Artie Shaw

At 94 years old, Artie Shaw has this physical status:

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and actor.

Shaw, who was also an author, wrote both fiction and non-fiction. Shaw, who is widely regarded as "one of jazz's finest clarinetists," was a member of one of the United States' most popular big bands from the late 1930s to early 1940s.

Despite having numerous hit songs, Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" was perhaps best known for his 1938 recording of "Begin the Beguine."

Shaw and his fledgling band had existed in relative anonymity for more than two years before he was announced, and within a short time, he became a major pop artist in short order.

The album became one of the era's most influential recordings.

Shaw, who was musically inactive, was also a pioneer of Third Stream music, which amalgamated elements of classical and jazz styles and traditions much later.

His music inspired others, including Monty Norman of England, who was possibly inspired by 1938's "Nightmare".

He served in the US Navy from 1942 to 1944 (during which he accompanied a morale-building band that toured the South Pacific during World War II's chaos) and then returned to lead a band until 1945.

Following the breakup of the band, he began to concentrate on other things and gradually resigned from the fame of being a professional musician and jazz legend before finally retiring from jazz and jazz in 1954.

Early life

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky was born in New York City on May 23, 1910; he was the son of Sarah (née Strauss) and Harold "Harry" Arshawsky, a dressmaker and photographer. His father was from Russia, his mother from Austria, and his father was from Austria. Shaw grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, where local antisemitism deepened his natural introversion. Shaw acquired a saxophone while working in a supermarket store and started learning the saxophone at 13. He changed to the clarinet at 16 and left home to tour with a band.

Personal life

Shaw, a self-proclaimed "very difficult guy," has been married eight times. Two marriages were annulled; one, Jane Cairns (1932–43; annulled); Margaret Allen (1940–44); and actress Ava Gardner (1946–77) (57–80); Jane Cairns (1952–58); and actress Deborah Lloyd (1954–85); Margaret Allen (1942–46); and actress Ava Gardner (1954–77); and actress Jane Wilson (1955–85). Steven Kern (with Betty Kern) and Jonathan Shaw (with Doris Dowling). Shaw was described as being highly emotional by Lana Turner and Ava Gardner later. Turner had a nervous breakdown shortly after being divorced him due to his controlling personality and incessant verbal abuse. Shaw briefly dated actress Betty Grable and Judy Garland in 1940, before eloping with Lana Turner, and Lena Horne, according to Tom Nolan's biography, the pair had an affair with Lena Horne.

Shaw had a deep curiosity in music as well as a seemingly insatisfied desire for academic and literature. As part of Karl Sabbagh's The Riemann Hypothesis, he took interest in advanced mathematics during his self-imposed "sabbaticals" from the music industry.

Shaw attended a meeting of the Independent Citizens' Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions in 1946. Olivia de Havilland and Ronald Reagan, two members of a core group of actors and artists attempting to compel the company away from Communism, issued an anti-Communist statement that, if signed, was supposed to run in newspapers. Many people rallied to support the communist cause, and Shaw began lauding the Soviet constitution's democratic ideals. Shaw was coerced to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953 for his leftist activities. The committee was looking at the World Peace Council, a peace activist group.

Shaw was also a precision marksman, ranked fourth in the United States in 1962, and a masterful fly fisherman. Shaw lived and wrote in Thousand Oaks, California, where he grew up. He died on December 30, 2004, aged 94, on December 30, 2004. He had been "in ill health for a while," he told his publicist, but "I'm not aware of the specific cause of death." Shaw had been diabetic since the 1980s, and it was an honor. Evelyn Keyes, Shaw's eighth wife, filed a lawsuit in 2005 arguing she was entitled to one-half of Shaw's estate pursuant to a deal to make a will between the two women. A Ventura, California, jury unanimously found that Keyes was entitled to nearly half of Shaw's estate, or $1,420,000. She died of cancer in 2008 but not before.

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Career

He resurfaced in New York in the 1930s and became a session musician. Shaw performed with many bands and orchestras from 1926 to 1929, he spent time in Cleveland and amassed an orchestra led by violinist Austin Wylie. He performed with Irving Aaronson's Commanders in 1929 and 1930, where he was exposed to symphonic music, which he would later incorporate in his arrangements. Shaw performed with the Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra in 1932, as the group's founder, "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" and "Fit as a Fiddle" respectively.

