Shelly Manne
Encyclopedia
Shelly Manne born Sheldon Manne in New York City
, was an American jazz drummer
. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz
, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland
, swing, bebop
, avant-garde jazz
and fusion
, as well as contributing to the musical background of hundreds of Hollywood
film
s and television
programs.
s. In his youth he admired many of the leading swing
drummers of the day, especially Jo Jones
and Dave Tough
. Billy Gladstone
, a colleague of Manne's father and the most admired percussionist on the New York theatrical scene, offered the teenage Shelly tips and encouragement. From that time, Manne rapidly developed his style in the clubs of 52nd Street in New York in the late 1930s and 1940s. His first professional job with a known big band was with the Bobby Byrne Orchestra in 1940. In those years, as he became known, he recorded with jazz stars like Coleman Hawkins
, Charlie Shavers
, and Don Byas
. He also worked with a number of musicians mainly associated with Duke Ellington
, like Johnny Hodges
, Harry Carney
, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart
.
In 1943, Manne married a Rockette
named Florence Butterfield (known affectionately to family and friends as "Flip"). The marriage would last 41 years, until the end of Manne's life.
When the bebop
movement began to change jazz in the 1940s, Manne loved it and adapted to the style rapidly, performing with Dizzy Gillespie
and Charlie Parker
. Around this time he also worked with rising stars like Flip Phillips
, Charlie Ventura
, Lennie Tristano
, and Lee Konitz
.
Manne rose to stardom when he became part of the working bands of Woody Herman
and, especially, Stan Kenton
in the late 1940s and early 1950s, winning awards and developing a following at a time when jazz was the most popular music in the United States. Joining the hard-swinging Herman outfit allowed Manne to play the bebop he loved. The controversial Kenton band, on the other hand, with its "progressive jazz", presented obstacles, and many of the complex, overwrought arrangements made it harder to swing. But Manne appreciated the musical freedom that Kenton gave him and saw it as an opportunity to experiment along with what was still a highly innovative band. He rose to the challenge, finding new colors and rhythms, and developing his ability to provide support in a variety of musical situations.
, where he and his wife raised horses. From this point on, he played an important role in the West Coast school of jazz, performing on the Los Angeles jazz scene with Shorty Rogers
, Hampton Hawes
, Red Mitchell
, Art Pepper
, Russ Freeman
, Frank Rosolino
, Chet Baker
, Leroy Vinnegar
, Pete Jolly
, Howard McGhee
, Bob Gordon
, Conte Candoli
, Sonny Criss
, and numerous others. Many of his recordings around this time were for Lester Koenig's Contemporary Records
, where for a period Manne had a contract as an "exclusive" artist (meaning that he could not record for other labels without permission).
Manne led a number of small groups that recorded under his name and leadership. One consisting of Manne on drums, trumpeter Joe Gordon
, saxophonist
Richie Kamuca
, bassist
Monty Budwig
, and pianist
Victor Feldman
performed for three days in 1959 at the famous Black Hawk
club in San Francisco
. Their music was recorded on the spot, and four LP
s were issued. Highly regarded as an innovative example of a "live" jazz recording, the Black Hawk sessions were reissued on CD in augmented form years later.
style, as in his 1953 album named The West Coast Sound, for which he commissioned several original compositions. Some of West Coast jazz was experimental, avant-garde
music several years before the more mainstream avant-garde playing of Cecil Taylor
and Ornette Coleman
(Manne also recorded with Coleman in 1959); a good deal of Manne's work with Jimmy Giuffre
was of this kind. Critics would condemn much of this music as overly cerebral.
Another side of West Coast jazz that also came under critical fire was music in a lighter style, intended for popular consumption. Manne made contributions here too. Best known is the series of albums he recorded with pianist André Previn
and with members of his groups, based on music from popular Broadway shows, movies, and television programs. (The first and most famous of these was the one based on My Fair Lady
, recorded by Previn, Manne, and bassist Leroy Vinnegar
in 1956. See My Fair Lady (Shelly Manne album).) The music—with each album devoted to a single show—was improvised in the manner of jazz, but always in a light, immediately appealing style aimed at popular taste, which did not always go over well with aficionados of "serious" jazz music, which may be one reason why Manne has been frequently overlooked in accounts of major jazz drummers of the 20th century. Much of the music produced on the West Coast in those years, as Robert Gordon concedes, was in fact imitative and "lacked the fire and intensity associated with the best jazz performances". But Gordon also points out that there is a level of musical sophistication, as well as an intensity and "swing", in the music recorded by Manne with Previn and Vinnegar (and later Red Mitchell) that is missing in the many lackluster albums of this type produced by others in that period.
West Coast jazz, in any case, represented only a small part of Manne's playing. In Los Angeles and occasionally returning to New York and elsewhere, Manne recorded with musicians of all schools and styles, ranging from those of the swing era
through bebop to later developments in modern jazz, including hard bop
, usually seen as the antithesis to the cool jazz frequently associated with West Coast playing.
recordings of the 1940s to the LPs of the 1950s and later, to the hundreds of film soundtracks he appeared on, Manne's recorded output was enormous and often hard to pin down. According to the jazz writer Leonard Feather
, Manne's drumming had been heard on well "over a thousand LPs"—a statement that Feather made in 1960, when Manne had not reached even the midpoint of his 45-year-long career.
An extremely selective list of those with whom Manne performed includes Benny Carter
, Earl Hines
, Clifford Brown
, Zoot Sims
, Ben Webster
, Maynard Ferguson
, Wardell Gray
, Lionel Hampton
, Junior Mance
, Jimmy Giuffre, and Stan Getz
. In the 1950s, he recorded two solid albums with Sonny Rollins
—Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957) received particular acclaim and helped dispel the notion that West Coast jazz was always different from jazz made on the East Coast—and, in the 1960s, two with Bill Evans
. Around the same time in 1959, Manne recorded with the traditional Benny Goodman
and the iconoclastic Ornette Coleman, a striking example of his versatility.
One of Manne's most adventurous 1960s collaborations was with Jack Marshall
, the guitarist and arranger celebrated for composing the theme and incidental music for The Munsters
TV show in that period. Two duet albums (Sounds Unheard Of!, 1962, and Sounds!, 1966) feature Marshall on guitar, accompanied by Manne playing drums and a wide variety of percussion instruments unusual in jazz, from "Hawaiian slit bamboo sticks", to a Chinese gong
, to castanets, to piccolo Boo-Bam
.
Another example of Manne's ability to transcend the narrow borders of any particular school is the series of trio albums he recorded with guitarist Barney Kessel
and bassist Ray Brown
as "The Poll Winners". (They had all won numerous polls conducted by the popular publications of the day; the polls are now forgotten, but the albums endure, now reissued on CD.) Manne even dabbled in Dixieland
and fusion
, as well as "Third Stream
" music. He participated in the revival of that jazz precursor ragtime
(he appears on several albums devoted to the music of Scott Joplin
), and sometimes recorded with musicians best associated with European classical music. He always, however, returned to the straight-ahead jazz
he loved best.
and Jo Jones
, Manne admired and learned from contemporaries like Max Roach
and Kenny Clarke
, and later from younger drummers like Elvin Jones
and Tony Williams. Consciously or unconsciously, he borrowed a little from all of them, always searching to extend his playing into new territory.
Despite these and numerous other influences, however, Shelly Manne's style of drumming was always his own—personal, precise, clear, and at the same time multilayered, using a very broad range of colors. Manne was often experimental, and had participated in such musically exploratory groups of the early 1950s as those of Jimmy Giuffre and Teddy Charles
. Yet his playing never became overly cerebral, and he never neglected that element usually considered fundamental to all jazz: time.
