Special Delivery Stomp
Summit Ridge Drive
Keepin’ Myself for You
Cross Your Heart
Dr Livingstone, I Presume
When the Quail Come Back to San Quentin
My Blue Heaven
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
The Grabtown Grapple
The Sad Sack
Scuttlebutt
The Gentle Grifter
Mysterioso
Hop, Skip and Jump
That Old Feeling
Besame mucho
I’ve got a Crush On You
Sunny Side Up
Autumn Leaves
Tenderly
The Pied Piper Theme
Imagination
Don’t Take Your Love From Me
Stop and Go Mambo
I can’t get started
Lyric
Lugubrious
My Funny Valentine
Too Marvellous For Words
Yesterdays
September Song
Frenesi
Dancing in the Dark
Back Bay Shuffle
Stardust
Begin the Beguine
Devoted entirely to the various
Gramercy Fives that Shaw led, this two CD
set triumphantly reinforces his virtuosity,
imagination and flexibility. It’s a useful
way to consider the bulk of these small band
recordings since compilations tend to concentrate
on the Big Band discs and to confine the Gramercys
to the earlier 1940 sides – those startling
chamber jazz sessions with harpsichord. Here,
in the round, we see Shaw moving from the
antique titillation of that unusual keyboard
(not unique – people such as Meade Lux Lewis
had recorded on harpsichord or celeste) through
to the bop-tinged later sessions and some
topical Latin-American music.
The list of musical companions
is a strong one, from Roy Eldridge, Hank Jones,
Dodo Marmarosa, Johnny Guarnieri, Billy Butterfield,
Barney Kessel and a number of other equally
powerful players. The standards are universally
high and the level of musical consistency
– often overlooked – quite phenomenal. Coming
back to the earlier tracks it occurred to
me that Billy Butterfield modelled his playing
far more on that of Muggsy Spanier than I’d
remembered and that the leader himself had
listened as closely to Jimmie Noone as had
his rival Benny Goodman, though Noone’s influence
on Goodman was always the more pronounced.
The 1940 Gramercy Fives are deservedly renowned
even when injecting a note of spurious boogie-woogie
(Cross your Heart) or when Shaw
shows off some klezmer and drum colour in
the otherwise straightforward Dr Livingstone,
I Presume. Shaw was always a master of
the detail of these kinds of songs; he slips
in classical trills and introductions and
endings of almost operatic panache, but always
tightly argued and witty, never portentous.
The arrangement of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
for instance is especially effective with
the melodic statements given to instruments
in turn – a real lyric democracy in action.
The 1945 sessions are all-Shaw compositions
and see Eldridge playing a contained, highly
effective lead full of rich tone and fine
ideas. The 1953/54 tracks settle into a good,
though not always inspiring groove, but when
the tail’s up the band piles on the fun –
take Besame mucho for some Machito-inspired
fun.
There are some rather vogue-ish
moments – reprises of The Peanut Vendor
(never a good idea, then or now) and
some slapdash quotations from popular songs
– but they’re few indeed. Shaw always sounds
effortlessly up to date, respecting his own
lineage, tonally, whilst open to the new sounds
rhythmically and harmonically. The introduction
of vibes only added to the sense of currency
and the tight swing engendered by the later
band is in its own way just as apt as the
early Gramercy exhilaration.
Once again this Living Era
two CD set lives up to its high standards
in documentation and transfer quality – these
seem to be a feature of the series and the
compilers are to be congratulated. Not everyone
does this. In every way this is a splendid
set.
Jonathan Woolf
Devoted to the Shaw-led Gramercy
Fives, this triumphantly reinforces their
virtuosity, imagination and flexibility. ...
see Full Review
CD Reviews
LIVING ERA CD AJS 2007 [74.59 + 70.09]
