{"id":25,"date":"2021-03-29T20:42:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T20:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/?page_id=25"},"modified":"2021-04-19T14:10:35","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T14:10:35","slug":"1944-46","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1944-46\/","title":{"rendered":"1944-46"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>The<\/em> wunderkind <em>steps out.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-dark-gray-background-color has-dark-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Andreas Ludwig Priwin was a prodigy. He was born in Berlin in 1929 (or perhaps, as he himself thought, 1930\u2014his birth certificate was lost in the war). He enrolled in the Berlin Conservatory at the age of six, having earned a full scholarship. In 1938, he was expelled for being Jewish. He and his family made their way to Paris, with only enough money and possessions to maintain the illusion of a weekend getaway. They waited for nine months to get visas to enter the United States; in the meantime, Andreas learned French, took theory classes at the Paris Conservatoire, and had some lessons with another prodigy, Marcel Dupr\u00e9. Finally, toward the end of 1938, the family sailed to New York City, and then to Los Angeles, where Andreas changed his name to Andr\u00e9 Previn and embarked\u2014in remarkably short order\u2014on one of the more polyvalent musical careers of the last hundred years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"787\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-1024x787.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-1024x787.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-300x230.png 300w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-768x590.png 768w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-250x192.png 250w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-550x423.png 550w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-800x615.png 800w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-234x180.png 234w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-391x300.png 391w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938-651x500.png 651w, https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-LA-passenger-manifest-1938.png 1385w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><figcaption>Andr\u00e9 Previn (&#8220;STUDENT&#8221;) arrives in Los Angeles, November 26, 1938.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Previn, by his own admission, didn\u2019t care much for jazz at first, until he saw the light, in the form of Art Tatum\u2019s recording of \u201cSweet Lorraine.\u201d Previn recalled his father giving him the record and, in an assignment of equal parts industry and ego-tempering, telling him to \u201clearn it,\u201d which Previn did. (It took him, he claimed, three years.) That got Previn up to speed on jazz style, but not the practice of improvisation. But prodigies are, by definition, quick studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The earliest Andr\u00e9 Previn performance I\u2019ve been able to find dates from December 1944, when Previn was still 15 (or, perhaps, 14), but nonetheless already had been working in radio for a couple years. He appeared on a short-lived program called&nbsp;<em>Music Depreciation<\/em>, in which swing and jazz numbers by regulars Frank DeVol and Les Paul and weekly guests were interspersed with Ruben Gaines\u2019 comic parodies of the sort of florid, programmatic descriptions of classical music epitomized by Walter Damrosch\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Music Appreciation Hour<\/em>.&nbsp;Previn plays a fluent&nbsp;but repetitive&nbsp;slow-then-fast&nbsp;reading&nbsp;of Gershwin\u2019s \u201cThe Man I Love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Music-Depreciation-12-31-44.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption>Andr\u00e9 Previn: \u201cThe Man I Love\u201d (1944)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Previn&nbsp;returned to the show the following February in better form; his&nbsp;version of \u201cMy Blue Heaven,\u201d which makes room for brief quotes of both Gershwin and Ellington, has charm to spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Music-Depreciation-2-18-45.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption>Andr\u00e9 Previn: <em>\u201c<\/em>My Blue Heaven\u201d (1945)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Later in 1945, Previn was a guest on&nbsp;<em>Jubilee<\/em>, an Armed Forces Radio Service program that most often featured African-American performers and was intended for African-American overseas troops. Previn\u2019s performance of \u201cI Surrender, Dear\u201d is very much in the vein of Nat \u201cKing\u201d Cole, but Previn set himself a high bar by collaborating with bassist Red Callender and guitarist Irving Ashby, once and future members of Cole\u2019s trio.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Andre Previn at 16, piano, I Surrender Dear\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cTjFsT5R3mE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Previn still sounds a little raw, if you listen close: his left-hand comping is serviceable but repetitive, and his right-hand riffs\u2014glittering as they are\u2014don\u2019t really gather into larger structures. (The descending pentatonic flourish that turns up in both of these performances will lurk around Previn\u2019s playing for a while.) But this is nitpicking. The ease, flair, and confidence are already there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of the riffs Previn deployed on that&nbsp;<em>Jubilee<\/em>&nbsp;spot turned up again later that&nbsp;year in sessions at Hollywood\u2019s Radio Recorders studio. They were recorded for Sunset, an independent label run by Eddie Laguna, who had been occasionally hiring Previn for concerts, including one at the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles. (Laguna was an obscure and private figure, to the point that, for a time, some people thought the name was a pseudonym of Nat Cole, who also recorded for Sunset.) Previn was still favoring a Cole-style trio, this time with guitarist Dave Barbour and bassist John Simmons, experienced sidemen who had briefly played together in Benny Goodman\u2019s orchestra. They don\u2019t quite mesh; Simmons and, especially, Barbour, seem to be more on top of the beat than Previn likes, and he sometimes rushes to the next beat in response. The session is notable, though, for a pair of Previn originals. \u201cMulholland Drive,\u201d a brisk roller-coaster over rhythm changes, is particularly charming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube contain-video wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mulholland Drive\" width=\"533\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4yUpssYGg7w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Previn went back to Radio Recorders a few more times over 1945 and 1946, making a series of recordings that almost feel like a r\u00e9sum\u00e9. There\u2019s a handful of small-group arrangements (featuring, among others, Willie Smith and Vido Musso on sax and Previn\u2019s fellow prodigy Buddy Childers on trumpet). There\u2019s another trio date, a reunion with Ashby and Callender yielding largely straightforward versions of Ellington staples, the best being a spare and spacious take on \u201cI\u2019ve Got It Bad and That Ain\u2019t Good.