Whether playing Dixieland, bebop, or avant-garde jazz, in big bands or in small groups, Manne's self-professed goal was to make the music swing. His fellow musicians attested to his listening appreciatively to those around him and being ultra-sensitive to the needs and the nuances of the music played by the others in the band, his goal being to make them—and the music as a whole—sound better, rather than calling attention to himself with overbearing solos.
Manne refused to play in a powerhouse style, but his understated drumming was appreciated for its own strengths. In 1957, critic Nat Hentoff
called Manne one of the most "musical" and "illuminatively imaginative" drummers. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Bob Cooper
called him "the most imaginative drummer I've worked with". In later years this kind of appreciation for what Manne could do was echoed by jazz notables like Louie Bellson
, John Lewis
, Ray Brown, Harry "Sweets" Edison
, and numerous others who had worked with him at various times. Composer, arranger, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist Benny Carter is on record as having been "a great admirer of his work". "He could read anything, get any sort of effect", said Carter, who worked closely with Manne over many decades.
Though he always insisted on the importance of time and "swing", Manne's concept of his own drumming style typically pointed to his melody-based
approach. He contrasted his style with that of Max Roach: "Max plays melodically from the rhythms he plays. I play rhythms from thinking melodically".
Manne had strong preferences in his choice of drum set. Those preferences, however, changed several times over his career. He began with Gretsch
drums. In 1957, intrigued by the sound of a kind of drum made by Leedy (then owned by Slingerland
), he had a line made for him that also became popular with other drummers. In the 1970s, after trying and abandoning many others for reasons of sound or maintainability, he settled on the Japanese-made Pearl Drums
.
, of the vocal team of Jackie and Roy
("Roy" being Roy Kral
), claimed that she had "never heard a drummer play so beautifully behind a singer". Jackie and Roy were only two of the many singers he played behind, recording several albums with that husband-and-wife team, with their contemporary June Christy
, and with Helen Humes
, originally made famous by her singing with the Count Basie
orchestra.
Over decades, Manne recorded additional albums, or sometimes just sat in on drums here and there, with renowned vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald
, Mel Tormé
, Peggy Lee
, Frank Sinatra
, Ernestine Anderson
, Sarah Vaughan
, Lena Horne
, Blossom Dearie
, and Nancy Wilson. Not all the singers Manne accompanied were even primarily jazz artists. Performers as diverse as Teresa Brewer
, Leontyne Price
, Tom Waits
, and Barry Manilow
included Manne in their recording sessions.
orchestra (soon to be known as "Les Brown and His Band of Renown").
In the 1950s, however, jazz began to be used for all or parts of film soundtracks, and Manne pioneered in these efforts, beginning with The Wild One
(1953). As jazz quickly assumed a major role in the musical background of films, so did Manne assume a major role as a drummer and percussionist on those soundtracks. A notable early example was 1955's The Man with the Golden Arm
; Manne not only played drums throughout but functioned as a personal assistant to director Otto Preminger
and tutored star Frank Sinatra
. The Decca
soundtrack LP credits him prominently for the "Drumming Sequences".
From then on, as jazz became more prominent in the movies, Manne became the go-to percussion man in the film industry; he even appeared on screen in some minor roles. A major example is Johnny Mandel
's jazz score for I Want to Live!
in 1958.
Soon, Manne began to contribute to film music in a broader way, often combining jazz, pop
, and classical music
. Henry Mancini
in particular found plenty of work for him; the two shared an interest in experimenting with tone colors, and Mancini came to rely on Manne to shape the percussive effects in his music. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Hatari!
(1962) and The Pink Panther
(1963) are only a few of Mancini's films where Manne's drums and special percussive effects could be heard.
Manne frequently collaborated with Mancini in television as well, such as in the series Peter Gunn
(1958–1961) and Mr. Lucky (1959–1960). Although Mancini developed such a close partnership with Manne that he was using him for practically all his scores and other music at this time, the drummer still found time to perform on movie soundtracks and in TV shows with music by others, including the series Richard Diamond
(music by Pete Rugolo
, 1959–1960), and Checkmate
(music by John Williams, 1959–1962), and the film version of Leonard Bernstein
's West Side Story
(1961).
In the late 1950s, Manne began to compose his own film scores, such as that for The Proper Time
(1959), with the music also played by his own group, Shelly Manne and His Men, and issued on a Contemporary
LP. In later years, Manne divided his time playing the drums on, adding special percussive effects to, and sometimes writing complete scores for both film and television. He even provided a musical setting for a recording of the Dr. Seuss
children's classic Green Eggs and Ham
(1960) and later performed in and sometimes wrote music for the backgrounds of numerous animated cartoons. For example, he joined other notable jazz musicians (including Ray Brown and Jimmy Rowles
) in playing Doug Goodwin's music for the cartoon series The Ant and the Aardvark
(1969–1971). Notable examples of later scores that Manne wrote himself and also performed in are, for the movies, Young Billy Young
, 1969, and, for television, Daktari
, 1966–1969. With these and other contributions to cartoons, children's stories, movies, television programs (and even commercials), Manne's drumming became woven into the popular culture of several decades.
, also in the 1940s, and winner of numerous awards, Manne slipped from public view as jazz became less central in popular music. In the 1960s and early 1970s, however, he helped keep jazz alive on the Los Angeles scene as part owner of the nightclub Shelly's Manne-Hole. There, the house band was Shelly Manne and His Men, which featured some of his favorite sidemen, such as Russ Freeman
, Monty Budwig
, Richie Kamuca
, Conte Candoli
, and later Frank Strozier
and Mike Wofford
, among many other notable West Coast jazz musicians. Also appearing was a roster of jazz stars from different eras and all regions, including Ben Webster
, Rahsaan Roland Kirk
, Les McCann
, Bill Evans
, John Coltrane
, Sonny Stitt
, Thelonious Monk
, Michel Legrand
, Carmen McRae
, Milt Jackson
, Teddy Edwards
, Monty Alexander
, Lenny Breau
, Miles Davis
, and many, many others. Stan Getz
was the last to be featured (at a briefly occupied second location), when, late in 1973, Manne was forced to close the club for financial reasons.
From that point, Manne refocused his attention on his own drumming. It might be argued that he never played with more taste, refinement, and soulful swing than in the 1970s, when he recorded numerous albums with musicians like trumpeter Red Rodney
, pianist Hank Jones
, saxophonists Art Pepper
and Lew Tabackin
, and composer-arranger-saxophonist Oliver Nelson
.
From 1974 to 1977 he joined guitarist Laurindo Almeida
, saxophonist and flutist
Bud Shank
, and bassist Ray Brown to perform as the group The L.A. Four
, which recorded four albums before Manne left the ensemble.
In the 1980s, Manne recorded with such stars as trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison
, saxophonist Zoot Sims
, guitarists Joe Pass
and Herb Ellis
, and pianist John Lewis
(famous as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet
).
Meanwhile, he continued to record with various small groups of his own. Just one representative example of his work in this period is a live concert recorded at the Los Angeles club "Carmelo's" in 1980 with pianists Bill Mays
and Alan Broadbent
and bassist Chuck Domanico
. With their enthusiasm and spontaneity, and the sense that the audience in the intimate ambience of the club is participating in the music, these performances share the characteristics that had been celebrated more than two decades before in the better-known Black Hawk performances. Although this phase of his career has frequently been overlooked, Manne, by this time, had greatly refined his ability to back other musicians sympathetically, yet make his own musical thoughts clearly heard.
Manne's heavy load of Hollywood studio work sometimes shifted his attention from his mainstream jazz playing. Even in lackluster films, however, he nevertheless often succeeded in making art of what might be called hackwork. Still, for all his tireless work in the studios, Manne's labor of love was his contribution to jazz as an American art form, to which he had dedicated himself since his youth and continued to work at almost to the last day of his life.
