Artie Shaw’s Gramercy Five – Phantom Dancer

The Gramercy Five was a six-piece small group Artie Shaw formed out of his strongest jazz players. The name was his telephone number.

Big band leaders live Tommy Dorsey (The Clambake 7), Bob Crosby (the Bobcats) and Benny Goodman had their own ‘bands within a band’.

The Gramercy Five was born out of the 19 September 1939 broadcast of the  ‘Melody & Madness’ radio series when Shaw arranged the rhythm section of his orchestra, with his clarinet, to accompany vocal trio, The King Sisters.

The Gramercy Five the formed in 1940 after Shaw had quite band leading, went to Mexico, then returned, was like a jazz chamber orchestra using harpsichord instead of piano.

For Artie Shaw, the sextet was an opportunity for him to stretch out as a clarinettist although his solos were never longer than 16 bars.

The Gramercy 5 featured with the Shaw Orchestra on radio broadcasts and went into the recording studio twelve times between 1940 and 1954

The foriginal line-up had Johnny Guarnieri (harpsichord), Billy Butterfield (trumpet), Artie Shaw (clarinet, arrangement), Al Hendrickson (guitar), Jud DeNaut (bass) and Nick Fatool (drums). 

Shortly before his death in 1988, Billy Butterfield said about working The Gramercy Five :

“It was a great little band. We rehearsed a lot, we worked on it, and every number we played was well prepared before we did it. Artie was a perfectionist , like Benny Goodman. Both were perfectionists. He treated us very well. He once said to me ‘you know, to be a good player you need practice and you always have to live with the horn’.”

SECOND GRAMERCY FIVE 1945

Artie Shaw reassembled the Gramercy Five for Victor records in 1945 with tunes that straddled swing and bebop.

Roy Eldridge (trumpet), Artie Shaw, Dodo Marmarosa (piano), Barney Kessel (guitar), Morris Rayman (bass) and Lou Fromm (drums) recorded the two tracks “The Grabtown Grabble” and “The Sad Sack “.

Commercially, the new recordings were not very successful.

In March 1945, two more titles, “I Was Doing All Right” and ” You Took Advantage of Me ” was recorded for NBC in Hollywood.

Then on July 31 and August 2, 1945, they recorded the track “Scuttlebutt”, two days later “The Gentle Grifter”, “Hop, Skip and Jump” and two takes of “Misterioso”.

THIRD GRAMERCY FIVE 1949 -54

In December 1949 Shaw recorded five radio transcriptions including the standard Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and the Pied Piper Theme with a new Gramercy Five.

The, in January 1950, with a similar line-up, the Gramercy Five recorded “There Must Be Something Better Than Love” ( Dorothy Fields / Morton Gould ) and “Nothin’ from Nothin'” with Mary Ann McCall (vocals) For Decca.

This edition of the Gramercy Five included Don Fagerquist (trumpet), Gil Barrios (piano), Jimmy Raney (guitar), Dick Nivison (bass) and Irv Kluger (drums).

In April, the Five recorded “Crumbum” and  “Sheckomeeko Shuffle” with Fagerquist replaced by Lee Castle , Nivison by Teddy Kotick and Irv Kluger by Dave Williams. They were joined by tenor saxophonist Don Lanphere.

January 1951, Artie Shaw and his Gramercy Five accompanied pop vocalists June Hutton (“My Kinda Love”/”Dancing on the Ceiling”) and Don Cherry (“I Apologize”/”Bring Back the Thrill”) on four tracks.

This band had Stan Freeman (piano), Danny Perri (guitar), Bob Haggart (bass) and Bunny Shawker (drums).

Also for Decca, in 1952, Shaw’s Gramercy Five (this time featuring Bob Kitsis (piano), George Barnes  (guitar), Trigger Alpert, Buddy Schutz) accompanied singer Connee Boswell singing “Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire” and “My Little Nest of Heavenly Blue”.

The Five recorded an EP for Bell Records with Tal Farlow, Hank Jones, Joe Roland, Tommy Potter and Irv Kluger.

The Gramercy Five’s final recording was in June 1954 for the Clef LP Artie Shaw and his Grammercy Five Album #3.

With Artie Shaw were Hank Jones, Joe Puma, Tommy Potter and Irv Kluger. It was an album of standards including My Funny Valentine, Too Marvelous for Words, Yesterdays, Tenderly and Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.