Artie Shaw discusses the term 'editor' in relation to jazz performance

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Artie Shaw on how it feels to perform after a long period away

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Artie Shaw discusses his musical legacy and its imfluence on his return to the spotlight

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Q: “As a bandleader, you once referred to yourself – or perhaps more than once – as an ‘editor’. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone ever use that particular phrase before…”

A: “Well, you know, it's funny. I had a situation yesterday with my band. We're doing an arrangement written by a guy named Hal Crooke of Ellington's 'I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart' and it's a very dense, modern arrangement. Today, '85, '86. As the guys say it's pretty good for 1992. We rehearsed the thing. Well we'd been playing it and I said to the guys “The second jazz chorus, it's too thick. There is too much going on." The basic point of this is if you want a jazz solo, the instrument is playing the solo and the rhythm section is behind him. Now, anything you add, be very careful. Push him, don't pull him back. Don't cover him. Don't hide him. Don't obscure him. All right, this solo course is so beset by brass and reeds and trombones that it got too turgid, too dense and I kept saying to Dick, "We're going to get together and fix that because I want to record it."

“So we get up there on the stand yesterday we're rehearsing getting a sound check in the room, which just opened yesterday at the Royal York and I said to Dick, "Let's take that one course that has been bothering me." Now, every guy in the band had an opinion of how it should be done and why it should be the way it was and Hal Crooke said, "If you play it slowly, a slower tempo, it won't be that dense." I said, "Look, you've got a guy playing a solo. I can't hear him. and he can't hear himself, so let us play this over and I'll tell you what to cut." So we played two bars and a half or three and we come to a punctuation. That's enough, leave it, go. Drop out the rest of the four, five, six, seven bars. We did this over and over, and the guys are very, very chagrined because they liked the piece. They liked playing it. I said, "Fellows, trust me." And you know, guys yelling, "No!" This that and the other, "Hey, look." I said, "Fellows, there's a president here. I'm president." So they said, "Aye, aye, sir." "You can bet your ass I'm president."

“Well, we did it that way. Last night, they all come at me saying, "Hey, man. Yeah, it sounds good." I said, "You know, now, you got somewhere to go from there.” You can't start a crescendo at top volume. You've got to start low. Otherwise, where are going? And you can't build something if it's all built ahead of you, so that's the kind of thing you do. That's editing. Just as a newspaper editor has a policy. Now, you can be one of the most brilliant reporters in the world, but if you bring something that is at variance with the policy, he's going to change it. He's going to fix it. Why? Because he's looking for the overall feel. As I said to these guys, "Hal Crooke makes one arrangement. This is Artie Shaw and his orchestra. Nobody is going to blame Hal Crooke. They're going to blame me and they're going to give me the credit. I'll take the credit if I also take the rap. I'm entitled to both." So that's how it works. That is editing.”