Manne died somewhat before the popular revival of interest in jazz had gained momentum. But in his last few years, his immense contribution to the music regained at least some local recognition, and the role Manne had played in the culture of his adopted city began to draw public appreciation. Two weeks before his sudden death of a heart attack, he was honored by the City of Los Angeles in conjunction with the Hollywood Arts Council when September 9, 1984 was declared "Shelly Manne Day".
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, was an American jazz drummer
Jazz drumming
Jazz drumming is the art of playing percussion in jazz styles ranging from 1910s-style Dixieland jazz to 1970s-era jazz-rock fusion and 1980s-era latin jazz...
. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz
West coast jazz
West Coast jazz refers to various styles of jazz music that developed around Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a sub-genre of cool jazz, which featured a less frenetic, calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music tended to be more heavily arranged,...
, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
, swing, bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...
and fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, as well as contributing to the musical background of hundreds of Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
programs.
Family and origins
Manne's father and uncles were drummerDrummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
s. In his youth he admired many of the leading swing
Swing (genre)
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...
drummers of the day, especially Jo Jones
Jo Jones
Jo Jones was an American jazz drummer.Known as Papa Jo Jones in his later years, he was sometimes confused with another influential jazz drummer, Philly Joe Jones...
and Dave Tough
Dave Tough
Dave Tough was an American jazz drummer associated with both Dixieland and swing jazz in the 1930s and 1940s...
. Billy Gladstone
Billy Gladstone
Billy Gladstone , born William Goldstein, was a Romanian-born New York drummer, percussionist, drum builder, inventor, and drum teacher who performed in New York theaters, including the Capitol Theatre and most famously Radio City Music Hall in the 1930s and 1940s.He was perhaps most famous in his...
, a colleague of Manne's father and the most admired percussionist on the New York theatrical scene, offered the teenage Shelly tips and encouragement. From that time, Manne rapidly developed his style in the clubs of 52nd Street in New York in the late 1930s and 1940s. His first professional job with a known big band was with the Bobby Byrne Orchestra in 1940. In those years, as he became known, he recorded with jazz stars like Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, Charlie Shavers
Charlie Shavers
Charles James Shavers , known as Charlie Shavers, was an American swing era jazz trumpet player who played at one time or another with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmy Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams and Billie Holiday...
, and Don Byas
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, long-resident in Europe.- Oklahoma and Los Angeles :...
. He also worked with a number of musicians mainly associated with Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
, like Johnny Hodges
Johnny Hodges
John Cornelius "Johnny" Hodges was an American alto saxophonist, best known for his solo work with Duke Ellington's big band. He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years, except the period between 1932–1946 when Otto Hardwick generally played first chair...
, Harry Carney
Harry Carney
Harry Howell Carney was an American swing baritone saxophonist, clarinetist, and bass clarinetist mainly known for his 45-year tenure in Duke Ellington's Orchestra. Carney started off as an alto player with Ellington, but soon switched to the baritone. His strong, steady saxophone often served as...
, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart
Rex Stewart
Rex Stewart was an American jazz cornetist best known for his work with the Duke Ellington orchestra....
.
In 1943, Manne married a Rockette
The Rockettes
The Rockettes are a precision dance company performing out of the Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, New York City. During the Christmas season, the Rockettes have performed five shows a day, seven days a week, for 77 years...
named Florence Butterfield (known affectionately to family and friends as "Flip"). The marriage would last 41 years, until the end of Manne's life.
When the bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
movement began to change jazz in the 1940s, Manne loved it and adapted to the style rapidly, performing with Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
and Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
. Around this time he also worked with rising stars like Flip Phillips
Flip Phillips
Flip Phillips was an American jazz tenor saxophone and clarinet player. He is best remembered for his work with Jazz at the Philharmonic from 1946 to 1957.-Biography:...
, Charlie Ventura
Charlie Ventura
Charlie Ventura was a tenor saxophonist and bandleader.Ventura was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had his first successes working with Gene Krupa. In 1945 he won the Down Beat readers' poll in the tenor saxophone division...
, Lennie Tristano
Lennie Tristano
Leonard Joseph Tristano was a jazz pianist, composer and teacher of jazz improvisation. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres. He remains a somewhat overlooked figure in jazz history, but his enormous originality and dazzling work as an improviser have long...
, and Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...
.
Manne rose to stardom when he became part of the working bands of Woody Herman
Woody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...
and, especially, Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
in the late 1940s and early 1950s, winning awards and developing a following at a time when jazz was the most popular music in the United States. Joining the hard-swinging Herman outfit allowed Manne to play the bebop he loved. The controversial Kenton band, on the other hand, with its "progressive jazz", presented obstacles, and many of the complex, overwrought arrangements made it harder to swing. But Manne appreciated the musical freedom that Kenton gave him and saw it as an opportunity to experiment along with what was still a highly innovative band. He rose to the challenge, finding new colors and rhythms, and developing his ability to provide support in a variety of musical situations.
In California
In the early 1950s, Manne left New York and settled permanently on a ranch in an outlying part of Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, where he and his wife raised horses. From this point on, he played an important role in the West Coast school of jazz, performing on the Los Angeles jazz scene with Shorty Rogers
Shorty Rogers
Milton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...
, Hampton Hawes
Hampton Hawes
Hampton Hawes was an American bebop and hard-bop jazz pianist, recognized as one of the finest and most influential of the 1950s.-Biography:...
, Red Mitchell
Red Mitchell
Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell (September 20, 1927, New York City - November 8, 1992, Salem, Oregon, was an American jazz double-bassist, composer, lyricist, and poet. He was the brother of Whitey Mitchell....
, Art Pepper
Art Pepper
Art Pepper , born Arthur Edward Pepper, Jr., was an American alto saxophonist and clarinetist.About Pepper, Scott Yanow of All Music stated, "In the 1950s he was one of the few altoists that was able to develop his own sound despite the dominant influence of Charlie Parker" and: "When Art Pepper...
, Russ Freeman
Russ Freeman (pianist)
Russell Donald Freeman was a bebop and cool jazz pianist and composer.Initially, Freeman was classically trained...
, Frank Rosolino
Frank Rosolino
Frank Rosolino was an American jazz trombonist.- Biography :Born in Detroit, Michigan, Frank Rosolino studied the guitar with his father from the age of 9. He took up the trombone at age 14 while he was enrolled at Miller High School where he played with Milt Jackson in the school's stage band and...
, Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, Leroy Vinnegar
Leroy Vinnegar
Leroy Vinnegar was an American jazz bassist.Born in Indianapolis, the self-taught Vinnegar established his reputation in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s. His trademark was the rhythmic "walking" bass line, a steady series of ascending or descending notes, and it brought him the nickname...
, Pete Jolly
Pete Jolly
Pete Jolly was an American West Coast jazz pianist and accordionist....
, Howard McGhee
Howard McGhee
Howard McGhee was one of the very first bebop jazz trumpeters, together with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Idrees Sulieman. He was known for lightning-fast fingers and very high notes...
, Bob Gordon
Bob Gordon (saxophonist)
Bob Gordon was an American cool jazz baritone saxophonist born in St. Louis, Missouri, best-known as a sideman for musicians like Stan Kenton, Shelly Manne, Chet Baker, Maynard Ferguson, trombonist Herbie Harper and tenor saxophonist Jack Montrose, among others.-Selected recordings:* Moods in Jazz...
, Conte Candoli
Conte Candoli
Secondo "Conte" Candoli was an American jazz trumpeter based on the West Coast. He played in the big bands of Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Dizzy Gillespie, and in Doc Severinsen's NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show. He played with Gerry Mulligan, and on Frank Sinatra's TV specials...
