1945 Spotlight Bands Broadcasts

7,00

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The 32 tunes (71 min.) are released on CD here for the first time. The music consists of five radio broadcasts from shows performed for the U.S. Armed Forces at California military bases in 1945. The band heard here was formed by Artie Shaw for one year (1945), and included star trumpet player Roy Eldridge plus a young Dodo Marmorosa on piano and Barney Kessel on guitar. The musical style is big band swing jazz, including four Artie Shaw original compositions, some standards and some lesser-known tunes. The band as a whole also turns in a great performance, not least of all because of Artie Shaw's insistence on musicianship of the highest order. Another highlight of the CD are the five tunes with the Gramercy Five, Shaw's band-within-a-band. Aside from all the exciting, tight, swinging music, this CD is important because it consists of Artie Shaw's last