We lost another Big Band leader a few weeks ago. Larry Elgart was 95 when he passed away at his home in Florida. Larry, who led a big band with his brother, was a fine alto saxophonist and composer. He had a big hit in 1982 with a medley of big band hits set to a disco beat. It was called Hooked On Swing, a companion piece to Hooked on Classics. I'll be playing one of these selections at the close of the show.
Here's a little background about Larry from his New York Times obituary:
Larry
Elgart, a bandleader who, with his brother, Les, recorded the theme
song for the long-running television dance show “American Bandstand,”
and who later scored a surprise hit with “Hooked on Swing,” a medley of
swing classics set to a disco beat, died on Tuesday in Sarasota Fla. He
was 95.
The death was confirmed by his wife, Lynn Elgart.
After
playing alto saxophone with Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey and other bands,
Mr. Elgart teamed up with Les, his older brother, to record a series of
successful albums for Columbia that brought swing music into the 1950s
and beyond.
Taking advantage of advances in recording technology, he developed a distinctive
“Elgart sound,
”
which emphasized tight choreography between the silky-smooth saxophone
section and the rich, brilliant horns, to which he added two bass
trombones. He lightened up the rhythm section, replacing piano with
guitar, and cut back on improvised solos.
“The
end result was a conversation,” Mr. Elgart wrote in a memoir, “The
Music Business & the Monkey Business” (2014), written with his wife.
“The saxes spoke and the brass answered, then they all talked together.
Having no doubles with clarinets, flutes, etc., in the reed section,
the band had even more clarity.”
The album
“Sophisticated Swing”
was released in 1953, with the band touted as “America’s College Prom
Favorite.” The Les Elgart Orchestra, renamed the Les and Larry Elgart
Orchestra two years later, found a lucrative niche performing at school
dances, a role reflected in their albums “Prom Date” (1954) and “Campus
Hop” (1954).
In
1954, while touring the country to promote their records, the brothers
met Bob Horn, the host of “Bandstand,” a teenage dance show in
Philadelphia. Les Elgart proposed that the brothers record a theme song.
“Bandstand Boogie”
was the result. Two years later, Dick Clark took over as host of the
renamed “American Bandstand,” and ABC picked up the show for national
broadcast. “Bandstand Boogie” became an anthem for generations of
teenagers.
In
1982, Mr. Elgart rode the disco wave with “Hooked on Swing.” Heading an
ensemble called the Manhattan Swing Orchestra, he blended “Cherokee,”
“Sing, Sing, Sing,” “A String of Pearls” and other big-band standards
into a tasty disco stew that cracked the Top 40.
“Many
people tell me that they listen to it while running, walking or doing
water aerobics,” he told The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., in 1999.
Lawrence
Joseph Elgart was born on March 20, 1922, in New London, Conn., and
spent most of his childhood in Pompton Lakes, N.J. His father, Arthur,
and his mother, the former Bessie Aisman, worked a variety of jobs to
make ends meet during the Depression.
Larry
took up the clarinet at 9 and later taught himself to play the flute,
but it was the alto saxophone that was his ticket to fame. After
studying with Hymie Shertzer, the lead alto with Benny Goodman, he was
hired at 17 by the bandleader Charlie Spivak.
In
1945 he and his brother, a trumpeter, formed their own ensemble, paying
top-drawer talent like Nelson Riddle, Bill Finegan and Ralph Flanagan
to write their arrangements. The band failed commercially, and after
selling their arrangements to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, the brothers
returned to being sidemen.
While
playing in the pit of the Broadway show “Top Banana” in 1951, Mr.
Elgart met the composer and saxophonist Charles Albertine. The two
collaborated on the experimental album “Impressions of Outer Space,”
released by Brunswick in 1953.
The
brothers drifted apart and reunited several times over the years. “I
never agreed with him musically,” Mr. Elgart told The Morning Call. “He
was more trouble than anything else.”
