Thinks happen

Things are sort of dull around the Music Monday composing room, so for the next few weeks the cracked editorial staff has decided on a new feature for the day:

The artwork of David Stone Martin on record covers.

One exciting work of art (called Illustration by some) will be presented here each week until they run out. Each is a scan from the editor's personal library and the original copyrights apply.

They are presented here for admiration and educational purposes only.

Here is a romantic, even sensous, water color and pen sketch buy our feature artist: David Stone Martin.

This is LP volume #4 of a group of recordings famously know as the "LAST" recordings of Artie Shaw. They are not rare. They have been re-released several times.

But they apparently really are Shaw's last known recordings before he abruptly abandoned the clarinet entirely.

Today in 1910, Artie Shaw was born.

The personnel on these recordings:

Artie Shaw, Clarinet
Hank Jones, Piano
Joe Puma, Guitar
Tommy Potter, Bass
Irv Kluger, Drums

The recordings on this disk are
Stop and Go Mambo
Love of My Life
The Pied Piper Theme
Dancing In The Dark
That Old Feeling
Someone to Watch Over Me.
Besame Mucho

The Profile (more than you really wanted to know)is HERE.

Lost Gallery The rescue mission for battered and abused orphan photographs.

Still the most popular page on this blog. The Subway Collection

Labels: Artie Shaw, cover art, David Stone Martin, Gramercy Five

Today in 2004 we lost Artie Shaw. He was 94. He was unique.

Quote from article by Nat Hentoff in Jazztimes:

What I admired about Shaw was that he exemplified what Ben Webster once told me when I was still in Boston: “If the rhythm section isn’t making it, go for yourself.” Artie Shaw refused to let himself be limited, even by success. When he first quit the music scene in 1939, walking off the bandstand at the Café Rouge of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York, he said later: “I wanted to resign from the planet, not just music. It stopped being fun with success. Money got in the way. Everybody got greedy—including me. Fear set in. I got miserable when I became a commodity.” In 1954, at 43, he left for good and never again performed.

He turned to writing and an array of other interests because his curiosity about how much one could learn about learning never flagged. As he said in the notes to Self Portrait, “I’m not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word definition is based on the word finite, which would seem to indicate that once we’ve defined something, we don’t need to think about it anymore.”

On January 7, the National Endowment for the Arts declared Artie Shaw a Jazz Master. I sure would have liked to hear his acceptance speech. It wouldn’t have been humble. He knew his worth, and then some. In a 1978 Washington Post interview, he said: “I don’t care if I’m forgotten. I became a specialist in nonspecialization a long time ago. For instance, I’m an expert fly fisherman. And in 1962, I ranked fourth nationally in precision riflery. My music? Well, no point in false modesty about that. I was the best.”

Shaw died, at the age of 94, on December 30, but his music will continue to reverberate. I can’t forget him because he brought me into the music that has given me ceaseless reason to shout aloud in pleasure.

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Thanks Mr. Hentoff. I just can't think of a better way to say it.

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From Wikipedia:

Artie Shaw (May 23, 1910, New York, New York – December 30, 2004, Thousand Oaks, California) is considered to be one of the best jazz musicians of his time. Jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader, he is also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings.