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Swing-Era Dossier

Artie Shaw

1910 – 2004

Born

May 23, 1910, New York City (Lower East Side). Given name Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; son of Jewish immigrants. Family moved to New Haven, CT, when he was a boy.

Died

Dec 30, 2004, Thousand Oaks, California, age 94. Diabetes-related illness. Outlived nearly every swing-era peer by decades.

Instruments

Clarinet (primary) — started on saxophone, switched to clarinet at 16. Also bandleader, composer, and later author.

Nicknames

Fans billed him "King of the Clarinet" (a deliberate inversion of Goodman's "King of Swing") — but that's press billing, not a personal moniker; no real nickname stuck. He hated being reduced to a brand.

Bands / years

  • Austin Wylie Orchestra, Cleveland (1926–29) — teenage pro.
  • Irving Aaronson's Commanders (1929–30); Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra (1932); then a top NYC radio/studio clarinetist.
  • 1935 — stunned an Imperial Theater swing concert with "Interlude in B-flat" for clarinet and string quartet, an unheard-of pairing.
  • First Artie Shaw band (1936) — built around strings.
  • Artie Shaw and His Orchestra (1937–41) — conventional swing band; exploded with "Begin the Beguine" (1938).
  • U.S. Navy band (1942–44) — led a morale band through the Pacific theater under fire.
  • Postwar bands (1945–54), including a 1949 bebop-tinged orchestra (sidemen included Al Cohn).
  • Quit the clarinet for good in July 1954 and never played again — blamed his own perfectionism.

Active

c. 1926–1954.

Signature tunes

"Begin the Beguine" (1938), "Frenesi" (1940), "Stardust" (1940), "Nightmare" (his theme), "Back Bay Shuffle," "Moonglow," "Traffic Jam."

Famous compositions

  • Wrote: "Nightmare" — his eerie, minor-key theme song; and "Back Bay Shuffle." Also the "Concerto for Clarinet."
  • Did NOT write (made the hit):
    • "Begin the Beguine" — by Cole Porter (from the 1935 musical Jubilee); Shaw's chart-topping version was arranged by Jerry Gray.
    • "Frenesi" — by Mexican composer Alberto Domínguez.
    • "Stardust" — by Hoagy Carmichael; Shaw's 1940 arrangement is one of the most admired ever cut.

The Gramercy Five

his band-within-a-band (1940), famous for putting a harpsichord (Johnny Guarnieri) into a swing combo — "Summit Ridge Drive."

Interesting facts

  • Married eight times — including screen queens Lana Turner (1940) and Ava Gardner (1945–46), plus Jerome Kern's daughter Betty, novelist Kathleen Winsor (Forever Amber), and actresses Doris Dowling and Evelyn Keyes.
  • Walked out on his own #1 band at the peak (Nov 1939), disgusted with fame and "jitterbug morons," and fled to Mexico — where he picked up "Frenesi." He repeatedly abandoned and re-formed bands; quitting was his signature move.
  • Integrated his band. Hired Billie Holiday (1938) as the first full-time Black female singer fronting a white orchestra, then Lena Horne and Hot Lips Page — and took the heat touring the segregated South.
  • At his 1940 peak he reportedly earned $60,000 a week scoring the Burns & Allen radio show — while George Burns and Gracie Allen each made $5,000.
  • The clarinet "rival" to Benny Goodman — the era's two-king debate ("King of Swing" vs. "King of the Clarinet").
  • A genuine polymath after music: published author (The Trouble with Cinderella, 1952), a nationally-ranked precision marksman (4th in the U.S., 1962), expert fly-fisherman, and film distributor. Testified before HUAC in 1953.

Sources

Clips