, Sonny Criss
Sonny Criss
William "Sonny" Criss was an American jazz musician.An alto saxophonist of prominence during the bebop era of jazz, he was one of many players influenced by Charlie Parker.-Biography:...
, and numerous others. Many of his recordings around this time were for Lester Koenig's Contemporary Records
Contemporary Records
Contemporary Records was a jazz record label founded by Lester Koenig in 1951 in Los Angeles. Contemporary was known for seminal recordings embodying the West Coast sound, but also released recordings based in New York...
, where for a period Manne had a contract as an "exclusive" artist (meaning that he could not record for other labels without permission).
Manne led a number of small groups that recorded under his name and leadership. One consisting of Manne on drums, trumpeter Joe Gordon
Joe Gordon (musician)
Joseph Henry "Joe" Gordon was an American jazz trumpeter.His first professional gigs were in Boston in 1947; he played with Georgie Auld, Charlie Mariano, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker , Art Blakey , and Don Redman...
, saxophonist
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
Richie Kamuca
Richie Kamuca
Richie Kamuca , was an American jazz tenor saxophonist born in Philadelphia.-Musical career:Like many players associated with West Coast jazz, Kamuca grew up in the East before moving west around the time that bebop changed the prevailing style of jazz...
, bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
Monty Budwig
Monty Budwig
Monty Rex Budwig was a West Coast jazz double bassist. He was born in Pender, Nebraska. He began playing bass during high school, continuing in the military band while he was enlisted in the Air Force....
, and pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
Victor Feldman
Victor Feldman
Victor Stanley Feldman was a British jazz musician, best known as a pianist.-Early history:...
performed for three days in 1959 at the famous Black Hawk
Black Hawk (nightclub)
The Black Hawk was a San Francisco nightclub which featured live jazz performances during its period of operation from 1949 to 1963. It was located on the corner of Turk Street and Hyde Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. Guido Caccienti owned the club along with Johnny and Helen...
club in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. Their music was recorded on the spot, and four LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
s were issued. Highly regarded as an innovative example of a "live" jazz recording, the Black Hawk sessions were reissued on CD in augmented form years later.
West Coast jazz
Manne is often associated with the frequently criticized West Coast school of jazz. He has been considered "the quintessential" drummer in what was seen as a West Coast movement, though Manne himself did not care to be so pigeonholed. In the 1950s, much of what he did could be seen as in the West Coast style: performing in tightly arranged compositions in what was a coolCool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
style, as in his 1953 album named The West Coast Sound, for which he commissioned several original compositions. Some of West Coast jazz was experimental, avant-garde
Avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...
music several years before the more mainstream avant-garde playing of Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
and Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
(Manne also recorded with Coleman in 1959); a good deal of Manne's work with Jimmy Giuffre
Jimmy Giuffre
James Peter Giuffre was an American jazz clarinet and saxophone player, composer and arranger. He is notable for his development of forms of jazz which allowed for free interplay between the musicians, anticipating forms of free improvisation.-Biography:Born in Dallas, Texas, of Italian ancestry,...
was of this kind. Critics would condemn much of this music as overly cerebral.
Another side of West Coast jazz that also came under critical fire was music in a lighter style, intended for popular consumption. Manne made contributions here too. Best known is the series of albums he recorded with pianist André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
and with members of his groups, based on music from popular Broadway shows, movies, and television programs. (The first and most famous of these was the one based on My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
, recorded by Previn, Manne, and bassist Leroy Vinnegar
Leroy Vinnegar
Leroy Vinnegar was an American jazz bassist.Born in Indianapolis, the self-taught Vinnegar established his reputation in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s. His trademark was the rhythmic "walking" bass line, a steady series of ascending or descending notes, and it brought him the nickname...
in 1956. See My Fair Lady (Shelly Manne album).) The music—with each album devoted to a single show—was improvised in the manner of jazz, but always in a light, immediately appealing style aimed at popular taste, which did not always go over well with aficionados of "serious" jazz music, which may be one reason why Manne has been frequently overlooked in accounts of major jazz drummers of the 20th century. Much of the music produced on the West Coast in those years, as Robert Gordon concedes, was in fact imitative and "lacked the fire and intensity associated with the best jazz performances". But Gordon also points out that there is a level of musical sophistication, as well as an intensity and "swing", in the music recorded by Manne with Previn and Vinnegar (and later Red Mitchell) that is missing in the many lackluster albums of this type produced by others in that period.
West Coast jazz, in any case, represented only a small part of Manne's playing. In Los Angeles and occasionally returning to New York and elsewhere, Manne recorded with musicians of all schools and styles, ranging from those of the swing era
Swing Era
The Swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though the music had been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Moten, Ella Fitzgerald,...
through bebop to later developments in modern jazz, including hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
, usually seen as the antithesis to the cool jazz frequently associated with West Coast playing.
Collaborations
From the 78-rpmGramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
recordings of the 1940s to the LPs of the 1950s and later, to the hundreds of film soundtracks he appeared on, Manne's recorded output was enormous and often hard to pin down. According to the jazz writer Leonard Feather
Leonard Feather
Leonard Geoffrey Feather was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer who was best known for his music journalism and other writing.-Biography:...
, Manne's drumming had been heard on well "over a thousand LPs"—a statement that Feather made in 1960, when Manne had not reached even the midpoint of his 45-year-long career.
An extremely selective list of those with whom Manne performed includes Benny Carter
Benny Carter
Bennett Lester Carter was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King...
, Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
, Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...
, Zoot Sims
Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...
, Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...
, Wardell Gray
Wardell Gray
Wardell Gray was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who straddled the swing and bebop periods.Today often overlooked, Gray's playing displays a unique style, an unmatched tone and a strong presence.-Early years:...
, Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
, Junior Mance
Junior Mance
Julian Clifford Mance, Jr. is an American jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:...
, Jimmy Giuffre, and Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
. In the 1950s, he recorded two solid albums with Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
—Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957) received particular acclaim and helped dispel the notion that West Coast jazz was always different from jazz made on the East Coast—and, in the 1960s, two with Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
. Around the same time in 1959, Manne recorded with the traditional Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
and the iconoclastic Ornette Coleman, a striking example of his versatility.
One of Manne's most adventurous 1960s collaborations was with Jack Marshall
Jack Marshall (composer)
Jack Marshall was an American guitarist, conductor, and composer. He is the father of producer-director Frank Marshall and composer Phil Marshall....
, the guitarist and arranger celebrated for composing the theme and incidental music for The Munsters
The Munsters
The Munsters is a 1960s American family television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of monsters. It starred Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster. The series was a satire of both traditional monster movies and popular family entertainment of the era,...
TV show in that period. Two duet albums (Sounds Unheard Of!, 1962, and Sounds!, 1966) feature Marshall on guitar, accompanied by Manne playing drums and a wide variety of percussion instruments unusual in jazz, from "Hawaiian slit bamboo sticks", to a Chinese gong
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
, to castanets, to piccolo Boo-Bam
Boobam
The boobam is a percussion instrument of the membranophone family consisting of an array of tubes with membranes stretched on one end, the other end open...
.
Another example of Manne's ability to transcend the narrow borders of any particular school is the series of trio albums he recorded with guitarist Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...
and bassist Ray Brown
Ray Brown (musician)
Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist.-Biography:Ray Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had piano lessons from the age of eight. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but was unable to afford one...
as "The Poll Winners". (They had all won numerous polls conducted by the popular publications of the day; the polls are now forgotten, but the albums endure, now reissued on CD.) Manne even dabbled in Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
and fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, as well as "Third Stream
Third stream
Third Stream is a term coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller, within a lecture at Brandeis University, to describe a musical genre which is a synthesis of classical music and jazz...
