[78-L] Artie Shaw

[Jeff Sultanof]

Red Norvo donated his library to Yale, so it is safe (I intend to go up
there and check out what they have, but apparently Red was another
bandleader who kept everything).

I want to correct what you said about Hefti. That may have been the story he
gave out later on. But I knew and worked with Neal on several publishing
projects, namely a fake book. When Frances Wayne was diagnosed with
inoperable cancer, she wanted to return to Massachusetts to live her
remaining years with her family. Neal was so devastated by her illness that
he moved both of them as quickly as possible. He threw out his own music
because it was meaningless to him; he simply didn't think about it, he was
thinking of Frances. I do remember he had been upset that when "Coral Reef"
was a hit back in 1950, the publisher did not even prepare a lead sheet so
that it could be covered by other bands. But generally, he published his own
music from 1956 on, and it was administered by an honest man for whom he had
wonderful words. Neal was a very commercially-minded man, and was bitter
about other things, but publishing was not one of them.

BTW, as pointed out in Ross Firestone's book, several arrangements credited
to Fletcher were actually finished or completed by Horace Henderson. This
would make a good Masters or Doctoral thesis, because the paper is there at
Yale so that comparisons could be made as to who wrote what.

Jeff

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:30 PM, Geoffrey Wheeler <dialjazz at verizon.net>wrote:

> Jeff, that is really interesting commentary! I’m not in the least
> surprised at what you say about scores being lost. Even institutions
> that have received donations sometimes store them poorly. I was told
> some years ago that Neal Hefti  destroyed most or all of his work
> because he was bitter about the way he felt he had been treated. Hefti
> was another great arranger, as was Ernie Wilkens. I’ve had the pleasure
> of hearing his Danish band perform a number of his arrangements. I also
> have several of his European LP recordings.
>
> One thing that irks me are jazz critics who unthinkingly claim Goodman
> used Fletcher Henderson arrangements “as is” that Henderson had
> previously recorded. Of all the extant air check recordings of
> Goodman’s band performing on the Let’s Dance program, only a small
> number were Henderson arrangements. As you say, Spud Murphy was
> Goodman’s principal arranger at the time. I’ve often wondered what
> happened to all the wonderful arrangements a young Eddie Sauter did for
> Red Norvo’s band. I Love the sound and feel of that band!
> Geoffrey Wheeler
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