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Born: Naftule Schuldkraut, Dec. 25, 1899 New York (Queens borough), NY, USA. Died: Feb. 18, 1982, New York, NY, USA.
Nathaniel is the great-uncle of actress Julie Warner.(Nat's brother is her father.)
Here's a photograph Nat Shilkret, with some very distinguished company. One of six children born to Wulf and Krusel Schuldkraut, Austrian immigrants then living in New York (Queens), NY, Nat often joked that he was "just another jew born on Christmas day". Somehow or other, in time, the original name of 'Shuldkraut' metamorphosed into Shilkret. (One of the six children, Harry Shilkret, later played cornet on some of Nat Shilkret's recordings, while another brother, Jack, led some bands.)
Nat Shilkret began his musical studies at the age of 4 studying clarinet and violin, and later piano. (He must have been a fairly good pianist because he was accepted as a pupil by Charles Hambitzer (1881-1918). Hambitzer's other pupil, George Gershwin also achieved a little fame.)
Even though Shilkret went on to earn a civil engineering degree at Bethany College (Kansas), it was music that became his life's work. (In 1935, he received a doctor's degree in music from Bethany College.) At age 12 or 13, Nat was accepted for a chair with the Russian Symphony and also the Volpe orchestra. Just two years later, Shilkret was playing (under Safranov and also Mahler) with the New York Philharmonic (then called the New York Symphony Orch), and a little later, he joined Walter Damrosch and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
About 1924, at age 23, he began working for RCA (Victor Talking Machine Co.) as the Director of Light Music. (But he was clearly working with Victor prior to that date. There is a 12 inch 'International Concert Orchestra' black label disc issued in 1923 on which the label states "under the Direction of Nathaniel Shilkret". The disk featured excerpts from Franz Lehar's Gypsy Love (35725) as well as Strauss' Gypsy Baron.)
Nat's first orchestra, the Victor (Salon) Orchestra, was a studio band which played operetta favorites in addition to popular music and jazz. In time, Shilkret led other bands at the Victor studios including the International Novelty Orchestra, Shilkret's Rhyth-Melodists, the All Star Orchestra, the Victor Orchestra, the Troubadours (normally led by Hugo Frey), and the the Hilo Hawaiian Orchestra.
It is difficult to deterrmine just when Shilkret and the Victor Recording Company got together. Some early victor catalogs seem to indicate that both a young Nat Shilkret and his brother Jack were there as early as 1913 (when Nat was just 14 years old). It is known that, in 1921, Victor issued a record with The Shilking Orch. That name was a combination of the two Shilkrets, Nat and Jack, and percussionist Eddie King. (The record was "Bring Back My Blushing Rose" (18797) and "When the Sun Goes Down" (18804). Eddie King wound up working for Columbia Records in 1928, But this 1921 recording does indicate the kind of responsibilities that Victor was giving to the very young Shilkret boys.
The height of Nat's recording popularity was 1924-1929 during which time he recorded such best selling discs as "All Alone Monday", "Hallelujah", "Diane (I'm In Heaven When I See You Smile"), "The Sidewalks of New York" and "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes". His band was also used to back other Victor artists such as Gene Austin, Franklyn Baur and Lewis James. And during this time, his brother Jack was also recording for Victor with a studio orchestra.
There had been a growing rivalry developing between Paul Whiteman and Nat Shilkret. Whiteman, who had always had "first crack" at all the songs he wanted, watched as Nat got more and more. In his 1983 book 'Pops', a Paul Whiteman biography, author Thomas DeLong points out a little known and interesting detail of that rivalry. There was some excitement during the April 21, 1927 "Electrical" recording session of "Rhapsody In Blue". First some of the musicians failed to show up on time. Then, George Gershwin disagreed on Whiteman's interpretation of the music. (He thought it a bit too Jazzy'.) Finally, Whiteman left the studio in a bit of a tiff, and when he returned, he found Nat Shilkret on the podium conducting. The recording of that performance was issued with the Paul Whiteman name on the label. But Nat, in a 1963 interview with another author, Brian Rust, said -"It was poor old Nat who conducted!"
Also in 1927, Nat composed the song "The Lonesome Road" with a lyric by famed vocalist/lyricist Gene Austin -(né: Lemuel Eugene Lucas). Composer Sam Coslow has written that Shilkret and Austin "had...revised and dressed up an obscure old spiritual". Interestingly, the record (Victor 21098) appeared 2 months before Jerome Kern's 'Show Boat' premiered in November 1927.
Whiteman finally left Victor complaining that Shilkret was receiving better treatment than "The King Of Jazz" - although the very large amount of money that Columbia was to pay him also no doubt helped. Victor executives later conceded that Shilkret was a major reason for the their loss of Whiteman, but Nat was neither fired or disciplined and in fact continued to work for them as a musical director until 1945.
Shilkret turned his attention to radio and the movies in the mid 1930's. In 1935, he became 'General Musical Director' for RKO - Radio Pictures, while also remaining on the Victor payroll. Among the scores he wrote for Hollywood, were 'The Bohemian Girl', 'Way Out West', 'Swiss Miss' (all featuring Laurel & Hardy), John Ford's 'Mary Of Scotland (starring Katherine Hepburn', and two of RKO's Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies, 'Swing Time' and 'Shall We Dance'.
In the early 1950s. he became Musical Director for Columbia. When not busy at Columbia, Shilkret worked as musical director on dozens of radio shows, concert halls, and theaters. He died at age 83, after having had a very long, interesting and successful musical career.
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