He first gained notice in 1935 at a swing concert at the Imperial Theater in New York with his "Interlude in B-flat." His big bands were known as "Begin the Beguine" (1938), "Stardust" (1938), "Back Bay Shuffle," "Rosalie," and "Frenesi" during the swing period. The performance was well received, but it was forced to stop in 1937 because his band's sound was not commercial. Shaw favored experimental and innovative music over dancing and love songs.

He was an explorer of the big band idiom, using unusual equipment; "Interlude in B-flat," where he was backed by only a rhythm section and a string quartet, was one of the first examples of what would later be referred to as Third Stream. Stringed instruments' influence could have been attributed to the influence of classical composer Igor Stravinsky.

In addition to hiring Buddy Rich, Billie Holiday joined Billie Holiday as his band's vocalist in 1938, becoming the first black female singer to tour the segregated Southern United States. However, after releasing "Any Old Time," Holiday left the band due to hostility from local audiences, as well as from music company executives who wanted a more "mainstream" artist.

In 1940, Shaw fashioned a smaller "band within the band" for his main rival, Benny Goodman, and other top bands. Since a home telephone exchange, he named it Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five. Johnny Guarnieri, the band's harpsichord, performed on quintet recordings, and Al Hendrickson played electric guitar. After replacing Billy Butterfield, Trumpeter Roy Eldridge joined the club, succeeding Billy Butterfield. The original Gramercy Five Cut Eight sides in 1940, but Shaw disbanded the band in early 1941. "Summit Ridge Drive," one of Shaw's million-selling hits, was the Gramercy Five's biggest hits. Oran "Hot Lips" Page, Max Kaminsky, Georgie Auld, Dave Tough, Jack Jenney, Ray Conniff, and Guarnieri were among the deceased war bands formed in September 1941.

Lena Horne, Helen Forrest, Mel Tormé, Buddy Rich, Dave Tough, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Dodo Marmarosa, and Ray Conniff were among the Shaw family's long line of musical bands who later formed. Rather than picking a more accessible song, he used the morose "Nightmare" with its Hasidic nuances. Shaw referred to the "asinine" songs of Tin Pan Alley, which were the lifeblood of popular music and for which bands, especially the most popular (such as his own), were compelled to perform later in the evening. "I thought that because I was Artie Shaw I could do what I wanted, but all they wanted was 'Begin the Beguine,'" says Frank Parra of The New York Times in 1994.

Shaw had a tradition of beginning bands, designing them based on his immediate aspirations, establishing a quick series of hits, and eventually disbanding. He did not stick around long enough to gain his bands' success through live performances of their hit songs. He seldom performed in his second band's 1939 tour, and if he did, his personal appearances were mostly limited to long-term engagements in a single venue or bookings that did not need much traveling, unlike many bands of the era that traveled long distances in seemingly endless stretches of one-night engagements.

Shaw appeared on many major band remote broadcasts. He was often heard from the Hotel Lincoln's Blue Room during 1938's fall and winter. He accompanied the Café Rouge of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York in 1939, when he first appeared in 1939. He was the emcee of a radio show with comedian Robert Benchley. Shaw appeared on CBS from November 20, 1938, to November 14, 1939.

Shaw became disillusioned with not having time to create new plans and being required to repeat the same pop tunes over and over. "Begin the Beguine," he said in an interview, is a good thing. But not when you have to play it for 500 nights in a row." He walked off the Café Rouge bandstand while on the radio and resigned two days later. He left for Mexico, and the band went without him into January, but eventually broke up.

Shaw returned from Mexico in 1940 and was still under contract to RCA Victor, experimenting with a group of session musicians in Hollywood, attempting to mix strings and woodwinds with a jazz band. The result was the hit "Frenesi."

He was hired as the bandleader for the Burns and Allen Show broadcast from Hollywood. With the addition of six violins, two violas, and one cello, he formed a band that was modeled after his swing band idea of the late 1930s. The addition of a string section to a big band was not novel, as it had been practiced by Paul Whiteman and others since the 1920s. Shaw updated the image to 1940s music trends. Strings gave him a broader palette and encouraged him to concentrate on ballads rather than the fast dance songs of the swing period. Shaw was on or near the top of the list of virtuoso jazz bandleaders. Every week, the band appeared on the Burns and Allen show.