In the early 1960s, however, they found a new formula for success by reworking pop hits on such albums as
“Big Band Hootenanny” (1963),
“Elgart au Go-Go” (1965) and
“Girl Watchers” (1967). Les Elgart
died in 1995.
Besides
his wife, the former Lynn Walzer, Mr. Elgart, who lived in Longboat
Key, Fla., is survived by two sons, Brock and Brad; four grandchildren;
and four great-grandchildren. His first marriage ended in divorce.
Artie Shaw was born on May 23, 1910. He was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and actor. Also an author, Shaw wrote both fiction and non-fiction. Widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists, Shaw led one of the United States' most popular big bands in the late 1930s through the early 1940s. As I do every year I would like to remember Artie on his birthday but instead of playing many of his hits I am going to be playing some of his recordings that feature the many different vocalists that sang with his band. Starting way back in 1936 with Peg La Centra and going to the mid 1940's we'll hear a lot of different singers.
He was born Wilbur Schwichtenberg on July 12, 1912 in Newton, New Jersey, Bradley was raised in Washington, New Jersey.
A chorus called The Hit Paraders were always ready to backup the
featured singers. At first the regulars were Barry Wood
and Joan Edwards. In the spring of '43, a skinny New Jersey kid named
Frank came on the show to stay for a while. Sinatra was probably the
biggest draw that Lucky Strikes ever had! The bobbie-soxers had swooned
over this guy, and listened avidly as he crooned the tunes. The show
went on without
She began singing in her brother's band in Washington, D.C., then was featured in Artie Shaw's band after Billie Holiday left in 1938. Forrest joined Benny Goodman when Shaw disbanded in 1939, staying until 1941. She recorded with Nat King Cole's trio and Lionel Hampton in 1940, then began to score hits working with the Harry James orchestra. During the early '40s, she had string of successes. Later she teamed with Dick Haymes on his radio show and on six duets that were big hits. Forrest cut back her activity in the '50s, then sang with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra led by Sam Donahue in the early '60s. She continued to work on the club circut in the '70s and '80s, making a new album for Stash in 1983. Forrest died July 11, 1999 at age 82.
Here is a couple photos of Ivy Anderson who is featured on two numbers on the show today. One of them is "I've Got It Bad and That Ain't Good" which is a personal favorite of mine.
Part three of Swing That Music has a lot of hits from the golden age of the big bands plus three songs that were unknown to me until I listened to this set. Billie Holliday was a member of the Count Basie Orchestra from March 1937 until February 1938. During this time she was not on any of the studio recordings made by the Basie band. It was a simple explanation - she was under contract to Brunswick and Basie to Decca records. But someone recorded some of their performances off the radio and we have three of those songs in this set. Also, we have Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Rushing and Count Basie and Anita O'Day with Gene Krupa. 
The Smithsonian's four-disc tribute to the swing/big band era, compiled by the late, great Martin Williams, offers as comprehensive a look at the genre as possible from a general perspective. Williams featured great and lightweight bands, highly popular vocalists like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, dubious ones with large followings like Bob Eberly and Doris Day and underrated ones such as Al Hibbler and Helen Humes. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Woody Herman and Benny Goodman are well-represented, but so are Harry James, Glenn Miller and Bob Crosby.
The sound quality is first-rate and the liner notes are informative,
and the material is nicely divided between familiar cuts and obscure
tracks. The Smithsonian's sets are sometimes attacked for emphasizing
one style over another or not representing each era of a genre; that
cannot be leveled at this anthology.
The radio show was initially on CBS from June to September, 1943. Glenn
Miller was the host and conductor on the show, which also featured Ray
McKinley, Jerry Gray, Johnny Desmond, and the Crew Chiefs, until June
10, 1944 when Harry Bluestone became the conductor. The Latin Sustineo Alas,
"I Sustain the Wings", or "Keep 'Em Flying", was the motto of the U.S.
