Self Portrait [Box set, Original recording remastered]

Artie Shaw | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 23, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 5
• Format: Box set, Original recording remastered
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B00005PJBJ
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #216,424 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Artie Shaw -- A Treasure Chest for Fans!!!, November 27, 2001

By 

F. Barton "Forrest W. Barton" (Newport, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Self Portrait (Audio CD)

This is one box set that is worth the money!!! FIVE CDs, crammed full of the BEST of Artie Shaw, covering his entire career. Yes, every band he ever put on wax, - and every label.

It is a treat to have all the different labels together in this set. Not to mention the tremendous "live" performances that were garnered from Shaw's own personal collection!! Of course, die-hard fans who have bought all the lps and CDs of live material will notice a bit of duplication, but they have never sounded better than here. Also Shaw fans are likely to notice favorite tracks not here, like "The Chant." I sincerely wish that ALL the live radio material could be remastered in this sound. Especially those '50s and '60s lps, that were put on CD in Germany, with an introduction by Artie Shaw. There are new live tracks here as well.

To hear the great remastering is a thrill. The only surviving Billie Holiday vocal with his band "Any Old Time" has never sounded better, along with plenty of Mel Torme and the Meltones. It's about time we hear this fidelity, especially on "Concerto for Clarinet" -- which runs ten minutes and includes his two-octave slide and culminating with a double-high C!!!

Every disc is spectacular, I couldn't pick one as a favorite. The remastering is tops, the liner notes great, with many insights by Artie Shaw. The cost of this set may sting, but you will always have one of the discs on. The "Man from Mars" is a different live version than that included on the "Live in Hi-Fi 1939" disc. I have found very little duplication on the live material, and the sound goes right through you. The piano and saxophones come through like never before, and the selections are fantastic, they were hand-picked by Shaw. Also, if you have not spent a fortune on those German CDs, you are in for a great surprise, as ALL the noise is filtered out, while bringing the band to the greatest fidelity I've ever heard.

Lots of box sets have great packaging, and so-so CDs. Here the packaging could have been better, but the music, liner notes and documentation could not. A must have for any fan of Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dazzling.... A rich legacy from a giant of American music, January 30, 2005

By 

Ken Lawson (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Self Portrait (Audio CD)

There was no one like Artie Shaw and, throughout the Swing Era and beyond, there were no sounds like those that emanated from the succession of orchestras and small groups he led. As a clarinetist, Shaw was in a class by himself - his approach to music was far different from that of his contemporaries, Benny Goodman and Woody Herman. And Shaw's bands, which he led from 1936 until 1954, were equally distinctive.

Shaw's battles with celebrity and the music business are well documented. After a meteoric rise to fame, repeated success with material that bored him and a string of temporary retirements from the performing life, Shaw walked away for good at 44 - at the pinnacle of his musical and creative powers.

He lived for exactly half a century after that, dedicating himself to other passions (with varying degrees of success) and occasionally reflecting on his career and accomplishments as a musician. Although he never played the clarinet again, Shaw made peace with the idea that he'd added a unique and lasting contribution to American music and popular culture. This 5-CD collection represents Shaw's attempt, a few years before the end of his long life, to showcase that contribution in a way that would reconcile with his legendary perfectionism.

Conceived and issued in 2001 with Shaw's full involvement and collaboration, "Self-Portrait" brings together performances by every one of his recorded bands, and provides listeners with a comprehensive overview of his musical career. The 95 selections were personally chosen by Shaw and assembled as "a summing-up, a retrospective of what I consider my best work regardless of label, an overview of my entire career an clarinetist-bandleader." In every way, they amount to a collection that is as unusual, eccentric and irreplaceable as Shaw himself.

Of course the set includes Shaw's timeless signature recordings: "Beguine the Beguine," "Frenesi," "Stardust," "Summit Ridge Drive" and others, which are by all standards models not only of the band he was leading at the moment, but of the musical genre of their type. Conspicuously and deliberately missing, though, are the dozens of Roman-candle pop tunes, mostly vocals, that Shaw was forced by his record company to wax for commercial reasons. (His popular collaboration with singer Helen Forrest is completely absent.) The few vocals that are included here stand as milestone recordings, with singers like Billie Holiday, Hot Lips Page and Mel Torme.

Shaw makes his strong presence in this project felt by including exciting, little-known band performances from live radio broadcasts, which he thought often came closer to capturing his musical intent at the time. You'll hear an entirely different level of energy, drive and excitement in these selections. And you'll hear his band members (and Shaw himself) taking musical risks they would not have taken in the studio, where pressure loomed to cut a record by completing a perfect take.

As you work your way through these discs, you'll witness the Swing Era at the height of its jitterbug mania; Shaw's progression to lush, shimmering orchestrations with strings; his small combos later probing the more complex harmonics of early be-bop; an acclaimed, modern-sounding 1949 orchestra that Shaw loved but the public hated; and, finally, some of the most intricate, emotional small-group jazz that Shaw produced with his last band, the final aggregate of his Gramercy Five that delivers you to the doorstep of the contemporary jazz era.

Those career-closing recordings, which went unreleased at the time, captured the musically mature Shaw with progressive young musicians (including Hank Jones and Tal Farlow) in a particularly creative and fertile period. Even now their performances sound astonishingly complex, sophisticated and fresh.

All the selections in this set are threaded, of course, by Shaw's clarinet, which is breathtaking. His ideas are framed with equal measures of imagination and discipline. His tone and style, especially as his career progressed, have a luscious liquid quality that sounds luxurious, dreamy and romantic. Shaw once stated that his approach to the clarinet was less about swing and more about musicianship. These performances bear him out. You'll hear how his solos became increasingly melodic and expressive (check out the different versions of "Stardust," recorded over a 16-year span). By the time of Shaw's final recordings, his playing is exquisitely intimate.

After he quit, Shaw mused that he'd accomplished everything possible with a clarinet. "Anything more would have been less," he said. His pronouncement may seem jarringly arrogant at first, but after listening to these discs and absorbing his many achievements, you get a sense that he was probably right.

If you're at all interested in jazz, the Swing Era, the history of American music or the career arc of a brilliant, restless creative talent, you'll want to own this set. You'll return to it again and again for the abundance of pleasures it holds.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a musical biography, May 27, 2002

By 

Mr. DAVID Geer "Korngold Fan" (Sydney Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Self Portrait (Audio CD)

Shaw had a modern angular style to his playing totally unlike Goodman or any other clarinet player yet as the final tracks demonstrate he could outplay Goodman.

Where do you "begin", the other reviewers have said it all but the short and long is, yes this is like a musical biography, yes there is some repetition if you already have a bit of Shaw on CD.
Would I recommend you go get this?
Yes providing.....
1. You like Shaw & want to hear the best from first to last
2. You don't mind some over bright remastering which seems strange especially on disc 5 covering the 1954 recordings
3. You can spare the time to listen, believe you me you will find it hard to break mid CD but that's what you should do if you can
4. There is a tendency especially on Discs 1 & 2 for the beat to be almost a relentless Swing
5. There is nothing wrong with the packaging, I like it and the booklet is well done
6. You should also consider the 3 CD King of Swing live set as the live stuff on here demonstrates how brilliant this band must have been.
7. The last tracks show Shaw in Goodman form and there are perhaps too many notes (I have never much liked the Gramercy 5)

Some last words from me; you will play these discs time and time again, each time you will marvel at the development from a simply swinging dance band to the 1949 band, add to this the jazz sextet stuff and there you have 5 generous amazing discs. As my father and others said, you danced to Goodman and others but you listened to Shaw! This set is hipnotic!