"Undecided"

A Hit Song by an Unsung Virtuoso

Have you ever looked up on a dark night and tried even to estimate how many distant twinkling objects are visible to the naked eye? Well, there were so many stars shining in the firmament of American popular music of the early to mid-twentieth century that it’s impossible ever to hope to count them all. Most of the time here at Sometimes a Song I know the names of composers and lyricists and, of course, singers and major orchestras that figure into the production of whichever song we feature. If I were a jazz historian instead of just a lover of all good music, I would no doubt recognize the name of today’s composer. But if you have never heard of Charlie Shavers, you are in good company, for neither had I until yesterday. And I was quite surprised to learn that “Undecided” was not composed by one of “the usual suspects” whose work we discuss here all the time. But I didn’t just find out that Charlie Shavers composed our song. I also learned for the first time the name of someone who was then and is now considered one of the virtuoso trumpeters of the mid-century, on a par with the likes of Louis Armstrong.

Charlie Shavers was born in 1920, in New York City, into a family of musicians. Because his father and his elder brother were exceptional trumpeters, young Charlie at first took up banjo and piano. Obviously, his was a music-filled home. Mr. Shavers sent his son to military school, where Charlie learned discipline, of course; but out of necessity (the school’s band lost its three best trumpeters to graduation), Charlie took up the trumpet. And not so surprisingly given that the Great Depression was in force, by age 16 he had struck out on his own to make a living at his music. Depression or no, music was one flourishing “industry” in the 1930’s, due to the development of recorded music and the increasing popularity of the new technology, radio, that helped to market this music to the masses.

I have read that while Charlie Shavers was one of the most in-demand musicians in the business, his need to earn a paycheck kept him from forming his own band, as so many of his peers did, and it certainly hindered what might have been a career of fame and fortune. And although he did not achieve superstar status himself and only composed a small handful of songs, Charlie Shavers was highly regarded among singers, musicians, and recording executives. He was, for example, a member of the first official RCA studio orchestra, and he was a great arranger, playing with Tommy Dorsey for over ten years. You can hear him playing the trumpet in many hundreds of studio recordings for great performers over the course of his career.

I mentioned that Charlie Shaver was earning a living as a musician by age sixteen. At age eighteen he wrote our song for this week. There is a comical little story attached to the song, that you might enjoy. It seems that after Shaver composed the tune, he sent it along to his publisher at Decca Records. The publisher wired him the message, “Do you have a title?” Charlie wired back a one-word reply, “undecided.” The publisher, taking that reply for the NAME of the tune, called in lyricist Sid Robin, and asked him to write a little love song to go with it. At the time, Charlie was arranging music and playing trumpet for a “boy band” of those days called The John Kirby Sextet, with whom he recorded an instrumental release of the song, in 1938, from Decca Records. Later that year, Decca released a cover of a very young Ella Fitzgerald singing the Sid Robin lyrics, with Chick Webb and His Orchestra. But the song didn’t hit the charts until over a decade, when in 1951, Decca released another recording by Les Brown and His Band of Renown, with the Ames Brothers doing the vocal. That recording rose to #2 on Billboard and held its place for 20 weeks. The song remained very popular through the 1950’s and into the 1960’s and quickly took its place as a jazz standard. As it turned out, “Undecided” was Charlie Shavers’ only big hit, but oh, what a hit it was!

On a personal note, I will fast-forward us to the year 1981, when I was finishing my undergraduate degree in English at The University of Texas at Austin. The standard of performance in live local music was very high in those days, and a trio of young musicians in town were extremely popular among the students. And so it was that I discovered Uncle Walt’s Band and got to hear them perform now and again at a small joint in Austin, where they appeared frequently, about a block from the state capitol. I’m pretty sure I had heard “Undecided” before, but the band did a boatload of the standards, along with their own compositions. I hope you enjoy the song in both versions!

Bonus Track: Uncle Walt’s Band

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