" music. He participated in the revival of that jazz precursor ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
(he appears on several albums devoted to the music of Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
), and sometimes recorded with musicians best associated with European classical music. He always, however, returned to the straight-ahead jazz
Straight-ahead jazz
Straight-ahead jazz is a term used to refer to a widely accepted style of jazz music playing that can be thought of as roughly encompassing the period between bebop and the 1960s styles of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
he loved best.
Style and influences
In addition to Dave ToughDave Tough
Dave Tough was an American jazz drummer associated with both Dixieland and swing jazz in the 1930s and 1940s...
and Jo Jones
Jo Jones
Jo Jones was an American jazz drummer.Known as Papa Jo Jones in his later years, he was sometimes confused with another influential jazz drummer, Philly Joe Jones...
, Manne admired and learned from contemporaries like Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...
and Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke
Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...
, and later from younger drummers like Elvin Jones
Elvin Jones
Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....
and Tony Williams. Consciously or unconsciously, he borrowed a little from all of them, always searching to extend his playing into new territory.
Despite these and numerous other influences, however, Shelly Manne's style of drumming was always his own—personal, precise, clear, and at the same time multilayered, using a very broad range of colors. Manne was often experimental, and had participated in such musically exploratory groups of the early 1950s as those of Jimmy Giuffre and Teddy Charles
Teddy Charles
Teddy Charles is an American jazz pianist, drummer and vibraphone musician. Born Theodore Charles Cohen in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, he began his musical career studying at Juilliard School of Music as a percussionist...
. Yet his playing never became overly cerebral, and he never neglected that element usually considered fundamental to all jazz: time.
Whether playing Dixieland, bebop, or avant-garde jazz, in big bands or in small groups, Manne's self-professed goal was to make the music swing. His fellow musicians attested to his listening appreciatively to those around him and being ultra-sensitive to the needs and the nuances of the music played by the others in the band, his goal being to make them—and the music as a whole—sound better, rather than calling attention to himself with overbearing solos.
Manne refused to play in a powerhouse style, but his understated drumming was appreciated for its own strengths. In 1957, critic Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
called Manne one of the most "musical" and "illuminatively imaginative" drummers. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Bob Cooper
Bob Cooper (musician)
Bob Cooper was a West Coast jazz musician known primarily for playing tenor saxophone, but also for being one of the first to play solos on oboe. He worked in Stan Kenton's band starting in 1945 and married the band's singer June Christy...
called him "the most imaginative drummer I've worked with". In later years this kind of appreciation for what Manne could do was echoed by jazz notables like Louie Bellson
Louie Bellson
Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni , better known by the stage name Louie Bellson , was an Italian-American jazz drummer...
, John Lewis
John Lewis (pianist)
John Aaron Lewis was an American jazz pianist and composer best known as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet.- Early life:...
, Ray Brown, Harry "Sweets" Edison
Sweets Edison
Harry "Sweets" Edison , born in Columbus, Ohio, was an American jazz trumpeter and member of the Count Basie Orchestra.-Biography:He spent his early childhood in Kentucky, where he was introduced to music by an uncle...
, and numerous others who had worked with him at various times. Composer, arranger, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist Benny Carter is on record as having been "a great admirer of his work". "He could read anything, get any sort of effect", said Carter, who worked closely with Manne over many decades.
Though he always insisted on the importance of time and "swing", Manne's concept of his own drumming style typically pointed to his melody-based
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
approach. He contrasted his style with that of Max Roach: "Max plays melodically from the rhythms he plays. I play rhythms from thinking melodically".
Manne had strong preferences in his choice of drum set. Those preferences, however, changed several times over his career. He began with Gretsch
Gretsch Drums
Gretsch Drums is a leading drum manufacturing company, based in Ridgeland, South Carolina. Their motto is "That Great Gretsch Sound!"- History :...
drums. In 1957, intrigued by the sound of a kind of drum made by Leedy (then owned by Slingerland
Slingerland Drum Company
-History:The Slingerland Drum Company is a historic drum company that is linked to the rich history of jazz drumming. The company was founded by Henry Heanon "H.H." Slingerland in 1912. Slingerland had won a correspondence school of music in a card game aboard one of the gaming boats that once...
), he had a line made for him that also became popular with other drummers. In the 1970s, after trying and abandoning many others for reasons of sound or maintainability, he settled on the Japanese-made Pearl Drums
Pearl Drums
Founded in 1952, the is a multinational corporation based in Japan with a wide range of products, predominately percussion instruments.-History:Pearl was founded by Katsumi Yanagisawa, who began manufacturing music stands in Sumida, Tokyo on April 2, 1946...
.
Singers
Manne was also acclaimed by singers. Jackie CainJackie Cain
Jackie Cain is an American jazz vocalist best known for her partnership with her husband Roy Kral as the team Jackie and Roy.-Selected discography:* So Many Stars -Literature:...
, of the vocal team of Jackie and Roy
Jackie and Roy
Jackie and Roy was a jazz vocal team consisting of husband and wife singer Jackie Cain and singer/pianist Roy Kral . They first joined forces in 1946, and in 1996 they celebrated their 50th anniversary as a vocal duo...
("Roy" being Roy Kral
Roy Kral
Roy Kral was an American jazz pianist and vocalist best known for his partnership with his wife Jackie Cain as the team Jackie and Roy. He was the brother of the singer Irene Kral....
), claimed that she had "never heard a drummer play so beautifully behind a singer". Jackie and Roy were only two of the many singers he played behind, recording several albums with that husband-and-wife team, with their contemporary June Christy
June Christy
June Christy , born Shirley Luster, was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool...
, and with Helen Humes
Helen Humes
Helen Humes was an American jazz and blues singer.Humes was successively a teenaged blues singer, band vocalist with Count Basie, saucy R&B diva and a mature interpreter of the classy popular song.-Career:...
, originally made famous by her singing with the Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
orchestra.
Over decades, Manne recorded additional albums, or sometimes just sat in on drums here and there, with renowned vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Mel Tormé
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
, Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Ernestine Anderson
Ernestine Anderson
Ernestine Anderson is an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than five decades, she has recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She has sung at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival , as well as at jazz festivals all...
, Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie was an American jazz singer and pianist, often performing in the bebop genre and remembered for her girlish voice.-Early career:...
, and Nancy Wilson. Not all the singers Manne accompanied were even primarily jazz artists. Performers as diverse as Teresa Brewer
Teresa Brewer
Teresa Brewer was an American pop singer whose style incorporated elements of country, jazz, R&B, musicals and novelty songs. She was one of the most prolific and popular female singers of the 1950s, recording nearly 600 songs. Born Theresa Breuer in Toledo, Ohio, Brewer died of a neuromuscular...
, Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, and Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
included Manne in their recording sessions.
Film and television
At first, jazz was heard in film soundtracks only as jazz bands performed in the story. Early in his career, Manne was occasionally seen and heard in the movies, for example in the 1942 film Seven Days Leave, as the drummer in the highly popular Les BrownLes Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
orchestra (soon to be known as "Les Brown and His Band of Renown").
In the 1950s, however, jazz began to be used for all or parts of film soundtracks, and Manne pioneered in these efforts, beginning with The Wild One
The Wild One
The Wild One is a 1953 outlaw biker film directed by László Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer. It is famed for Marlon Brando's iconic portrayal of the gang leader Johnny Strabler.-Basis:...
(1953). As jazz quickly assumed a major role in the musical background of films, so did Manne assume a major role as a drummer and percussionist on those soundtracks. A notable early example was 1955's The Man with the Golden Arm
The Man with the Golden Arm
The Man with the Golden Arm is a 1955 American drama film, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson Algren, which tells the story of a heroin addict who gets clean while in prison, but struggles to stay that way in the outside world. It stars Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Arnold...
