Musicians - Shelly Manne

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	Musicians - Shelly Manne

Shelly Manne (June 11 1920–September 26 1984), born Sheldon Manne in New York, New York, was an American jazz drummer. He was frequently associated with West Coast jazz, but his broad range of contributions to music, not only jazz, showed that he could not be readily pigeonholed.

Family and origins

Manne's father and uncles were drummers, and in his youth he especially admired swing drummers Jo Jones and especially Dave Tough. He developed his art in the clubs of 52nd Street in New York in the late 1930s and 1940s, and in his early years performed and recorded with jazz stars like Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Shavers, and Don Byas, as well as a number of musicians mainly associated with Duke Ellington, like Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Lawrence Brown, and Rex Stewart.

The bebop movement changed jazz in the 1940s. Excited by the new music, Manne developed his skills by 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 still the most popular music in the United States.

West Coast

In the early 1950s, Manne left New York and settled permanently on a ranch in an outlying part of Los Angeles, California, where he and his wife raised horses. From this point on, he played an important role in the so-called 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).

Also at this time, and until the end of his career, 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 LPs were issued. These recordings, widely acclaimed and considered pioneering examples of jazz albums made from "live" recordings, were much later reissued on CD in augmented form.

West Coast jazz

Many have debated the value of the music created at that time, in that place, and by those musicians. Some, perhaps not quite fairly, use "West Coast jazz" as a derogatory term. The early 1950s in Los Angeles saw considerable experimentation, some of it attempting new ways of combining jazz with European classical music. Some of the recording sessions, in many of which Manne participated, produced music that came off as overly cerebral, feeding the critics with reasons to dismiss all jazz produced on the West Coast.

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Musicians - Shelly Manne

Family and origins

West Coast

West Coast jazz

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