In 1940, the 30-year-old Shaw earned up to $60,000 a week, at the height of his fame. In comparison, George Burns and Gracie Allen were both earning $5,000 per week during the year that Shaw and his orchestra provided the music for their radio show. Gracie Allen, who was on the show as a love affair, expressed a passionate interest. When Shaw's service was relocated to New York, his work was renewed for another 13 weeks.

Shaw disliked having to fit into the period's celebrity culture, as well as its professional obligations. "I don't like the business of music," he told Metronome magazine. 'I'm dissatisfied with the music industry.' And maybe I don't even belong to it. I love the music but the company part just plain stinks for me. Shaw also resent the constant pressure put on them by advertisers, publishers, and promoters. In a self-penned 1939 Evening Post article, he summed up his feelings: "My job is to play music, not politics, and my only obligation is to the people who pay to listen to me." I don't want to ram hackneyed, insipid tunes down the public's throat simply because they've been chemically hypoed to the so-called 'hit' class. Naturally, people who believe I'm a longhair have been branded enemies, others who believe I'm a longhair, and impressed with my own ability as a result of this effort to preserve some sense of musical authenticity. Nothing could be further from the truth. My faith in dance music — I refuse to call it swing — is bordered on the fanatic. I have the greatest respect for the many genuine musicians who are making a new music as popular as the classics, but I have no regard for musical clowns who direct an orchestra with a baton and a quip. However, more power to them if they can make it pay."

When Shaw told his employees that he was walked away from the big band, they warned him that they couldn't do that; he had a million dollars in contracts that had to be honored. Shaw didn't care about it and replied, "Em, I'm insane." Would you call that insane?" a nice, young American boy walks away from a million dollar bill?

Shaw left the Hollywood band behind, including seven musicians in addition to himself, and filled the ensemble with New York musicians until March 1941. Shaw performed in another small-group style with three horns and a four-man rhythm section after taking a few months off to reassess what to do next, with three horns and a four-man rhythm section added as a result. He formed a big band with seven brass, five saxes, four beat, and fifteen strings by September. The 31-piece band was in the middle of a matinee performance in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 7, when he was given a note about Pearl Harbor's Japanese bombing. According to the note, he had to warn military troops that they should return to their bases. Shaw was shaken by the broadcast, as he told interviewer Freddie Johnson in 1994: "Everything seemed to pale into insignificance, and I was required to go back on stage and announce "Star Dust" or something, which sounded so fatuous. We were in the middle of a conflict. On impulse, I stepped into the front row of the band where Les Robinson, the first alto man, was seated, and I said, 'Pass the word.' This is a two-week notice.' It was a hit with the band and we were able to watch the remainder of the performance with a pall. "I joined the Navy, of course."

Shaw enlisted in the US Navy and shortly thereafter formed a band, which served in the Pacific theater, during World War II. Shaw returned to the United States after 18 months of being in battle zones, including Guadalcanal, with one or two concerts per day. The popularity of big bands in the aftermath of the war has diminished, as Crooners and Bebop started to dominate the charts.

Shaw characterized his time in the Navy from 1942 to 1944 as a time of retrospection. He began psychoanalysis after his release and began to withdraw from music in favour of a writing career. The Trouble With Cinderella: An Outline of Identity was published in 1952 (with later reprint editions in 1992 and 2001). Shaw referred to resurgent downbeat elements of the music industry, saying that "the problem with Cinderella" is "no one ever lives happily ever after." With the three short stories in I Love You, I Hate You, and Drop Dead, he converted to semi-autobiographical fiction. (1965, reprinted in 1997), which prompted Terry Southern's remark: "Here is a deeply probing investigation of the American marital scene."

I flipped over it!"

In The Best of Intentions and Other Stories (1989), Shaw's short stories, including "Snow White in Harlem," were included in The Best of Intentions and Other Stories (1989). Albie Snow's Education, a 1,000-page autobiographical book, took years to write, but the three-volume collection remained unpublished.

