Many will remember "Lover Come Back To Me" from the Sigmund Romberg 1928 operetta "The New Moon" for the wonderful warbling of MGM's stars Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in their 1940 performance. Others may recall a faster, light hearted version in the Doris day / Rock Hudson 1964 picture of the same title. The feel here is of a blues influenced version that is so soulfully brought forth ...
In an interview with big band scholar George T. Simon, Artie Shaw revealed how his music affected people in the ballrooms of America. "I don't think I'd have done much different, because I think the music I played was the best I could contrive to play, given all the circumstances, given what the audiences would accept, given the length of the records you had to make. What I did try very hard to...
"Jungle Drums" is another great recording which originally spotlighted the band's junior member Buddy Rich on drums. Artie Shaw had tremendous admiration for Rich. "He had enormous youth, enormous energy, enormous vitality in his playing and a beat that could be topped. But he was a totally undisciplined musician. The hardest job was to keep him within the bounds of what I was trying to get the en
Cole Porter was another composer who also successfully wrote his own words to his own melodies. One of his best known works is "What Is This Thing Called Love" which came from his 1930 stage musical "Wake Up And Dream." The chart opens with dynamic drumming by Don Lamond which never lets up during this fast tempo swinger with brilliantly played sax section work. Again, Levinsky excels in his pe...
If there was just one record to describe Artie Shaw, it is his immortal recording of "Begin the Beguine" as arranged by Jerry Gray that faithfully follows the melodic line all the way through the song with a hypnotic inevitability.