; Manne not only played drums throughout but functioned as a personal assistant to director Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
and tutored star Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. The Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
soundtrack LP credits him prominently for the "Drumming Sequences".
From then on, as jazz became more prominent in the movies, Manne became the go-to percussion man in the film industry; he even appeared on screen in some minor roles. A major example is Johnny Mandel
Johnny Mandel
Johnny Mandel is an American composer and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. Among the musicians he has worked with are Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, Barbra Streisand, and Shirley Horn.-Life:...
's jazz score for I Want to Live!
I Want to Live!
I Want to Live! is a 1958 film noir produced by Walter Wanger and directed by Robert Wise which tells the heavily fictionalized story of a woman, Barbara Graham, convicted of murder and facing execution. It stars Susan Hayward as Graham, and also features Simon Oakland, Stafford Repp, and Theodore...
in 1958.
Soon, Manne began to contribute to film music in a broader way, often combining jazz, pop
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, and classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
. Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...
in particular found plenty of work for him; the two shared an interest in experimenting with tone colors, and Mancini came to rely on Manne to shape the percussive effects in his music. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Hatari!
Hatari!
Hatari! is a 1962 American film directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne. The title means "danger" in Swahili, which was mentioned in the film as well...
(1962) and The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther is a series of comedy films featuring the bungling French police detective Jacques Clouseau that began in 1963 with the release of the film of the same name. The role was originated by, and is most closely associated with, Peter Sellers...
(1963) are only a few of Mancini's films where Manne's drums and special percussive effects could be heard.
Manne frequently collaborated with Mancini in television as well, such as in the series Peter Gunn
Peter Gunn
Peter Gunn is an American private eye television series which aired on the NBC and later ABC television networks from 1958 to 1961. The show's creator was Blake Edwards...
(1958–1961) and Mr. Lucky (1959–1960). Although Mancini developed such a close partnership with Manne that he was using him for practically all his scores and other music at this time, the drummer still found time to perform on movie soundtracks and in TV shows with music by others, including the series Richard Diamond
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
Richard Diamond, Private Detective is an American detective drama which aired on radio from 1949 to 1953, and on television from 1957 to 1960.-Radio:...
(music by Pete Rugolo
Pete Rugolo
Pietro "Pete" Rugolo was an Italian-born jazz composer and arranger.-Life and career:Rugolo was born in San Piero Patti, Sicily, Italy. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920 and settled in Santa Rosa, California...
, 1959–1960), and Checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
(music by John Williams, 1959–1962), and the film version of Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's West Side Story
West Side Story (film)
West Side Story is a 1961 musical film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was adapted from William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It stars Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno,...
(1961).
In the late 1950s, Manne began to compose his own film scores, such as that for The Proper Time
The Proper Time
The Proper Time is a 1960 film starring Tom Laughlin. It is also Laughlin's directorial and screenwriting debut.-Plot:Laughlin stars as Mickey Henderson, a student at UCLA with a speech impediment that goes away when he is in contact with girls. He starts a friendship with Sue , but is seduced by...
(1959), with the music also played by his own group, Shelly Manne and His Men, and issued on a Contemporary
Contemporary Records
Contemporary Records was a jazz record label founded by Lester Koenig in 1951 in Los Angeles. Contemporary was known for seminal recordings embodying the West Coast sound, but also released recordings based in New York...
LP. In later years, Manne divided his time playing the drums on, adding special percussive effects to, and sometimes writing complete scores for both film and television. He even provided a musical setting for a recording of the Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....
children's classic Green Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs and Ham is a best-selling and critically acclaimed book by Dr. Seuss, first published on August 12, 1960. As of 2001, according to Publishers Weekly, it was the fourth-best-selling English-language children's book of all time....
(1960) and later performed in and sometimes wrote music for the backgrounds of numerous animated cartoons. For example, he joined other notable jazz musicians (including Ray Brown and Jimmy Rowles
Jimmy Rowles
Jimmy Rowles was an American jazz pianist who was best known as an accompanist. He also released a number of albums under his own name, and explored various idioms including swing and cool jazz. - Biography :Born in Spokane, Washington, Rowles studied at Gonzaga College in Spokane, Washington...
) in playing Doug Goodwin's music for the cartoon series The Ant and the Aardvark
The Ant and the Aardvark
The Ant and the Aardvark is a series of 17 theatrical short cartoons produced at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and released by United Artists from 1969 to 1971.-Production:...
(1969–1971). Notable examples of later scores that Manne wrote himself and also performed in are, for the movies, Young Billy Young
Young Billy Young
Young Billy Young is a 1969 western movie starring Robert Mitchum and featuring Angie Dickinson, Robert Walker, Jr. , David Carradine, Jack Kelly , and Paul Fix. The film was written by Heck Allen and Burt Kennedy, and directed by Kennedy...
, 1969, and, for television, Daktari
Daktari
Daktari is an American children's drama series that aired on CBS between 1966 and 1969. The series, an Ivan Tors Films Production in association with MGM Television, stars Marshall Thompson as Dr. Marsh Tracy, a veterinarian at the fictional Wameru Study Centre for Animal Behaviour in East...
, 1966–1969. With these and other contributions to cartoons, children's stories, movies, television programs (and even commercials), Manne's drumming became woven into the popular culture of several decades.
Later career
A star in Stan Kenton's famous orchestra in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as that of Woody HermanWoody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...
, also in the 1940s, and winner of numerous awards, Manne slipped from public view as jazz became less central in popular music. In the 1960s and early 1970s, however, he helped keep jazz alive on the Los Angeles scene as part owner of the nightclub Shelly's Manne-Hole. There, the house band was Shelly Manne and His Men, which featured some of his favorite sidemen, such as Russ Freeman
Russ Freeman (pianist)
Russell Donald Freeman was a bebop and cool jazz pianist and composer.Initially, Freeman was classically trained...
, Monty Budwig
Monty Budwig
Monty Rex Budwig was a West Coast jazz double bassist. He was born in Pender, Nebraska. He began playing bass during high school, continuing in the military band while he was enlisted in the Air Force....
, Richie Kamuca
Richie Kamuca
Richie Kamuca , was an American jazz tenor saxophonist born in Philadelphia.-Musical career:Like many players associated with West Coast jazz, Kamuca grew up in the East before moving west around the time that bebop changed the prevailing style of jazz...
, Conte Candoli
Conte Candoli
Secondo "Conte" Candoli was an American jazz trumpeter based on the West Coast. He played in the big bands of Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Dizzy Gillespie, and in Doc Severinsen's NBC Orchestra on The Tonight Show. He played with Gerry Mulligan, and on Frank Sinatra's TV specials...
, and later Frank Strozier
Frank Strozier
Frank Strozier is an alto saxophonist renowned for his playing in the hard bop idiom.Strozier grew up in Memphis Memphis, Tennessee...
and Mike Wofford
Mike Wofford
Mike Wofford is a jazz pianist born February 28, 1938 in San Antonio, Texas, raised in San Diego, California.He is best known as an accompanist to and music director for singers Sarah Vaughan , Ella Fitzgerald and others...
, among many other notable West Coast jazz musicians. Also appearing was a roster of jazz stars from different eras and all regions, including Ben Webster
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster , a.k.a. "The Brute" or "Frog," was an influential American jazz tenor saxophonist. Webster, born in Kansas City, Missouri, was considered one of the three most important "swing tenors" along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young...
, Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...
, Les McCann
Les McCann
Les McCann is an American soul jazz piano player and vocalist whose biggest successes came as a crossover artist into R&B and soul.-Biography:...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, Michel Legrand
Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
, Carmen McRae
Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...