He formed another band after his release in 1944, this time one that could be described as a modern big band in that it featured what is now considered a modern big band in that it contained what is now called the authentic eight brass and five saxes. It did not have strings and was headquartered in Hollywood, California, where Shaw was based. He continued to record for RCA Victor, as he had before the war, and limited the band's personal appearances to military bases in California. His RCA deal came to an end in August 1945, and he signed Musicraft, a British company. He made a few music for Musicraft before the band disbanded, and all of his Musicraft sessions from 1946 were supported by top-notch session players. The big band was back in the studio, this time with strings. Mel Tormé, the young singer on these Musicraft recordings from 1946, was featured. Tormé appeared with his vocal group the Meltones on several of the sides.

Shaw undertook a brief Australian tour for promoter Lee Gordon in July 1954, when he shared the bill with drummer Buddy Rich and singer Ella Fitzgerald. After finishing the tour, Shaw stopped playing the clarinet, citing his own perfectionism, which later said, would have killed him. "In the world we live in, compulsive perfectionists come last," He told a reporter. To be Lawrence Welk or, on another level, Irving Berlin, you have to write the same kind of music over and over again. I'm not able to do that, and I've gone as far as anyone can. It would be a disservice to continue playing." He spent the majority of the 1950s in Europe.

The 73-year-old Shaw formed a band and selected clarinetist Dick Johnson as the bandleader and soloist after years of prodding by Williard Alexander. The 58-year-old Johnson, a songwriter, saxophonist, and native of Brockton, Massachusetts, was no stranger to jazz, having released multiple albums of his own and idolized Shaw's performances throughout his life. Shaw's music library, which was the result of his almost 20 years of involvement in the music industry, featured numerous examples of historic jazz interpretations of the time, in comparison to numerous original big band jazz compositions of the period. It was a series of recordings assembled by some of the period's greatest composers/arrangers, some of which were sketched out by Shaw himself and then filled in and finished by his orchestrator/arranger collaborators, including Jerry Gray, William Grant Still, Lennie Hayton, Ray Conniff, Eddie Sauter, and Jimmy Mundy, among others. Shaw rehearsed his new band, which was based out of Boston, Massachusetts, and the band made its debut on New Year's Eve 1984, the same launch pad for many bands in the swing period decades ago, when Shaw and his band were in their prime. Shaw remained with the band for the first few years, limiting his role to being the band's conductor and front man while leaving the clarinet playing duties to Johnson. Shaw's debut in 1985 culminated in another week of arduous rehearsals, with many arrangements and compositions that were not from his earlier years of his career. Shaw was no longer touring with the band in 1987, though she did not know that Johnson and the band maintained Shaw's band spirit and vision. However, he would appear on occasion "just to hear how things sounded."

(1940)

In 1939, Shaw produced several musical shorts for Vitaphone and Paramount Pictures. In the Fred Astaire film Second Chorus (1940), Shaw and his orchestra were featured in the premiere of Clarinet, and his 1940–41 Hollywood period Star Dust band can be heard throughout the film. ("Love of My Life") earned him two Oscar nominations for Best Score and Best Song. In Tony Martin's film "The Big Store (1941), he collaborated on the love song "If It's You." He was the mystery guest on the fifth episode of What's My Line on March 2, 1950. And he served on the committee on August 31, 1952. He appeared on The Mike Douglas Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the 1970s.

Many of his films have been used in motion pictures. In the closing credits of the film "Man Who Fell to Earth," his 1940 recording of "Stardust" was used in its entirety. In his Academy Award-winning Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator, Martin Scorsese also used "Nightmare" from the Shaw theme tune "Nightmare."

Brigitte Berman, a Canadian filmmaker, spoke to Hoagy Carmichael, Doc Cheatham, and others, including Shaw, about Bix Beiderbecke (1981), and afterward, she produced Artie Shaw: Time Is All You Can Get (1985), which included extensive interviews with Shaw, Buddy Rich, Mel Tormé, Helen Forrest, and other actors, in addition to Shaw's eighth wife, actress Evelyn Keyes. Shaw is back in the theater as he and his new band with co-leader Johnson on hand and rolls to the end, perhaps fittingly with the band's final segue to Shaw's theme song Nightmare. In 2000, filmmaker Ken Burns interviewed Shaw at his home for his PBS documentary/miniseries Jazz, in which Shaw appears in several segments. His last major interview was in 2003, when Russell Davies was interviewed by Russell Davies for BBC Television's documentary Artie Shaw – Quest for Perfection. The documentary features interviews with former members of his original bands, Johnson, and other music industry executives.

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