering from lack of rehearsal and less than stellar song material (pg 111-112). I couldn't disagree more, and wish this band hand recorded twenty more sides of the same quality. While Caceres isn't balanced, volume-wise in the recording with Bechet (which might just have been an honest difference between the bari player and the muscular sound of Bechet, accurately captured) the timbre and counterpoint the two create is exciting, intriguing, and unique. Chilton wanted a more standard type of climax to the tunes, and perhaps wishes for more melodic content on a number like "Jungle Drums", but here, perhaps, we have the difference between brass criticism and woodwind writing (Chilton himself, who passed away last year, was a trumpet player). A careful review of combo jazz tunes by clarinetists reveals a predisposition for motivic, linear melodies, repetitious in an almost  minimalist fashion. "Seven Come Eleven", "AC/DC Current", "Benny's Bugle" by Benny Goodman; "When the Quail Come Back to San Quentin", "Summit Ridge Drive", "Dr. Livingston, I Presume" by Artie Shaw; and "Jungle Drums" by Sidney Bechet are all cut from a similar cloth.  It's perhaps not a coincidence that John Adams, one of the more revered minimalist composers of the last forty years, was a clarinetist.

That aside "What a Dream" is a beautiful tune, and Bechet's soprano soloing matches it. His clarinet on "Hold Tight" is vintage, excellent, and you can't go wrong with his playing on the other tunes. As with so many of Bechet's early projects (including the first incarnation of The New Orleans Feetwarmers and the Clarence Williams Blue 5), we are left simultaneously wishing we had more, and grateful for what he left us.

Further reading:

Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. John Chilton, OUP, NY (1987)

Sidney Bechet * May 26, 1938 * with Trixie Smith and Grant & Wilson * Decca

May 26, 1938 was unique in Sidney Bechet's career: on this day he recorded ten tunes, all of them entirely on the clarinet. Maybe his soprano sax was in the shop, maybe he forgot it, or maybe he simply didn't feel like playing it that day, but whatever the reason, his clarinet chops were ready to go. One thing we can say without reservation: the sides he cut on May 26, 1938 in Decca's New York studios with singer Trixie Smith document some of his finest clarinet work.

What can I say about his playing on "Freight Train Blues"? It's an anthology of his greatest clarinet techniques, and he is so well miked that we really, finally, get a sense of his total sound quality. Trixie Smith is laid back as a singer, but a perfectly cool partner to Bechet's heat. The rest of the band includes Charlie Shavers on trumpet, Sammy Price on piano, Teddy Bunn on guitar, Richard Fullbright on bass, and O'Neill Spencer on drums. On "Trixie's Blues" the band gets the perfect soft bumping groove, and imprompu head riffs are woven and embellished by Bechet and Shavers throughouot. Bechet's clarinet is really in astonishing form for this date, and he delivers as close to a definitive performance as we could hope for on "My Daddy Rocks Me With One Steady Roll" (Parts 1 & 2). In his sound we can hear everything--from his warmest pumpkin bread chalumeau to muscular, biting altissimo. The interplay between Bechet and the muted Shavers is a type of contrapuntal perfection: they seem ideally suited for this sort of vocalist-fronted combo. Trixie is at her best when she's singing a blues; the more popular tunes like "Jack, I'm Mellow" or "My Unusual Man" are less convincing, and she falls a bit into vaudeville style. But the masterful blues sides by this band more than make up for anything else.

Later that day, the same backing band recorded with Coot Grant & Sox Wilson, a girl/boy vocal duo with more vaudeville pretensions, and a considerable step down from the musical quality of the Trixie Smith recordings. Bechet's clarinetistry is good and solid; once again the Decca recording engineers capture him exceptionally well, but these are comparatively forgettable sides. By the last tune of the day, "Blue Monday on Sugar Hill", Bechet seems to have run out of inspiration, delivering a competent but very common solo by his standards. Still, on the whole, this was a remarkable day in Bechet's recorded output, especially from the standpoint of the clarinet. Fans of Sidney Bechet are going to want to hear them.


[ Note: My review is based upon the remastered versions found in the Universal boxed set. I can't vouch for other transfers...]

