Broadway Revisited
 (02/16/10): 10-08; February 20, 2010

Play Broadway.

Gypsy overture-- 1; fades under)

Hi, this is Art Hilgart and this is Broadway Revisited, a weekly exploration of the songs and shows, composers and lyricists, and performers who created the American musical theater.

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Bandleaders Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman had a lot in common-- both played the clarinet, both freelanced in the early 'thirties before forming their own bands, and both gained national prominence with their first Victor records. And the reason we're featuring them today is that unlike the other leaders in the big band era, they looked to Broadway for the songs they recorded.

Here are those first hit records. Artie Shaw's was Cole Porter's Begin the Beguine, and Benny Goodman's was Vincent Youmans' Sometimes I'm Happy.

1. Begin The Beguine / Sometimes I'm Happy (Victor) 6:52

Benny Goodman's version of Vincent Youmans' Sometimes I'm Happy was arranged by fellow bandleader Fletcher Henderson. Cole Porter's Begin the Beguine had been ignored for years until Artie Shaw made it a standard.

Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's Very Warm for May was a Broadway flop, but a month before it opened, Shaw saw merit in two of the songs and recorded them with vocals by Helen Forrest.

2. All in Fun / All the Things You Are (Victor) 5:04

Benny Goodman didn't just play Broadway songs-- he was in two Broadway shows. His first was the all-star jazz version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the second was Seven Lively Arts. Here are two of the Cole Porter songs he performed on stage.

3. Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye / Only Another Boy And Girl (Columbia) 6:26

Peggy Mann sang those Cole Porter songs from Seven Lively Arts with the Benny Goodman Sextet.

Before Artie Shaw quit leading a big band, in the mid 'forties, he recorded eight more Cole Porter songs. Here are two of them, with vocals by Mel Tormé and Kitty Kallen.

4. Get Out Of Town / My Heart Belongs To Daddy (Musicraft) 6:16

The vocalists on those Artie Shaw Cole Porter records were Mel Tormé and Kitty Kallen.

Both Shaw and Goodman were also movie stars in the big band era. In Second Chorus, Shaw's co-star was Fred Astaire. From the soundtrack, here they are.

5. Love of My Life (Paramount) 1:58

We heard Fred Astaire and Artie Shaw in a Johnny Mercer song they performed in Second Chorus.

Astaire didn't sing with Benny Goodman on film, but they recorded together. Like all of today's selections, it was a two-sided 78 rpm single. One side had a Gershwin song and the other side was this song written by Astaire himself.

6. Just Like Taking Candy From A Baby (Columbia) 2:46

That was Fred Astaire singing and dancing with Benny Goodman. Here's another Artie Shaw recording of a Cole Porter song. It's about Fifty-second Street in New York, which was lined on both sides with bars featuring the best jazz musicians of the period.

7. When Love Beckoned (Victor) 3:12

Helen Forrest was the singer on that Shaw record of a song from Cole Porter's Du Barry Was a Lady. Peggy Lee got her start singing with the Benny Goodman band. Here she is with two songs from Broadway.

8. On The Sunny Side Of The Street / Not A Care In The World (Columbia) 6:31

On those Benny Goodman records, Peggy Lee sang On The Sunny Side Of The Street, written by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh for International Review, and Not A Care In The World, a Vernon Duke and John La Touche song from Banjo Eyes.

Artie Shaw didn't get Gloomy Sunday from Broadway, but from Budapest cabaret. His recording of the famous Hungarian suicide song was the first in America.

9. Gloomy Sunday (Victor) 3:39

Pauline Byrne had the vocal on that Artie Shaw record, and William Grant Still wrote the arrangement. Here are Benny Goodman and Rosemary Clooney with another lament of lost love, but one not as desperate as in Gloomy Sunday.

10. Memories Of You (Columbia) 3:34

Rosemary Clooney sang that Eubie Blake and Andy Razaf song from Blackbirds with the Benny Goodman Trio. Artie Shaw also had a small group in his big band. He called it the Gramercy Five, after the telephone exchange. Here they play another Vincent Youmans song from Hit the Deck.

11. Keepin' Myself For You (Victor) 3:14

We began the hour with a two songs without vocals, as we're ending it. In 1930, Benny Goodman was in the Broadway pit band that first played I Got Rhythm, in George and Ira Gershwin's Girl Crazy, and for the rest of his life it was the song he played most often. Here's one of his records of it.

12. I Got Rhythm (Columbia) 2:45

On that Benny Goodman Sextet recording, we heard Red Norvo on vibes, Slam Stewart on bowed bass, and Mel Powell on piano.

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I hope you enjoyed this hour with Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman and that you'll join us again next week for another Broadway Revisited. National distribution is funded by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it's produced with our engineer, Martin Klemm, in the WMUK studios of Western Michigan University. Our website with playlists, program schedules, and stuff is broadwayrevisited.com, and our e-mail address is Art@broadwayrevisited.com. And I'm Art Hilgart.

Total music: 53:09; Estimated talking: 5:05; Intro/outro: :30; Estimated total: 58:44.

Promo (13): Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman liked to play Broadway songs and this week we'll hear over a dozen of them on Broadway Revisited, when Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman play Broadway.