ack Pitt hated the way he looked play-
ing his mandolin.
"He'd learned to play the instrument
as a child. "My father belonged to the
Workman's Circle and in those days, every
Workman's Circle branch had its own mandolin
orchestra," he says.
Pitt was a quick study and was performing in
concert by the time he was 8.
"But I didn't like the way I looked playing —
you know how kids are. Then I saw a high
school boy playing saxophone. He looked so
smart."
Pitt took up the sax with a passion. He prac-
ticed 10 hours a day, much to the distress of his
Newark, N.J., neighbors.
"They used to throw rocks when I was prac-
ticing in the summer," he says. "My mother
would open all the windows so they wouldn't
break."
Pitt wasn't bothered that his first audience
was less than appreciative. "Whenever I took
out my sax and played," he says, "I thought I
could do anything in the world."
And that's exactly what he did. To the
despair of his parents, Pitt dropped out of high
school when he was 16 and moved to New
York.
"I wanted to become a klezmer [musician],"
he says. "But to my parents, that was the
lowest."
Pitt was especially pleased to become a stu-
dent of sax instructor Merle Johnson. "To be
accepted by him meant 'open sesame' for any-
one looking for work."
At 17, Pitt was appearing with name bands
around the city. He was playing sax with the
13ob Chester Band at Roseland when he first
met Artie Shaw, the big band leader born Ar-
thur Arshawsky, the child of Eastern
European Jewish immigrants.
One of the most popular ballrooms of the day,
M
Eric Rosenow and his
Continentals (top) and at the
piano: "The name Detroit I had
never heard in my life."
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FRInAY FERRHARY 2 1990
Roseland was ornate and elegant. Pitt still re-
members the day Shaw walked in and saw him
playing.
"The room was very wide, but not deep, so
you could see right across it," he says. "I saw
Artie Shaw had a very, very intense look; he
was staring at me. I had trouble breathing. I
mean, this was my idol."
After the program, Pitt heard Shaw wanted
to meet with him. So he went to the big band
leader's Central Park apartment with its high
ceilings. There, Shaw offered him a job.
Shaw was a genius, Pitt says. "Try to imag-
ine the Beatles and the Rolling Stones rolled
into one, and there you have the power and
impact Artie Shaw had on music.
"He was very, very demanding. And if you
gave him what he wanted, there was no prob-
lem."
He also was a dashing ladies' man. Pitt says
he watched as Shaw would toss a cigarette
butt, "and women would literally fight for it."
But the woman who captured Shaw's heart
was his wife, the late actress Ava Gardner.
"She was the only actress I ever met who was
even more attractive off screen than she was
on," Pitt says.
Pitt toured the world as first sax player with
Shaw and his band, playing to royalty and
sharing the stage in South America with First
Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In the United States,
the group traveled in Shaw's private railroad
car.
Pitt's association with Shaw continued dur-
ing World War II, when Pitt served in the
Navy for four years. He was the first man
Shaw asked to join his All American All-Star
Band which entertained U.S. troops abroad.
After the war, Pitt got a call from band
leader Tex Beneke, who heard him play with
Shaw and was impressed. He asked him to join
the Tex Beneke-Glen Miller Orchestra.