Sidney Bechet with Noble Sissle 1931-1938

After the brilliance of Sidney Bechet's playing on the recordings with the Clarence Williams Blue 5, his releases with Noble Sissle and His Orchestra in 1931 are a disappointment. Relegated mostly to section playing on baritone sax, there is little to hear beyond the occasional eight or twelve bar solo during competent (but decent) commercial dance arrangements.

Despite this, the increasing public demand for big bands must have made the stability of such gigs attractive, and Bechet returned to the studio with Noble Sissle and His International Orchestra in 1934. There's nothing bad about the arrangements; the band sounds good enough, especially when compared to similar outfits from the early '30s, but Bechet was a bad fit in this sort of music, and for the most part seems disinterested even in the brief solo passages he's given. An artist like Bechet was just never meant to be used as filler between a vocalist and an arrangement. If he was a basketball player, he'd be described as a "volume shooter" or one "needing the ball in his hands." Musically he was a point guard, rather than a center. On this set, even his more inspired playing on "Polka Dot Rag" seems out of place. This didn't stop him from continuing, however, fully into the Swing Era, and it didn't stop Sissle from featuring him on numbers. 

Considering the great success of Benny Goodman after 1935, it is somewhat surprising to hear Bechet still on soprano sax for his solos on tunes such as 1936's "You Can't Live in Harlem." With all of the band's forces at work, the soprano has difficulty distinguishing itself timbrally, and however good Bechet's solo, he doesn't soar the way Benny could in an eight bar break, or how he himself could in a small ensemble context. If nothing else, recordings like these can help us recognize the comparative brilliance of Goodman in similar orchestral circumstances, demonstrating how difficult it is to musically succeed in them. The one occasion Bechet seems properly used comes on their final orchestral recording with him on "Dear Old Southland" where he's given a bravura introduction and multiple choruses. Working within an arrangement that fits his playing better, we're given us a tantalizing glimpse of what could of been, had his talents been better showcased in this large ensemble setting. 

Perhaps inspired by the success of combos such as the Goodman Quartet, by 1937 Noble Sissle seems to have realized small group work would be worth pursuing with Bechet, and the results were far more interesting. Of the six sides that were recorded by "Noble Sissle's Swingsters" and "Sidney "Pops" Bechet with Noble Sissles Swingsters" in 1937 and '38, five were written or co-written by Bechet, and several of them are important examples of Bechet's work as a player and composer. "Okey Doke" and "Characteristic Blues" are chock full of clarinet blues techniques and, on the latter, even a High Society 'test solo' quote, rounded off with a glissando. Sidney seems far more relaxed and in his element, able to stretch and give fuller range to his musical thought. Likewise, "Viper Mad", "Blackstick", and "When the Sun Sets Down South (Southern Sunset)" are good examples of his work from this era.    

  

So what are we to make of the Noble Sissle era? We can be grateful that the bandleader kept Bechet employed and active in music, documented on recordings, and that he eventually decided to record to his great soloist's strengths. While the lion's share of the recordings with Sissle aren't representative of Bechet's importance or brilliance, there are few, especially from the last sessions, which no student of Bechet would want to miss.

CD Review: Benny Goodman * Air Play

In 1986, with little fanfare, the Doctor Jazz label put out a double LP containing remasters of Benny Goodman air checks under the title of Air Play. Despite the unfortunate choice of putting an elderly Benny on the cover, these were actually live performances of the 1936, 1937, and 1938 Goodman band, quartet, trio, and even a rare duo between Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson. The original acetates had been given to Goodman by Thomas Ciano of Long Island, transferred by D.R. Connor, and represent some of the finest examples of Goodman's band from its most important period.

 

The catalogue of live Goodman is fairly vast, and there are better known collections out there, including the famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert, multiple volumes of the Camel Caravan, and the "Complete" Madhattan Room Broadcasts. But even with those essential recordings in mind, if I was to recommend only one album of live Goodman material, it would be Air Play.

Though this double LP set was eventually released in 1989 on a single CD, and therefore is considerably shorter than the other live sets mentioned above, these arguably represent the finest live performances we have of Goodman. Each different band is presented in top form. Leading off with 1937 checks, it's Harry James's leadership of the trumpet section that leaps out of the speakers at us. The young James's presence is so stunning, and the trumpet section of Ziggy Elman and Chris Griffin so tightly pulled along in his irresistible tide of sound, that we can understand why Duke Ellington called this trio the "wonder of the age", and why Cootie Williams made it a professional goal to one day play in the Goodman band. For me, this is the hardest swinging, best sounding trumpet section ever assembled.

