In my opinion, the most romantic track in all of jazz also has the word ‘dust’ in the title. Let me explain.
It all began in the 1920s with a Midwesterner, Hoagy (short for ‘Hoagland’) Howard Carmichael, who financed his law studies by playing jazz piano, often working with Bix Beiderbecke. Carmichael’s subsequent legal career was quickly terminated by his talent to write memorable melodies (among them: ‘Riverboat Shuffle’, ‘Georgia On My Mind’, ‘The Nearness Of You’, ‘Lazybones’, ‘Skylark’, ‘Baltimore Oriole’, ‘Rockin’ Chair’) each one adopted by jazz musicians and turned into standards.
But Carmichael’s most stupendous achievement was ‘Star Dust’ (two words, actually, if you check the original sheet music) written in 1927, inspired by the heartbreak of a failed love affair. The sensual unfolding of the gorgeous melody prompted envious rivals to murmur that he’d nicked it from a Beiderbecke improvisation, an allegation unsupported by any evidence. The appropriate lyric was added two years later by Mitchell Parrish.
‘Star Dust’ has a sophisticated melody that transcended the sentimental ditties of the day and became into a monster hit. Sheet music sales were unprecedented. Top bands and vocalists rushed to cover it. If Mrs Mitchell Parrish was present in a night club and the band struck up the tune, she’d shamelessly stand up and indicate to the rest of the patrons that her full-length mink coat was the result of ‘Star Dust’ royalties. Wikipedia currently estimates that there are upwards of 1,500 different recordings. Absent from nearly all recordings is the rarely played or sung verse, an equally elegant melody. However, in classic recordings, Louis Armstrong sang only the chorus, Nat Cole notably sang verse plus chorus, but Sinatra’s classic version skipped the chorus and featured only the verse.
But who recorded the best ‘Star Dust’ of all? Again, in my opinion, the absolute top treatment, the most romantic recording of ‘Star Dust’ against tough competition from Benny Goodman, Jimmy Lunceford, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey and others, was by Artie Shaw’s 1940 big band. I’m not alone in rooting for Shaw’s version. In 1956, an American Disc Jockey Association (uh-huh, there is such an organisation) poll selected Shaw’s version as their favourite record.
However, here’s a spoiler alert: Shaw’s ‘Star Dust’ contains strings (more precisely, half-a-dozen violins, a couple of violas and a single cello). Some jazz fans don’t like strings in spite of the positive evidence provided by artists like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Art Pepper and many others (in fact, Shaw, while still a studio musician, was an extremely early adopter of strings and, in 1936, enjoyed critical acclaim with his performance of ‘Interlude in Bb’ in a concert at New York City’s Emperial (sic) Theatre with a small group consisting of string quartet plus rhythm). And while we’re forced to share a planet with hardliners who believe that a background of massed strings has no place in jazz, it’s worth remembering that there were diehards who once shared the same feelings about saxophones.
On the other hand, if listeners harbour an irrational prejudice against strings, that’s their loss. Shaw’s ‘Star Dust’ complete with strings bewitched me ever since I first heard it on a beaten-up, lo-fi 78rpm HMV shellac disc. I felt the strings added to the amorous aura of Lenny Hayton’s (for trivia collectors: he was Lena Horne’s husband) masterful arrangement, in all likelihood created in close cahoots with Shaw, the pernickety perfectionist.
Artie Shaw personified 1930s glamour. A superlative clarinettist, he was also an opinionated autodidact, the U.S.A.’s No. 4 marksman, an intellectual novelist equipped with matinee idol looks and the white pin-up boy of the big band era. In an age questionably more judgemental than the current day, his adventures off the bandstand provided abundant fodder for ravenous gossip columnists. Among Shaw’s numerous relationships were movie queens Judy Garland, Betty Grable and Yvonne de Carlo. Married eight times, his wives including screen goddesses Lana Turner, Ava Gardner and Evelyn Keyes; Jerome Kern’s daughter Betty, and best-selling author of ‘Forever Amber’, novelist Kathleen Winsor. Asked by a journalist: “why do you marry so many beautiful women?”, he replied “do you want me to marry only ugly ones?” We have to assume he knew something about passion and the fine-tuning of romantic atmospheres.
Star trumpeter Billy Butterfield, fresh out of Bob Crosby’s big band, is assigned the role of stating the theme on open horn at medium fox trot tempo, his first few notes unaccompanied until the four saxophones unroll a deep-pile carpet of sound, handing their sustained voicing onwards to a change of texture as the velvety massed strings caress the bridge before Butterfield returns to complete the final eight bars of the melody. Then a luscious reed interlude before a key-change heralds the maestro’s entrance. From chalumeau to altissimo, Shaw’s tone is a thing of wonder as he soars into a spectacular clarinet solo, a breathtaking ascent to the instrument’s highest register, dramatic and passionate, yet tender (and, it would appear, improvised, because it’s never quite the same on any other recordings or airchecks of ‘Star Dust’). Then, almost as though Shaw’s epic contribution were not enough, trombonist Jack Jenney follows it with a solo of such assurance and technical brilliance that it knocked the socks off almost every working jazz trombonist.
But pause. After the virtuoso fireworks from Butterfield, Shaw and Jenny, we experience a finale of continuous codas that get me every time. I suspect that arranger Hayton had an image of a couple dancing to this recording, totally enamoured, yet reluctantly aware that the music was about to end, the magic spell would soon evaporate and they’d have to draw apart.
For them, Hayton played Cupid and added an extra bonus: after a brief reappearance of Shaw’s clarinet offering an unaccompanied tag, the strings suggest it’s all over, but are interrupted by a further coda from the reeds. Then the strings play a yearning sustained chord that delays the finish, prolonging the mood and allowing the dancers a few more moments wrapped in each other’s arms. Perhaps Hayton was trying to capture the musical equivalent of sprinkled star dust? And should anyone be surprised that Shaw’s version sold over a million copies?
