Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Shaw was a leading swing-era figure and a top-flight clarinetist who demonstrated a great jazz facility when playing either uptempo numbers or ballads. Along with rival Benny Goodman, Shaw was known for racially integrating his bands in the 1940s, utilizing the talents of Billie Holiday and Roy Eldridge, among others.
Born May 23, 1910, in New York, Shaw grew up in New Haven, Conn., where he got his start playing in dance bands during the '20s. The latter part of the '20s saw him playing in Cleveland, Chicago and New York, acting as a music director, arranging, jamming and discovering the music of Debussy and Stravinsky. It was in New York that he started working as a freelance studio musician, and in 1936 formed his first band, made up of a string quartet, three rhythm and clarinet. They performed a hit concert, playing Shaw's "Interlude In B Flat." Adding a trombone, sax, singer and two trumpets, Shaw signed a record deal with Brunswick. In 1937, Shaw formed a more conventional swing band, with whom he recorded his first big hit, Cole Porter's "Begin The Beguine," in 1938.
The following year, after making his breakthrough, Shaw left the music scene and moved to Hollywood in 1940, where he worked for films and recorded his next big hit, "Frenesi" (1940, RCA Victor). Later touring with his Gramercy Five band, Shaw made his way back to New York, where he worked until he enlisted in the Navy (1942). After his discharge he formed his best jazz-oriented band, with Eldridge, which featured the hit "Little Jazz" (1945, RCA Victor). He continued to play with his Gramercy Five band after the war, and in 1954, went into retirement.
In 1996, Shaw was elected by the DownBeat Critics into the Down Beat Hall of Fame.
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