Matching that intensity and swagger is Goodman's clarinet. Too often, it was suggested by jealous, hardly disinterested parties that Goodman was a mere technician. These recordings refute such an accusation more eloquently than any others. Few moments in clarinet history thrill me quite the way Benny's statement of the theme on an uptempo "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" from January 19, 1937. His tone is absolutely commanding: solid, flexible, muscular; his swing is a perfection of paradox--loosely firm, sweetly punching, relaxed tension--the limber, balanced boxer of jazz clarinet. It's a very short moment, but any clarinetist wanting to understand the essence of Goodman's musical style needs to attempt this solo with the same commanding presence. They will soon find that the Goodman mystique and style ultimately have very little to do with flashiness. Musical and tonal depth are the true sorces of Goodman's interpretive sense.

One of the acetates was from a shortwave broadcast from New York to the BBC. According to the notes, Gene Krupa had the flu and couldn't make the gig. Because of this, we're treated to a Goodman/Wilson duo for "Body & Soul"-- arguably the finest performance of a tune that they "owned" anyway, followed immediately by "Dinah" with Lionel Hampton added on vibes. Benny was known for making his winds rehearse at times without rhythm section--he would insist that each section be able to swing on their own. This, in part, accounts for the unique drive of the Goodman band. In the duo and trio, we hear how this sort of swing was present in each of the members, independently of drum support.

There are as many gems here as tracks--including a solo performance by Jess Stacy of Bix Beiderbecke's "In a Mist", a definitive version of "You Go To My Head" with Martha Tilton taking the vocal, and (for me at least) the definitive quartet version of "Stompin' at the Savoy". The inner voicings of Lionel Hampton's soloing on "Stompin" are the most eloquent of the many I've heard, and the acetate transfer is uniquely excellent. The most famous version of this, from the Carnegie Hall concert, sounds overwrought and tense in comparison.

On "You're Blasé", the trio is yet another unique configuration, with Lionel Hampton taking over on drums. This charming little tune was never recorded in the studio by Goodman's "classic" quartet or trio.

Bud Freeman, whose tenure with Goodman was so fleeting, was even present on several tracks, demonstrating particularly on "Bumble Bee Stomp" why he is such a seminal figure in the development of the tenor saxophone.

The liner notes by Leonard Feather are a refreshing example of jazz criticism from a better age. Instead of ideological vagaries, so common to jazz criticism these days, Feather engages the music itself, commenting intelligently about certain aspects of the arrangements, and the forms of tunes. Moreover, as a historian, he deftly places Goodman in proper context when he writes:

Swing music, in fact, was a phenomenon that had been around for years; all that was needed to bring it into focus was an individual in whom (and around whom) all its essential characteristics could coalesce, in such a manner that its appeal would cut across barriers and result in mass popularity both for the artist and for the idiom he represented.

It was not surprising that Benny Goodman was that individual. He was the first genuine virtuoso jazz orchestra leader ever to front an ensemble of this quality. Duke Ellington's genius was expressed more through his orchestra than at the piano; Louis Armstrong, incomparable as a soloist, never had a band worthy of him and was busy trying to get his sax section to emulate the sound of Guy Lombardo.   

Finally, one of the more hauntingly beautiful moments in air check history occurs with Goodman's sign off number, Gordon Jenkins' "Goodbye", when two announcers close the evening's broadcast--one in Japanese and one in English, as the broadcast was transmitted not only to the United States, but Tokyo for the many jazz fans in Japan. This peace-filled moment of cultural exchange is made more poignant with what we 21st century listeners know: that many of those listening and dancing to this music would be plunged into a terrible conflict only two years later, undoubtedly claiming lives from those ranks. The great era of American musical romanticism ushered in by the Goodman band would be almost as short lived as the war itself, the consequences of which made, in many ways, the type of music making Goodman and his colleagues made on these air checks impossible shortly thereafter.

This irreplaceable album receives The Jazz Clarinet's rating of Five Good Reeds, for containing definitive versions of important songs, important soloing, historical significance, and a rare brilliant bit of historical analysis in the liner notes themselves.