, Milt Jackson
Milt Jackson
Milton "Bags" Jackson was an American jazz vibraphonist, usually thought of as a bebop player, although he performed in several jazz idioms...
, Teddy Edwards
Teddy Edwards
Theodore Marcus "Teddy" Edwards was an American jazz tenor saxophonist based on the West Coast of the US. Some consider him to be one of the most influential jazz saxophonists.-Biography:...
, Monty Alexander
Monty Alexander
Monty Alexander is a jazz pianist and melodica player. His playing has a strong Caribbean influence and swinging feeling, but he has also been influenced by Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, and Ahmad Jamal.-Biography:Alexander discovered the piano at the age of 4, taking classical music...
, Lenny Breau
Lenny Breau
Leonard Harold "Lenny" Breau was a musician, guitar player, and music educator. He was known for blending many styles of music including: jazz, country, classical and flamenco guitar...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, and many, many others. Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
was the last to be featured (at a briefly occupied second location), when, late in 1973, Manne was forced to close the club for financial reasons.
From that point, Manne refocused his attention on his own drumming. It might be argued that he never played with more taste, refinement, and soulful swing than in the 1970s, when he recorded numerous albums with musicians like trumpeter Red Rodney
Red Rodney
Robert Roland Chudnick , who performed by the stage name Red Rodney, was an American bop and hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...
, pianist Hank Jones
Hank Jones
Henry "Hank" Jones was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award...
, saxophonists Art Pepper
Art Pepper
Art Pepper , born Arthur Edward Pepper, Jr., was an American alto saxophonist and clarinetist.About Pepper, Scott Yanow of All Music stated, "In the 1950s he was one of the few altoists that was able to develop his own sound despite the dominant influence of Charlie Parker" and: "When Art Pepper...
and Lew Tabackin
Lew Tabackin
Lew Tabackin is a jazz flautist and a tenor saxophonist. He is married to Toshiko Akiyoshi, who is a jazz pianist and a composer/arranger.-Biography:...
, and composer-arranger-saxophonist Oliver Nelson
Oliver Nelson
Oliver Edward Nelson was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger and composer.-Early life and career:...
.
From 1974 to 1977 he joined guitarist Laurindo Almeida
Laurindo Almeida
Laurindo Almeida was a Brazilian virtuoso guitaristand composer who made many recordings of enduring impact in classical, jazz and Latin genres...
, saxophonist and flutist
Flautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...
Bud Shank
Bud Shank
Clifford Everett "Bud" Shank, Jr. was an American alto saxophonist and flautist. He rose to prominence in the early 1950s playing lead alto and flute in Stan Kenton's Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra and throughout the decade worked in various small jazz combos. He spent the 1960s as a first...
, and bassist Ray Brown to perform as the group The L.A. Four
The L.A. Four (group)
The L.A. Four was a jazz quartet that performed in Los Angeles, California, from 1974 to 1982. Its members were guitarist Laurindo Almeida, saxophonist and flutist Bud Shank, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Shelly Manne, replaced by Jeff Hamilton after 1977...
, which recorded four albums before Manne left the ensemble.
In the 1980s, Manne recorded with such stars as trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison
Sweets Edison
Harry "Sweets" Edison , born in Columbus, Ohio, was an American jazz trumpeter and member of the Count Basie Orchestra.-Biography:He spent his early childhood in Kentucky, where he was introduced to music by an uncle...
, saxophonist Zoot Sims
Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...
, guitarists Joe Pass
Joe Pass
Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...
and Herb Ellis
Herb Ellis
Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...
, and pianist John Lewis
John Lewis (pianist)
John Aaron Lewis was an American jazz pianist and composer best known as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet.- Early life:...
(famous as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet
Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet was established in 1952 by Milt Jackson , John Lewis , Percy Heath , and Kenny Clarke . Connie Kay replaced Clarke in 1955...
).
Meanwhile, he continued to record with various small groups of his own. Just one representative example of his work in this period is a live concert recorded at the Los Angeles club "Carmelo's" in 1980 with pianists Bill Mays
Bill Mays
William Allen Mays , best known as Bill Mays, is a jazz pianist from Sacramento, California He came from a musical family and at fifteen he became interested in jazz at an Earl Hines concert....
and Alan Broadbent
Alan Broadbent
Alan Broadbent, MNZM , is a jazz pianist, arranger and composer best known for his work with artists such as Woody Herman, Diane Schuur, Chet Baker, Irene Kral, Sheila Jordan, Charlie Haden, Warne Marsh, Bud Shank, and many others.Broadbent studied piano and music theory in his own country, but in...
and bassist Chuck Domanico
Chuck Domanico
Charles Louis Domanico , better known as Chuck Domanico, was an American jazz bassist, playing both acoustic and electric bass on the West Coast jazz scene.Domanico was born in Chicago...
. With their enthusiasm and spontaneity, and the sense that the audience in the intimate ambience of the club is participating in the music, these performances share the characteristics that had been celebrated more than two decades before in the better-known Black Hawk performances. Although this phase of his career has frequently been overlooked, Manne, by this time, had greatly refined his ability to back other musicians sympathetically, yet make his own musical thoughts clearly heard.
Manne's heavy load of Hollywood studio work sometimes shifted his attention from his mainstream jazz playing. Even in lackluster films, however, he nevertheless often succeeded in making art of what might be called hackwork. Still, for all his tireless work in the studios, Manne's labor of love was his contribution to jazz as an American art form, to which he had dedicated himself since his youth and continued to work at almost to the last day of his life.
Manne died somewhat before the popular revival of interest in jazz had gained momentum. But in his last few years, his immense contribution to the music regained at least some local recognition, and the role Manne had played in the culture of his adopted city began to draw public appreciation. Two weeks before his sudden death of a heart attack, he was honored by the City of Los Angeles in conjunction with the Hollywood Arts Council when September 9, 1984 was declared "Shelly Manne Day".
As leader
- Shelly Manne & His Men, The West Coast Sound (1953–55, ContemporaryContemporary RecordsContemporary Records was a jazz record label founded by Lester Koenig in 1951 in Los Angeles. Contemporary was known for seminal recordings embodying the West Coast sound, but also released recordings based in New York...
) - Shelly Manne & His Men, Swinging Sounds (1956, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne & His Men, More Swinging Sounds (1956, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne & His Friends, My Fair Lady (1956 Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne & His Friends, Li'l AbnerLi'l Abner (Shelly Manne album)Li'l Abner is a jazz album by Shelly Manne and His Friends, released in 1957 on Contemporary Records.-Track listing:All selections composed by Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul.# "Jubilation T...
(1957 Contemporary) - Shelly Manne & His Friends, Bells are Ringing (1958, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne & His Men, The Gambit (1958, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne & His Men, At The Black Hawk (5 CDs, 1959, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne & His Men, Shelly Manne & His Men Play Peter Gunn (1959, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne & His Men, At The Manne Hole (2 CDs, 1961, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne, 2-3-42-3-42-3-4 is an album by American jazz drummer Shelly Manne featuring performances recorded in 1962 for the Impulse! label.-Background:2-3-4 was not a typical album for Manne...
(1962, Impulse!Impulse! RecordsImpulse! Records was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City...
) - Shelly Manne, My Son the Jazz Drummer (1962, Contemporary; reissued as Steps to the Desert, 2004)
- Shelly Manne & His Men, Boss Sounds! (1966, AtlanticAtlantic RecordsAtlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
) - Shelly Manne, Daktari (1967, Contemporary)
- Shelly Manne, Perk Up (1967; released 1977, ConcordConcord RecordsConcord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his...
