Personnel:
Artie Shaw (cl, dir), Don Paladino, Don Fagerquist, Dale Pierce, Vic Ford (tp), Sonny Russo, Fred Zito, Ange Callea, Porky Cohen (tb), Herb Steward, Frank Socolow (as), Al Cohn, Zoot Sims (ts), Danny Bank (bs), Gil Barrios (p), Jimmy Raney (g), Dick Niveson (b), Irv Kluger (d), Johnny Mandel, Tadd Dameron, Gene Roland, George Russell (arr)
Reference: FSRCD 397
Bar code: 8427328603973
In 1949, just before he was about to start yet another big band, Artie Shaw made the following statement: "We'll find an identity. Perhaps it would be fairer to say I'll find one. Sooner or later all bands that stick find an identity, and find it through their leader. All the sounds -the creative arrangements, the pop tunes and the originals - must be channelized through the leader."
And on September 14, 1949 Artie Shaw was back on the bandstand, opening at Symphony Hall, Boston. The band's book contained both old and new material, and it was the first time Shaw had gone on the road with a band for many years. The 1949 band features a mixture of numbers associated with the Shaw bands of the early 40's and some in a more modern vein from new writers/arrangers such as Tadd Dameron, Johnny Mandel, Gene Roland and George Russell, with the more exotic Latin sounds coming from the pen of John Bartee.
