RTS 4225
Made in the UK by Nimbus Records
Released under exclusive licence by Wyastone Estate Limited
ww.retrospective-records.co.uk

2CDs Total playing time: 2 hours 38 mins

Musicians include: Buddy De Franco, Roy Eldridge, Maynard Ferguson, Barney Kessel, Dodo Marmarosa, Billy May, Spud Murphy, Tommy Pederson, Doc Severinsen, Charlie Shavers, Clark Terry, Claude Williamson Disc One (1939-1940)

In accordance with EU Law (I think and hope I am only kidding) any mention of Charlie Barnet must, on pain of heavy fines, be clearly prefaced by a reminder that he was born rich into a banking family, never had to work, loved to make good music and gave Ronnie Scott the opportunity to advise that anyone wanting to make a milllion bucks from running a jazz band should start with two million bucks.

Of special interest to any look back at Barnet is the key role Billy May played in his bands, first as a trumpet player around 1939 and then into 1940 as an arranger.

As Digby Fearweather’s sleeve notes tell, Barnet was unique in the way he juggled playing playboy (with eleven wives) with playing the tenor and alto saxes darned well (he boots on opening track “Cherokee”) and assembling good, swinging big bands. To quote Billy May, who Barnet pretty much imprisioned in the Park Central Hotel to write scores: “He had a remarkable talent for asssembling a band at the drop of a hat – he would take three or four men from a previous band, get some new guys, rehearsed for two or three days and when he went out he’d have another hard-driving, swinging band”.

Barnet liked playing tribute to the other top bandleaders of the time by borrowing their hits and reworking them, with love and respect into cracking fresh tracks. “The Duke’s Idea”, “The Count’s Idea” and “The Right Idea” were all recorded in autumn 1939 along with an F1-speed version of “Clap Hands Here Comes Charley”.

“Rockin’ in Rhythm” and ”Flying Home” were done in 1940, “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” in 1942, “Drop me Off in Harlem” in 1944 and “Ring Dem Bells” (arranged by Billy May)” in 1940.

Charlie Barnet was adventurous. “Portrait of Edward Kenny Ellington” in 1949 (with Maynard Ferguson and Doc Severinsen in the trumpet section and Eddie Safranski on bass) is an extended (5 mins 23 secs) multifaceted piece. Billy May’s “Wings Over Manhattan” suite from 1940 runs for nearly seven minutes.

Barnet also played a lot of catchy new tunes and equally catchy new arrangements of old tunes, many of which have become swing era earworms. When you play these CDs I’ll wager you’ll hear tracks that jog the memory of tracks you remember previously liking but have forgotten the titles or who played the familiar version. Try Barnet’s take on “Cherokee”, “Midweek Function”, “Southland Shuffle”, “Southern Fried”, “Afternoon of a Moax”, “Blue Juice”, “Pompton Turnpike”, “Redskin Rhumba” and his theme tune “Skyliner”.

I’m sorry to find one track that is missing from the mix here, if only for the title; Barnet’s “Stay Up Stan, the All Night Record Man” from 1939 which honoured New York’s late-night disc jockey Stan Shaw.

Some of the last tracks, from 1949, are decidely be-boppish. Barnet didn’t want to do bop and he later regretted doing it. He regarded the new music as “the death blow to big bands”, but he judged it a necessity if he wanted to go on spending his kids’ inheritance on one of the world’s toughest jobs, keeping a big band in business.

“Claude Reigns” by Manny Albam with five piece trumpet section and Claude Williamson’s breakneck piano solo is a very good example of what dancers hated. The same goes for a tempo-juggling and ear-bending “All the Things you Are” with Maynard Ferguson practising his sky-high tricks. You can just see paying customers covering their ears and vowing ‘never again’.

The puzzlingly titled “Really? (Bop City)”, by Kai Winding arranged by Manny Albam, is another dedicated dance-defier.

These last tracks make a sad end to decades of great music played by a fine string of bands. So I’ll end on a sad bit of related trivia.

After arranging for the best big bands like Charlie Barnet’s, and then top of the tree singers including Frank Sinatra, Billy May made some classic recordings of his own at the Capitol Tower studios. The “Big Fat Brass” album is arguably the most famous amongst musicians. But when top UK session trumpet player Mike Lovatt recreated that classic recording, live with musicians from the Royal College of Music he was shocked to find that the original arrangments for Capitol had been junked. Big Fat can now only be played from new charts made by painstakingingly transcribing the original LP.