Arthur Jacob Arshawsky (1910-2004) was a Jewish New Yorker who grew up in Connecticut. Artie began learning the saxophone when he was 13, and at age 16 he switched to the clarinet and left home to tour with a band. He became a session musician in New York and Cleveland throughout the Thirties.
Artie first gained attention at a Swing concert in New York in 1935, and his band hit the big time with a recording of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine" in 1938. Among the musicians who passed through Artie Shaw’s band were Buddy Rich and Billie Holiday. Artie was the first white bandleader to hire a full-time black female singer to tour the segregated South. That created hostility, and Billie left the band to go solo. Artie’s band became enormously successful, and his playing was recognized as equal to Benny Goodman. Shaw said of Goodman: "Benny Goodman played clarinet. I played music." (Man, that was cold!)
During the war, Artie joined the Navy and toured the Pacific with a band he put together for morale purposes.
”Stardust” has its own genesis. Hoagy Carmichael wrote it in 1927 as a student at Indiana University, but as a ragtime tune. He recorded it later that year with Emil Seidel and the Dorsey Brothers as "Hoagy Carmichael and his Pals", but as a peppy jazz instrumental. The tune attracted only moderate attention, mostly from fellow musicians, a few of whom recorded their own versions.
Mitchell Parish wrote lyrics for the song, based on his own and Carmichael's ideas, and it was published in 1929. A slower version had been recorded in 1928, but the real transformation came in 1930 when Isham Jones recorded it as a sentimental ballad. That was when the dam broke. From that day onward, everybody in the business took a shot at “Stardust”.
This recording starts with Billy Butterfield on trumpet before Artie comes in with his clarinet.
Thanks Publius and Luv for the continuing 1941 Hit Parade. ((HUGS))