Klarinet Archive - Posting 000154.txt from 2008/10

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Moving away from Shep Fields to something really awful
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:07:25 -0400

Now it is time to move on to something particularly bad. It was a band from
the 30s and early 40s managed by a clarinet player named "Ted Lewis." He
came out with a top hat and tipping it to the audience, he would say, "Is
Everybody Happy???" I always thought that the Dixieland clarinetist Frank
Teschmacher had the ugliest sound of anyone I ever heard until I heard Ted
Lewis. Shep Fields was like the NY Philharmonic next to Ted Lewis' band.

Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Hausmann" <bhausmann1@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: [kl] Shep Fields (formerly "The spelling of the word:"
(formerly "The Boy Friend"))

> At 04:33 PM 10/28/2008, you wrote:
>
>
>> > This analysis plus the glorious one I did on "Shep Fields and His
>> > Rippling
>> > Rhythm" is without charge. In about a year when my book on the gran
>> > Partitta is out, that will cost money. So read it for free here or pay
>> > for
>> > it in the future, at which point the young people of that era will
>> > presume
>> > that all of us were a bunch of idiots.
>> >
>>
>>I have to say that the whole "Shep Fields" exchange has resulted in an
>>unseemly amount of giggling on my part.
>
> Have any of you ever heard Shep Fields' OTHER band? His "Rippling Rhythm"
> band really was the stuff of jokes, but for a time in the 40's, he ditched
> that sound and created an entirely different band, Shep Fields and his New
> Music. It consisted of ALL woodwind players plus rhythm (no brass)
> doubling on a total of 35 instruments from piccolo to bass sax, even an
> alto flute, and TEN clarinets (plus 3 bass clarinets). They made some
> really nice sounds, but of course, during the war, it was very difficult
> to find doubling musicians who could play the challenging book (and yes,
> he did employ Sid Ceasar for a while). Besides, no accounting for taste,
> folks kept clammering for his old rippling rhythm sound, so he gave up his
> musical group in 1947 and made a good living playing rickey-tick instead.
> According to George P. Simon, long time Metronome magazine writer and
> editor, and author of "The Big Bands":
>
> "For Fields, who died in February, 1981, of a heart attack, his fondest
> memories centered about that multi-reed band. With great pride he noted
> that famed musical arranger and educator Joseph Schillinger once described
> it as 'one of the most colorful bands ever assembled. And for a guy who
> had sold corn almost all of his life, that was certainly my biggest
> thrill!'"
>
> (See? Fields was in on the joke. He KNEW it was corn, but it was
> LUCRATIVE corn, sort of like Kenny G.)
>
>
>
>
> Bill Hausmann
>
> If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>

------------------------------------------------------------------