) - Shelly Manne, Double Piano Jazz Quartet in Concert at Carmelo's (2 CDs, 1980, TrendTrend RecordsTrend Records was a post-World War II United States jazz record label.Trend's back catalogue was purchased by Albert Marx, the owner of Discovery Records, and much of its material was reissued in the 1980s. Among those who recorded for Trend are Van Alexander, Robert Conti, Shelly Manne, Clare...
) - Russ FreemanRuss Freeman (pianist)Russell Donald Freeman was a bebop and cool jazz pianist and composer.Initially, Freeman was classically trained...
& Shelly Manne, One on One (1982, Atlas; reissued 2001, Contemporary)
As sideman
- Art PepperArt PepperArt Pepper , born Arthur Edward Pepper, Jr., was an American alto saxophonist and clarinetist.About Pepper, Scott Yanow of All Music stated, "In the 1950s he was one of the few altoists that was able to develop his own sound despite the dominant influence of Charlie Parker" and: "When Art Pepper...
and Shorty RogersShorty RogersMilton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...
, PopoPopo (album)Popo is a jazz album co-led by trumpeter Shorty Rogers and alto saxophonist Art Pepper, recorded in 1951.-Track listing:#"Popo " – 4:19#"What's New? " – 2:17#"Lullaby In Rhythm " - 5:22...
(1951; Xanadu RecordsXanadu RecordsXanadu Records was a jazz music record label specializing in bebop throughout the 1970s and 1980s founded by Don Schlitten, recording and issuing recordings by some legendary names in jazz music.-Discography:...
) - Sonny RollinsSonny RollinsTheodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
, Way Out West (1957, Contemporary) - Benny CarterBenny CarterBennett Lester Carter was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King...
, Jazz Giant (1957, 1958, Contemporary) - Howard McGheeHoward McGheeHoward McGhee was one of the very first bebop jazz trumpeters, together with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Idrees Sulieman. He was known for lightning-fast fingers and very high notes...
, Maggie's Back in Town (1961, Contemporary) - Bill EvansBill EvansWilliam John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, EmpathyEmpathyEmpathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
and A Simple Matter of ConvictionA Simple Matter of ConvictionA Simple Matter of Conviction is an album by jazz pianist Bill Evans, released in 1966 on Verve.-Reception:Writing for Allmusic, music critic Bob Rusch wrote of the album: "What separated this from the average good Bill Evans date was the inclusion of Shelly Manne on drums, who inventively pushed...
(2 LPs [1962 and 1966] reissued on one CD, VerveVerve RecordsVerve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
; Manne was credited as co-leader on Empathy) - Ella FitzgeraldElla FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Whisper NotWhisper NotWhisper Not is a 1967 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, with the Marty Paich Orchestra. Ella had previously recorded with Marty Paich and his more familiar Dek-tette on the 1957 album Ella Swings Lightly.Whisper Not is Ella's penultimate recording for the Verve label...
(1967, Verve) - Sonny CrissSonny CrissWilliam "Sonny" Criss was an American jazz musician.An alto saxophonist of prominence during the bebop era of jazz, he was one of many players influenced by Charlie Parker.-Biography:...
, I'll Catch the Sun (1969, PrestigePrestige RecordsPrestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
) - Art PepperArt PepperArt Pepper , born Arthur Edward Pepper, Jr., was an American alto saxophonist and clarinetist.About Pepper, Scott Yanow of All Music stated, "In the 1950s he was one of the few altoists that was able to develop his own sound despite the dominant influence of Charlie Parker" and: "When Art Pepper...
, Living Legend (1975, Contemporary) - The Three, The Three with Joe SampleJoe SampleJoseph Leslie "Joe" Sample is an American pianist, keyboard player and composer.He is one of the founding members of the Jazz Crusaders, the band which became simply The Crusaders in 1971, and remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991 .- Biography :Sample began playing the piano...
and Ray Brown (1975, East WindEast Wind RecordsEast Wind was a Japanese jazz record label.Among their most prominent artists were "The Great Jazz Trio", a group that has included Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Hank Jones, Richard Davis, Ron Carter.-Discography:-External links:**...
; reissued 2005, Test of Time) - Brass FeverBrass FeverBrass Fever was an American jazz musical ensemble, which recorded two albums for Impulse! Records. Consisting of both session musicians and leaders such as Shelly Manne, their two albums covered jazz and R&B genres....
, Brass Fever (1975, ABC Records) - Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Small ChangeSmall ChangeSmall Change is an album by Tom Waits, released in 1976 on Asylum Records. It was recorded in July 1976.-Production:Small Change was recorded, direct to 2-track stereo tape, July 15,19,20,21, and 29, 1976 at the Wally Heider Recording Studio, in Hollywood, USA under the production of Bones...
(1976, Asylum RecordsAsylum RecordsAsylum Records is an American record label founded in 1971 by David Geffen, and partner Elliot Roberts, who had previously worked as agents at the William Morris Agency. Founded specifically to provide a record contract for Jackson Browne, the label signed Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell...
) - Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Foreign AffairsForeign Affairs (album)Foreign Affairs is an album by Tom Waits, released in 1977 on Elektra Entertainment. It was produced by Bones Howe, and features Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on "I Never Talk to Strangers".-Production:...
(1977, Asylum Records) - Hank JonesHank JonesHenry "Hank" Jones was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award...
, Just for Fun (1977, GalaxyGalaxy RecordsGalaxy Records was a subsidiary of Fantasy Records. It was established in 1951 and has been reactivated several times. Its first incarnation was as a 1950s jazz label. It was revived again in 1961 as a gospel and R&B label. It was last active from 1978 until the mid eighties.-Circa late...
) - Itzhak PerlmanItzhak PerlmanItzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...
, André PrevinAndré PrevinAndré George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
, Jim HallJim Hall (musician)James Stanley Hall is an American jazz guitarist.-Biography:Educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Hall moved to Los Angeles where he began to attract national, and then international, attention in the late 1950s...
, and Red MitchellRed MitchellKeith Moore "Red" Mitchell Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell Keith Moore "Red" Mitchell (September 20, 1927, New York City - November 8, 1992, Salem, Oregon, was an American jazz double-bassist, composer, lyricist, and poet. He was the brother of Whitey Mitchell....
, A Different Kind of Blues (1980, AngelAngel RecordsAngel Records is a record label belonging to EMI. It was formed in 1953 and specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score...
; reissued 1992) - Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, One from the HeartOne from the Heart (album)One from the Heart is a soundtrack album of Tom Waits compositions for the Francis Ford Coppola film of the same name. It was recorded from October 1980 to September 1981, and released in February 1982...
(1982, CBS RecordsCBS RecordsCBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...
) - The John Lewis GroupJohn Lewis (pianist)John Aaron Lewis was an American jazz pianist and composer best known as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet.- Early life:...
, Kansas City Breaks (1982, Finesse) - Bill MaysBill MaysWilliam Allen Mays , best known as Bill Mays, is a jazz pianist from Sacramento, California He came from a musical family and at fifteen he became interested in jazz at an Earl Hines concert....
Quintet, Tha's Delights (1983, Trend)
External links
- Bailey, C. Michael. Review of The Best of Shelly Manne (Web site all about jazz)
- Library of Congress. Shelly Manne Collection (U.S. Library of Congress Web site)
- Manne, Shelly. "Shelly Manne Offers His Concept of Jazz Drums" (12/14/1955; posted on Web site downbeat.com)
- Shelly Manne Exhibit (Web site of the Percussive Arts Society)
- Shelly Manne pictures and biography (Web site Drummers Unlimited)
- Strain, James. "Shelly Manne" (Web Site Drummerworld)
- [ Yanow, Scott. "Shelly Manne" (Web site allmusic)]