Army Air Forces Technical Training Command. The I Sustain the Wings
radio series continued until November 17, 1945.[4]
One of jazz's finest clarinetists, Artie Shaw
never seemed fully satisfied with his musical life, constantly breaking
up successful bands and running away from success. While Count Basie and Duke Ellington were satisfied to lead just one orchestra during the swing era, and Benny Goodman (due to illness) had two, Shaw led five, all of them distinctive and memorable.
Despite all this, Shaw broke up the orchestra in 1941, only to re-form an even larger one later in the year. The latter group featured Hot Lips Page along with Auld and Guarnieri. After Pearl Harbor, Shaw
enlisted and led a Navy band (unfortunately unrecorded) before getting a
medical discharge in February 1944. Later in the year, his new
orchestra featured Roy Eldridge, Dodo Marmarosa, and Barney Kessel, and found Shaw's own style becoming quite modern, almost boppish. But, with the end of the swing era, Shaw
again broke up his band in early 1946 and was semi-retired for several
years, playing classical music as much as jazz.
During much of her early career she had been noted for singing and recording novelty songs. Her status rose dramatically in the 1950s when jazz impresario Norman Granz became
her manager. From 1956 to 1964 she recorded a 19-volume series of
“songbooks,” in which she interpreted nearly 250 outstanding songs by Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Johnny Mercer.
This material, combined with the best jazz instrumental support,
clearly demonstrated Fitzgerald’s remarkable interpretative skills.
Although her diction
was excellent, her rendition of lyrics was intuitive rather than
studied. For many years the star attraction of Granz’s Jazz at the
Philharmonic concert tours, she was also one of the best-selling jazz
vocal recording artists in history. She appeared in films (notably Pete Kelly’s Blues
in 1955), on television, and in concert halls throughout the world. She
also recorded a number of live concert albums and produced a notable
duet version of Porgy and Bess (1957) with Armstrong. During
the 1970s she began to experience serious health problems, but she
continued to perform periodically, even after heart surgery in 1986,
until about 1993.
Sinatra himself disagreed. In a famous interview with Arlene
Francis in 1977, Sinatra credits Dorsey with teaching him how and when
to breathe for maximum effect. Adele Girard Marsala, who worked
occasional dates with Dorsey and Sinatra, told me much the same thing in
a 1993 interview. "Frank's phrasing was definitely influenced by Tommy
Dorsey," she told me. "I never had any love for Tommy Dorsey, but it's
a good thing Frank joined him when he did. Dorsey was the smoothest
player in the business, and after falling under his influence, Sinatra
became the smoothest singer."
Despite coming up in the jazz world and spending his life around jazz musicians, Charlie Spivak
rarely improvised and was most notable for his pretty tone. He moved to
the U.S. with his family as a small child and grew up in New Haven, CT.
Spivak
began playing trumpet when he was ten, gigged locally as a teenager,
and worked with Don Cavallaro's Orchestra. During most of 1924-1930 he
was with Paul Specht's Orchestra, primarily playing section parts where his tone was an asset. Spivak was cast in the same role with Ben Pollack (1931-1934), the Dorsey Brothers (1934-1935), and Ray Noble. He worked in the studios during most of 1936-1937 and then had stints with the orchestras of Bob Crosby, Tommy Dorsey, and Jack Teagarden. Spivak formed his own band in November 1939 (financed by Glenn Miller) and, although his first orchestra failed within a year, his second attempt shortly after was more successful; in fact, Spivak became a major attraction throughout the '40s and he kept his band together until 1959.
Clinton was born in Brooklyn, New York.
He became a versatile musician, playing trumpet, trombone, and
clarinet. While in his twenties, he became a prolific arranger for dance
orchestras; bandleaders Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Glen Gray, Louis Armstrong, and Bunny Berigan all used Larry Clinton charts.
Clinton's band was predominantly a recording group that also played
college proms and hotel ballrooms. On the strength of Clinton's record
hit "The Dipsy Doodle," Vitaphone and Paramount Pictures signed the band to star in three 10-minute theatrical films. All were filmed in New York.
