Found an old flick on some station, Second Chorus, Fred Astaire and Burgess Meredith cracking wise, Paulette Goddard her usual little knock out self, and I’m not paying attention till I hear a clarinet and it’s Artie Shaw and band, doing Everything is Jumpin’. Such a sound he had, that Artie Shaw. Great stuff. Johnny Guarnieri on piano I recognized, and Nick Fatool on drums. Great Billy Butterfield trumpet solo. It was 1940. Europe going all to hell, Artie at his peak. Selling tens of millions of records, playing big halls, broadcasts, movie appearances, raking in the cash. Married to Lana Turner even. He’d be ducking Japanese bombs in a couple years, and then the Big Band scene imploded after the war. A slew of other wives. But 1940 was the pinnacle, and Artie was already bored. You couldn’t hear it in his playing, though. And he never stopped making great music until he packed it all in for good in 1954 and lived forever, almost.

Artie Shaw with Nick Fatool in Second Chorus. Not much of a movie, really, but everything was jumping in this scene.

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