final credits - artie shaw
Swing Era clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw died December 30, 2004 at age 94. Among Shaw's best-selling recordings were "Begin the Beguine" (1938), "Frenesi" (1940), "Back Bay Shuffle" (1939), "Concerto for Clarinet," and "Summit Ridge Drive" (both 1940), "Stardust" and "Dancing in the Dark" (both 1941), "Little Jazz" (1945) and " 'S Wonderful" (1949).
At his peak during the 1930s and '40s, Shaw pulled in a five-figure weekly salary and ranked with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller as the bandleaders who made music swing. Perhaps the most heated debate of the Swing Era centered on Shaw and his friend Benny Goodman: Who was the superior clarinetist? "You play the clarinet," Shaw is said to have remarked to Goodman, "I play music." This was a reference, presumably, to the general agreement that Goodman swung harder and played "hotter" than Shaw.
Yet the similarities between the two were striking. Both demonstrated superb technique and were musical perfectionists. Both played classical music (at various times, Shaw incorporated a string quartet in his big band and a harpsichord in his celebrated combo, the Gramercy 5). Both Jewish, they strongly opposed racial prejudice and brought black musicians into their bands -- in Shaw's case, singer Billie Holiday and trumpeters Oran (Hot Lips) Page and Roy Eldridge.
Shaw did not hesitate to employ top musicians in his band. Other musicians who worked for him include tenor saxophonists Georgie Auld, Zoot Sims, and Al Cohn; drummers George Wettling and Buddy Rich; guitarist Barney Kessel; singers Helen Forrest and Mel Torme; trumpeter Billy Butterfield; and pianist Johnny Guarnieri.
Shaw's other famous roster was his eight wives. They included actresses Lana Turner (wife No. 3, 1940), Ava Gardner (No. 5, 1945), novelist Kathleen Winsor, author of the 1944 best-seller Forever Amber (No. 6, 1946), and Evelyn Keyes (No. 8, 1957). The marriage to Keyes, best known for playing the middle of the three O'Hara sisters in "Gone With the Wind," lasted the longest, until 1985, but they led separate lives for much of that time. "I know nothing about marriage, but I'm an expert on divorce," Shaw once said.
Born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky in New York City on May 23, 1910, Shaw's first instrument was a ukulele. He switched to the saxophone at 11 and was playing professionally at 15. A year later, he switched to clarinet. He left high school, changed his name to Art Shaw and spent three years in Cleveland, playing with several dance bands. After two years touring with Irving Aaronson's orchestra, he moved back to New York in 1931. He made his first recording, "Interlude in B-Flat," in 1936. His second recording, Cole Porter's tune "Begin the Beguine" (originally intended as the B-side to "Indian Love Call") made Shaw a household name at age 28. It became a huge hit, topping the charts for six weeks in 1938.
"Beguine" would make a celebrity out of Shaw - and haunt him until the day he died. He saw himself as "catnip for all those mobs of overexcited girls. I was about as utterly miserable as a fellow can possibly be and still stay on this side of suicide," he said. "I began to discover this business of being a 'big name' was a full-time job," Shaw wrote in his autobiography. He hated the loss of privacy stardom brought, had little use for signing autographs, causing an uproar by calling jitterbugging fans "morons."
By November 1939, he'd had it. He suddenly walked off the bandstand at New York's Pennsylvania Hotel and drove to Mexico in an attempt to "disappear." However, staying in the then little-known village of Acapulco, reporters found out who he was after he rescued a woman from drowning. He owed RCA Victor six more recordings on his contract and returned to Hollywood to fulfill the obligation. He formed a 31-piece studio band with 13 strings and recorded "Frenesi."
He did some of his best work during this time, recording "Stardust," Hoagy Carmichael's standard, with a moving solo by Shaw. His good lucks landed him in a few movie roles, and it was while filming "Dancing Coed" that he met Lana Turner. In 1940, he appeared in another musical made about him and his band - "Second Chorus," which starred Fred Astaire and Paulette Goddard. Shaw got two Academy Award nominations for his musical contributions -- for best score and best song ("Love of My Life").
After receiving a medical discharge (exhaustion) from the U.S. Navy in 1944, he led several big bands and small groups over the next decade. The final incarnation of Gramercy 5, featuring guitarist Tal Farlow, vibraphonist Joe Roland, bassist Tommy Potter, pianist Hank Jones and drummer Irv Kluger left some of Shaw's finest recorded work, but their 1954 recordings were not released for some 30 years.
"All the public wanted was 'Beguine' and 'Frenesi' -- you could become known as a one-tune player," Shaw recalled in a 1991 interview. "Jesus! It can drive you crazy. It's like doing the same interview all day long: the same questions and the same answers. I did all you can do with a clarinet," he said. "Any more would have been less."
An outspoken liberal, Shaw was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953 when it was investigating Communist influence in entertainment. For once, Shaw was contrite, telling committee members he had attended a couple of Communist meetings after the war because of his interest in social justice and world peace -- but had never joined the party or given it any money.
"I hate to admit that I was a dupe, but I guess I was," he said. Committee members responded with sympathy, one telling him to go out and use his talent "to fight for true Americanism." Though he escaped career threatening repercussions, he felt his appearance before the committee put a grim punctuation point on his musical career. He also faced tax problems.
Shaw moved to Spain in 1955 to operate a farm, but later to the United States in 1960 and turned his attention to writing. In 1983 he lent his approval to the All-New Artie Shaw Big Band, led by clarinetist Dick Johnson. Shaw conducted some performances, but that was the limit of his involvement.
As his interest in performing waned, Shaw amassed a 15,000-book library and published an autobiography, "The Trouble with Cinderella" (1952), a collection of novellas, "I Love You, I Hate You, Drop Dead" (1965), and a collection of short stories, "The Best of Intentions and Other Stories" (1989). Shaw spent his final years writing a 95-chapter novel about a young jazz musician, which he envisioned as the first in a trilogy. Echoing the thoughts of many, jazz writer Gene Lees, a longtime friend who eventually broke with the irascible Shaw, said: "Artie Shaw gave up being one of the most brilliant musicians ever to being a second-rate writer."
Over the years Shaw watched from the sidelines as new generations of fans discovered his music. In 1985, an Academy Award-winning documentary, Brigitte Berman's "Time Is All You've Got," was made about him. Reissues of his recordings continued to sell well and a 2003 retrospective album, the 95-track "Self Portrait," was released by Bluebird/BMG and nominated for a Grammy as the best historical album. In 2003, Shaw finally agreed to give two of his clarinets, including the one he used to record "Begin the Beguine," to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Material from the Boston Globe, Associated Press, Chicago Sun Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles & New York Times was used in this summary.