Customer Reviews

Self Portrait

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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.

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.

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!

Artie Shaw is a genius. That fact is obvious from this recording. First, the music on these cd's is wonderful. But I loved this set most because it shows the full range of Mr. Shaw's talent and creative thinking. Some of the cuts are not my cup of tea but then this is a five cd set. Nevertheless, each selection which Mr. Shaw chose is there so that we can understand his evolution...his story. For example, there are four versions of Stardust: His big hit from ca. 1939 and another very different and wide open arrangement from a 1938 radio show, and then another by his amazing 1949 band, and finally one by the Grammercy Five recorded in the 1950's. They are all great. These cuts and all of the rest tell an interesting and beautiful musical story. This is especially true when Mr. Shaw's lucid commentary is read along with one's listening. This collection is expensive but well worth it.

Artie Shaw has always been an enigma. Although he was the undisputed king of swing jazz at the height of his career, he walked away from it all, saying he was so much of a perfectionist that he'd kill himself if he stayed in the business. A writer and performer of "popular" music, his sounds have a haunting quality that goes way beyond conventional tastes. A notorious womanizer in his day, he's implied on several occasions that the one love of his life, the clarinet, was herself a fickle mistress: sometimes she played for him perfectly, usually she didn't. Shaw is a complex man who made complex and beautiful music.

Now he's put together a wonderful collection of his best music, pieces he himself has selected. The collection is especially precious since it's the last one the 90+ year old Shaw is likely to make.

Shaw's not only picked the tunes he's best known for; he's also picked the best recordings of the best tunes. Especially welcome are the live recordings he includes in the collection, including one of Billie Holiday. "Concerto for Clarinet" is breathtaking. The cadenzas Shaw gives us in piece after piece alone would make the collection memorable. And if you think you've heard "Begin the Beguin" before, think again! This version is like nothing you've met with before!

A marvelous collection. Thanks, Artie! You're still the best!

Until someone remasters everything Shaw ever recorded -- intentionally or not --, this will be the definitive box set. A masterful re-presentation of the music so wide and deep, it is truly like hearing it for the first time. ("I Cover the Waterfront" has never sounded so beautiful & overwhelming.) Almost all the sound from the great 1949 Shaw Band is here, as are the best sides of "The Last Recordings". The only problem is the packaging. The 5 CDs come in individual cheap sleeves and the disks are VERY hard to slide out. In fact, it's impossible to get one out without fingerprinting the disk.

But once it's in your player -- heaven.

Artie Shaw is,without a doubt one of the best clarinetists of the swing era.His timeless beautiful music will live forever.The classics like "Begin the Beguine" is what really launched his hugely successful career.I am particulary fond of his song "Frenesi" whose clarinet sounds so sweet and lush with a full accompaniment of equally sweet sounding stringed instruments.Once you've listened to the songs by Artie Shaw,you're hooked for life.Bandleaders like him are certainly in a league by themselves that know how to play beautiful music.An excellent collection that any serious Big Band collector
should have!

I have always loved "big band" music. I believe it has a lot to do with the actual sound. By that I mean its archival, low-fi quality. Sadly one of the all-time greats is now gone. It would have been an incredible experience to watch masters like Shaw, Miller, and Goodman do their thing. Of all the releases put out with Shaw's name on it, this has to rank among the best, if it isn't the best already. It is loaded with dozens of classics and it comes in a cool little box. It's also available in a pared-down single highlight disc, but you don't want that. You want this one.

When I heard on December 30th, 2004 that Artie Shaw (AS) died at the age of 94 and that he was the last of the four top leaders of the big band era, that included Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey, and as a long time fan of big bands, I immediately agreed and decided to go online and learn more about AS.

His first big hit, Begin the Beguine, came out in 1938 a few month before I was born. But I never really knew about him until my clarinet-playing junior high neighbor chum played some of his dad's AS 78s for me. His favorite, Traffic Jam, became one of mine. In more recent times I picked up some cassette tapes that were re-issues of AS hit recordings. In addition to those, I have a lot of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Stan Kenton, nearly all of Glenn Miller, and lots more.

I'm a French horn player in community concert bands and orchestras and a brass quintet. In high school I had a mediocre four-piece dance combo in which I played my French horn. In college I had an 8-piece Dixieland combo at the frat house that I organized and led.

So much for my background. I'm listening to Disc 3 of the 5-CD set right now. It's my second time through the set. I'm hearing things I didn't hear the first time. This set includes about 95 recordings that were chosen for inclusion by AS when he had just turned 91 but still had his full mental capability. It's called "self-portrait" because he chose only those selections that would put his best foot forward. And he chose the best of the available versions, giving preference to the live broadcasts over the studio recordings, for reasons you can learn by reading the great booklet.

The latter lists all the credits and includes a detailed discography and a narrative by AS, with comments intermixed from a long-time close friend and admirer of AS's who is a trumpeter and music historian. It's great reading for any fan of the big band era. I read most of the AS obituaries on the Internet. (That's how I learned about the 5-CD set.) Each had a different slant. Reading the booklet gave me yet another slant on AS and a better feel for the big band era and his playing. AS was an innovator besides being a great leader and performer. While these recordings cover the period from 1937 to 1954, the quality is quite good compared to a lot of the other big band recordings available for the big bands of that period.

I plan to share my views on AS and this set with my clarinet-playing friends, which is why I decided to write this review. I think it is significant that AS participated in the compiling and the production of this set. That is what sets it apart from similar compilations, such as "The Complete ___" and "The Best of ____" sets. While Benny Goodman lived a pretty full life, I don't think he ever participated in any project like this. And with Glenn Miller disappearing in his forties and Tommy Dorsey's dying in his fifties, they had no opportunity to do a "self portrait" either.

The last thing I'll comment on is what I consider to be the biggest reward of owning and listening the this set. It's hearing AS play the clarinet over a period of about 17 years and reading, in the booklet, about the feedback he received on his playing from Benny Goodman and some leading classical players who have contacted him. He was really good! He gave it up at the young age of 44 in 1954, saying things like he went as far as he could with it, and that he couldn't play it like he would like to. My wife heard on the radio that he may have had a problem with his teeth. Maybe so. In the booklet he mentions a dental problem in 1949 that caused him to dub a recording.

If you like big band or play the clarinet, and even if you already own some AS recordings, get this set. You wont be sorry. If you know a big band fan or a clarinet player you might consider getting this to give as a gift.

Last but not least, disc 5 is all Gramercy 5 tracks, 12 of them, that are about double the length of most of the rest of the tracks. For the most part all of the selections are in chronological order. Enjoy!

For my birthday I requested this delightful cd set. What a great gift. Everything about it is terrific. Of course the music is wonderful to listen to, but the booklet that is enclosed with the cds is a wealth of information for music historians such as myself. I also like how it is all packaged. Believe me I keep this one away from my three year old.
As a clarinetist I am blown away by Artie's ability to play the same pieces in such different ways.
Thanks Artie!