Charlie Barnet came from a
wealthy family. His parents had hoped that their son would become a lawyer. However
the free spirited Barnet, at just 16 years of age, led his own band on a
transatlantic ocean liner crossing the ocean 22 times and later went to the
South Seas and Latin America. Barnet
first became well known in jazz circles as a leader of a band that played
the Paramount Hotel in NYC in 1932. His fame also spread as a soloist on
several Red Norvo Octet sides in 1934 including “The Night Is Blue” which
also featured Teddy Wilson, Artie Shaw and others. Although Benny Goodman
may lay claim as having the first racially integrated
touring
jazz group, with his trio (and quartet) a few years later, this session
helped break down racial barriers and was an example of what was to come for
Wilson, Shaw, and Barnet. Wilson joined forces with Benny Goodman the
following year and Shaw and Barnet were among the first white big bandleaders to
spotlight African American stars. Barnet featured Lena Horn extensively in
1941 and later Roy Eldridge, Oscar Pettiford, Peanuts Holland and others.
The Barnet big band of 1939 to 1941 was his
most well known and highly swinging outfit. The group's greatest commercial
hit was Cherokee
and a spin off of the song called
Redskin Rhumba.
Although the former has often been confused and quoted as the Barnet theme
song, it was actually Redskin
Rhumba that was used as the
band's identifying song. Both Billy May and Barnet (sometimes under the name
Dale Bennett) contributed many fine songs and arrangements to this bands
repertoire. Billy May can be heard soloing with the Barnet band on trumpet
often but Bobby Burnet was also a force on the instrument in the brass
section. At various times Barnet employed the likes of such notable sidemen
and vocalists as guitarist Bus Etri; drummer Cliff Leeman; pianist Dodo
Marmarosa; clarinetist Buddy DeFranco; guitarist Barney Kessel; and singers
Lena Horne, Francis Wayne, and Kay Starr.
Charlie Barnet was an outspoken fan of both
Duke Ellington and
Count Basie
giving his tip of the hat to the two in titles like
The Count’s Idea
and The Dukes Idea.
Charlie was mainly a tenor player, forming his style out of the Coleman
Hawkins school, but also played alto and soprano sax, his style on the
former influenced by Ellington’s alto man Johnny Hodges. Listen to his cover
of the Ellington tune The Gal
From Joe’s for a fine example
of Barnet emulating the style of Johnny Hodges.
So
good was Barnet’s rapport with
Count Basie
that the Count was one of the first to lend his charts to Barnet after the
group lost all of their own arrangements (and instruments) in a hotel fire
at the Palomar Ballroom on October 2nd, 1939.[see footnote 1] Not one
to let things get him down; on October 9th, seven days after the incident,
his band recorded the tune Are We
Burnt Up. The record was never
commercially released ...at least not in that form. A few years later with
the ensemble chorus of “are we burnt up, oh Palomar, oh Palomar…” taken out,
the record was released and became a hit as a straight swinging instrumental
called Leapin At The Lincoln.
Barnet never recorded music or wrote
tunes with much commercial aspiration and he denounced what Downbeat
Magazine called “corn” or syrupy, schmaltzy, sweet music. His obvious sentiments regarding the subject can be heard on the hilarious lambasting of this style called
The Wrong Idea, written by Billy May.
In another song Barnet incorporated his nickname “The Mab” or sometimes “The
Wild Mab.” Wild Mab Of The Fish
Pond was so named after the
loose Barnet band took an unscheduled, impromptu, inebriated dip in a hotel
fountain. “Wild Mab” for Charlie Barnet and “The Fish Pond” code for the
hotel fountain.
Charlie Barnet’s life reflected the color
and looseness of his recordings and bands. He was married at least six
times, often making newspaper headlines, and was one of the most talked
about figures in jazz in the late 1930s and early 1940s. While his 1944
recording Skyliner
became another big hit, his popularity and orchestras never achieved the
same public acceptance or high level of output as between the years 1939 and
1941.
Charlie Barnet’s recording affiliations
included; MELOTONE
in 1933, BLUEBIRD
from '34-'42, DECCA
from 1942-46, APPOLLO
1946-47, CAPITOL
1949-50, ABBEY
in 1952, CLEFF-VERVE
1953-57, EVEREST
1958-59, CROWN
1960, HEP
1966, CREATIVE WORLD
1967. Barnet fronted an 18 piece band that recorded live at Basin Street
East in 1966 for HEP.
His last album, Big Band '67,
was recorded in 1967 with a 19-piece band for the
CREATIVE WORLD
label. |