\u201d (In 1952, Monarch would release these tracks as&nbsp;<em><strong>Andr\u00e9 Previn Plays Duke Ellington<\/strong><\/em>.)And there\u2019s some solo piano, including a driving, up-tempo \u201cBody and Soul\u201d that runs out of ideas before it runs out of steam, and an original \u201cVariations on a Theme\u201d that swings between straight-ahead jazz embroidery and French Impressionism, never quite bringing the two together but fully comfortable in each. Most of these were released on the short-lived Sunset Recordings label, and several re-released on the Monarch label in the 1950s. (A couple of the small-group takes were issued as \u201cThe Willie Smith Six\u201d\u2014technically, Previn\u2019s first credits as a sideman.)&nbsp;But, taken as a whole, they feel a bit like a&nbsp;course of self-directed study, Previn honing his arranging skills, his adaptability, and his assurance in a studio setting before making a splash.&nbsp;(Most of these early recordings have been assembled and reissued as&nbsp;<em><strong>Previn at Sunset<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;(Black Lion, 2002).)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course,&nbsp;Previn&nbsp;had already been accepted into a graduate school, of a sort. In 1945,&nbsp;while still a student at Beverly Hills High School,&nbsp;he was hired onto the musical staff at MGM Studios. His first job, he recalled, was a jazz number: writing out some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hKr37p9WCMM\">boogie-woogie for pianist Jos\u00e9 Iturbi to play<\/a> in 1946\u2019s Holiday in Mexico.&nbsp;Once the film came out, Previn had the opportunity to joke about the sequence with Frank Sinatra&nbsp;on&nbsp;<em>Songs by Sinatra<\/em>, the singer\u2019s weekly radio program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Previn-Man-I-Love-SBS-9-11-46.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption>Andr\u00e9 Previn: <em>\u201c<\/em>The Man I Love\u201d (1946)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previn became something of a regular on Sinatra&#8217;s program throughout the autumn and winter of 1946,&nbsp;the emphasis invariably on Previn\u2019s youth, studio bona fides, and piano&nbsp;skills\u2014\u201cthe big hands of the big little boy with the bigger talent,\u201d as Sinatra first introduced him.&nbsp;(Previn got to turn the youth angle around on&nbsp;the 30-year-old&nbsp;Sinatra&nbsp;in a recurring feature in which Previn accompanied groups of old Tin Pan Alley favorites, Sinatra showing \u201cJunior\u201d&nbsp;what it was like \u201cin the good old days,&#8221; as Previn joked, when you were&nbsp;<em>young<\/em>.\u201d)&nbsp;Previn\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Songs by Sinatra<\/em>&nbsp;appearances foreshadowed much of his future career\u2014and not just jazz, or even easy-listening (as when Previn would add his piano to Axel Stordahl\u2019s sumptuous orchestra): on the October 16, 1946 show, Previn played an abridged version of the first movement of Rachmaninoff\u2019s Piano Concerto&nbsp;no. 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To&nbsp;hear just&nbsp;how fast Previn was going at the time, compare his <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/AfrsJubilee\/1946-10-07-AFRS-Jubilee-204-Cliff-Lang-Kay-Starr-Andre-Previn.mp3\">second appearance on&nbsp;<em>Jubilee<\/em><\/a>, from 1946, with four sides recorded live at a 1947 \u201cJust Jazz\u201d concert produced by Gene Norman and released on the Modern label. In a reading of \u201cLady, Be Good!\u201d at the earlier performance, Previn tentatively tries out some whole-tone-scale decorations and, comping under guitarist Barney Kessel\u2019s solo, a couple of discreet call-and-response echoes, but mostly stays recognizably within his initial, Cole-meets-Tatum style&nbsp;(as does another performance of the song on another AFRS program, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/command-performance-1948-12-25-xx-christmas-1948\/Command+Performance+1946-12-01+(241)+Judy+Garland%2C+Phil+Silvers.mp3\">Command Performance<\/a><\/em>, in December of 1946).&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/78_oh-lady-be-good_andre-previn-ira-and-george-gershwin_gbia0193892b\/OH+LADY+BE+GOOD+-+ANDRE+PREVIN+-+Ira+and+George+Gershwin.flac\">In 1947<\/a>, with (most likely) Ashby, Callender, and drummer Jackie Mills, Previn\u2019s take on \u201cLady, Be Good!\u201d is essentially similar and yet completely different, having gone from confident to cocky in the best way. The whole-tone patterns are thrown down like challenges, and Previn shadows Ashby\u2019s solo in downright mischievous fashion. You can almost see the grin on his face. He\u2019s ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/\">\u2190 <em>Previous: Introduction<\/em><\/a>  |  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1947-52\/\"><em>Next: 1947-52<\/em> \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The wunderkind steps out. Andreas Ludwig Priwin was a prodigy. He was born in Berlin in 1929 (or perhaps, as he himself thought, 1930\u2014his birth certificate was lost in the war). He enrolled in the Berlin Conservatory at the age of six, having earned a full scholarship. In 1938, he was expelled for being Jewish. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/1944-46\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;1944-46&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-25","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523,"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25\/revisions\/523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sohothedog.com\/previnjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}