Artie Shaw - Self-Portrait

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Overall, it's my belief that performers have a right to be judged by their best work. Roger Bannister must have run lots of miles in more than four minutes, but he's remembered as the man who broke the four-minute record. Such home run kings as Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron struck out I don't know how many times. Perfectly understandable, of course: anybody who's really trying is bound to make mistakes. But why include my own strikeouts? 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. Let's call it a summing-up, a retrospective of what I consider my best work regardless of label, an overview of my entire career as a clarinetist-band leader.” 

- Artie Shaw

Something not afforded through streaming is this exquisite and unprecedented retrospective that contains the best performances from the entire career of one of the most exciting artists in music history. Selected by Artie Shaw himself, it includes music from every band  he ever led. including his most popular hits and his greatest  artistic achievements.

*   95 tracks remastered from the best available sources

*   Complete discography

*   Extensive liner notes by Artie Shaw himself and historian Richard Sudhalter in a 47 page booklet

*   Produced by Grammy-winning jazz legend Orrin Keepnews

*   Rare photos of Artie Shaw and his musicians

I realize that multi-disc sets can be expensive, but when one considered the number of subscription services fees we sometimes engage in that can put us at the mercy of impersonal, algorithmic programming, the occasional investment in a collection of CDs devoted to the music of a particular artist can often be a bargain in the long run, especially when one considers the old adage that “possessions is 9/10ths of the law.” [A euphemism for if you own it you control it.]

" Self Portrait 9/1938-6/1954

Bluebird 09026-63808-2 5CD Selected by Shaw himself, and discussed by the leader in conversation with Richard Sudhalter, this is an impressive shot at the defining Shaw collection - even if some of it might be thought subject to its maker's own caprices. He sometimes chooses broadcast versions of tunes over their studio originals, and the notes are boastful and self-deprecating at the same moment -inimitable Shaw. His choices reflect his ambitions, though fortunately that seems to have allowed the inclusion of his greatest hits along the way, and it does take the story up to the final sessions of 1954 ….” - Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

From the producer Orrin Keepnews in the insert booklet that accompanies the set:

“This compilation is probably the most unusual jazz reissue project I have ever been involved with. It is, for that matter, possibly the most unusual such project ever attempted. It is not at all surprising, then, that Artie Shaw, the focal point of this set, is an entirely remarkable man and musician, still thoroughly intense and alert although he happens to be in his nineties.

Since I am not particularly young either. I have no problem admitting that I first became aware of Artie Shaw back in his early days as a giant of the Swing Era. As a New York teenager, who first heard this wonderfully rhythmic music on the radio, then skipped a class or two to catch a matinee "stage show" at a Broadway movie palace, I was particularly intrigued by one of the major rivalries of the day. 

As I recalled to Artie not long ago, if you were at all serious about the music, you had to make a choice. It was just not possible to equivocate — you were either for Artie Shaw or for Benny Goodman. Under the circumstances that now find me working on this in-depth look at his full career, I'm glad I can honestly report that I have always been a Shaw enthusiast. (His own current view of the subject is a little detached and analytical: "Benny was a better clarinet player," Artie told me. "but I was a better musician.").

Shaw never fit the stereotype of either pop music star nor big band leader. Emerging from a youthful period as a highly skilled and sought after lead alto player in the New York studio bands of the early 1930s, Artie's view of himself as a musician clearly influenced the way he handled sudden stardom. (Begin the Beguine, his overwhelmingly popular initial hit, was a product of his very first day of recording for RCA Victor, but he has consistently denied liking the record.) He used strings to a far greater and more adventurous extent than any of his colleagues; he was noted for his intolerance of the intrusiveness of his fans; and it seems quite likely that if he had not decided to leave the music business completely, he would have been comfortable with many developments in jazz during the second half of the twentieth century. He was proud of the fact that Al Cohn and Zoot Sims joined his 1949 orchestra — known to insiders as his "bebop band" — right after leaving Woody Herman. And his very last recordings, heard on the final disc in this collection, involved outstanding young players like pianist Hank Jones and guitarist Tal Farlow. as well as Tommy Potter, one of Charlie Parker's favorite bassists. Quite apart from music., he has for many years paid serious attention to writing, both fiction and autobiography. Critics have rated his published work as professional and richly talented, and I think you'll find some strong supporting evidence further along in this booklet.

There are specific reasons for considering this a most unusual reissue. Obviously the most intriguing and important one is that the artist himself has been deeply involved in assembling this retrospective, which covers his work between 1936 and 1954 — which is not exactly yesterday. I have compiled a great many reissue collections over the years, and have become accustomed to the fact that the music predating the advent of tape recording in 1950 is in a different category from anything more recent. That difference involves not merely technology, but the almost-universal truth that pre-tape artists are no longer with us. One of my favorite clichés is to describe reissue work as: "I spent all day in the studio with Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong, or Benny Goodman — and he didn't give me the slightest bit of trouble." In this case: not true! Shaw did not actually join me at the BMG Studios in New York, but between telephone discussions and extensive e-mail exchanges and visits to his home north of Los Angeles, the legendary central figure in this collection had no trouble making his presence felt.”

INTRODUCTION by Richard Sudhalter -

“To identify Artie Shaw as an exceptional figure in the world of popular music is to state the obvious. Peerless clarinetist, successful bandleader, proprietor of a restless, ever-questing imagination, he remains a thoughtful and articulate man in a field not always notable for such qualities. Since putting away his clarinet half a century ago he has continued to read and inquire, emerging meanwhile as a writer of formidable, if occasionally idiosyncratic, strengths. Shaw's records as a bandleader, made over a period of just eighteen years between 1936 and !954 remain as varied and challenging as the man who brought them into being.

In the spring of 2001, when he was asked to select and comment on the nearly one hundred performances in this boxed set, Artie Shaw had just passed his ninety-first birthday. But his remarks spring from a mind still clear and incisive, and from the same iron will that conceived, shaped, and realized his numerous bands. "Artie," a veteran fellow-musician remarked recently with no little awe, "has an opinion about everything, and most of the time has a way of being right. Even when he's wrong, he's right."

Here, then, is Artie Shaw, both in choosing his finest moments on record and in offering often trenchant observations on them, on-himself, and on his extraordinary life in music.

-R.M.S.”

And in conclusion, one more from Artie Shaw - 

Now and then people ask me: how do you feel to have lived so long, to have seen and achieved so much?              

My best answer is that I feel spiritually and mentally better than ever. And I've come to realize that what I did had in its own way a lot of importance.

These records are a case in point. Various people have issued "Complete Artie Shaw'' record packages, and though some may have contained my entire output on one record label, none have been really complete. Also, too many "Best-of-Artie-Shaw" compilations have included stuff I never did much care for, pop material I'd been pressured or coerced into recording. I never had much respect for most pop tunes, and none of that material is here. But I used my own judgment when it came to recording music I liked, mostly standards — and occasionally a new tune that sounded as though it might eventually become a standard. Some of those songs, like Summertime and Blues In the Night, are in this collection.

I've omitted most vocals because they were usually on banal trifles that I felt would probably have a life-span of ten to twelve minutes. However, there are a few vocals here, where the orchestral material is also interesting. Like the ones that Hot Lips Page sang, which had first-rate arrangements, and two by Tony Pastor, where the band really swings.”