Artie Shaw (born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky; May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004) was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and writer of both fiction and non-fiction.

Many people consider him one of jazz’s greatest clarinetists. Shaw led one of the most popular big bands in the United States during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Although he had many successful records, he became most famous for his 1938 recording of Cole Porter’s song “Begin the Beguine.” Before this recording, Shaw and his new band were not well-known for over two years. After the release of “Begin the Beguine,” he quickly became a major pop artist. The record became one of the most important recordings of that time. Shaw was always interested in trying new musical ideas. He was an early supporter of a style of music later called Third Stream, which combined elements of classical and jazz music. His work influenced other musicians, such as Monty Norman in England, whose “James Bond Theme” includes a musical section that may have been inspired by Shaw’s 1938 recording of “Nightmare.”

Shaw also performed with small jazz groups made up of musicians from his big bands. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1944, during which he led a band that toured the South Pacific to boost morale. After leaving the Navy in 1944, he returned to lead a band until 1945. After that band ended, he began to focus on other interests and slowly stopped being a professional musician and celebrity. However, he remained important in popular music and jazz until he retired from music completely in 1954.

Early life

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky was born on May 23, 1910, in New York City. His parents were Sarah (born as Strauss) and Harold "Harry" Arshawsky, who worked as a dressmaker and photographer. The family was Jewish; his father was from Russia, and his mother was from Austria.

Arthur grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. There, his shy nature was affected by discrimination against Jewish people in the area. To buy a saxophone, he worked at a grocery store and began learning to play the instrument at age 13. At 16, he switched to playing the clarinet and left home to travel with a musical group.

Career

Returning to New York, he became a session musician in the early 1930s. From 1925 to 1936, Shaw performed with many bands and orchestras. From 1926 to 1929, he worked in Cleveland and became well known as a music director and arranger for an orchestra led by violinist Austin Wylie. In 1929 and 1930, he played with Irving Aaronson’s Commanders, where he learned about symphonic music, which he later used in his arrangements. In 1932, Shaw joined the Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra and made several recordings with the group, including "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" and "Fit as a Fiddle."

In 1935, he gained attention with his piece "Interlude in B-flat" at a swing concert at the Imperial Theater in New York. During the swing era, his big bands were popular with songs like "Begin the Beguine" (1938), "Stardust" (with a trumpet solo by Billy Butterfield), "Back Bay Shuffle," "Moonglow," "Rosalie," and "Frenesi." The band was well received, but it had to stop in 1937 because its sound was not commercial. Shaw preferred experimental and innovative music over dancing and love songs.

He was an innovator in the big band style, using unusual instruments. "Interlude in B-flat," where he was backed by only a rhythm section and a string quartet, was one of the earliest examples of a style later called Third Stream. His use of stringed instruments was influenced by the classical composer Igor Stravinsky.

In addition to hiring Buddy Rich, he signed Billie Holiday as his band’s vocalist in 1938. This made him the first white band leader to hire a full-time Black female singer to tour the segregated Southern United States. However, after recording "Any Old Time," Holiday left the band because of hostility from audiences in the South and music company executives who wanted a more "mainstream" singer.

Like his main rival, Benny Goodman, and other big band leaders, Shaw created a smaller group in 1940. He named it Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five after his home telephone exchange. Band pianist Johnny Guarnieri played harpsichord on the group’s recordings, and Al Hendrickson played electric guitar. Trumpeter Roy Eldridge joined the group, replacing Billy Butterfield. In 1940, the original Gramercy Five recorded eight songs, and Shaw dissolved the band in early 1941. The Gramercy Five’s biggest hit was "Summit Ridge Drive," one of Shaw’s million-selling records. His last prewar band, formed in September 1941, included Oran "Hot Lips" Page, Max Kaminsky, Georgie Auld, Dave Tough, Jack Jenney, Ray Conniff, and Guarnieri.

Throughout his career, Shaw formed many musical groups, including Lena Horne, Helen Forrest, Mel Tormé, Buddy Rich, Dave Tough, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Dodo Marmarosa, and Ray Conniff. He used the somber "Nightmare," with its Hasidic elements, as his theme instead of choosing a more popular song. In a televised interview in the 1970s, Shaw criticized the "asinine" songs of Tin Pan Alley, which were the foundation of popular music and which bands, especially his own, were forced to play repeatedly. In 1994, he told Frank Prial of The New York Times: "I thought that because I was Artie Shaw I could do what I wanted, but all they wanted was 'Begin the Beguine.'"

Throughout his career, Shaw had a habit of forming bands, developing them quickly, making a series of recordings, and then disbanding. He rarely stayed long enough to perform live shows of his recorded hits. After his second band broke up in 1939, he rarely toured and, when he did, his appearances were limited to long-term engagements in one place or bookings that required little travel, unlike many bands of the time that traveled widely.

Shaw did many big band radio broadcasts. In the autumn and winter of 1938, he was often heard from the Blue Room of the Hotel Lincoln in New York City. After touring in 1939, he led the house band at the Café Rouge of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. He was the headliner of a radio series with comedian Robert Benchley as the host. Shaw broadcast on CBS from November 20, 1938, until November 14, 1939.

Shaw became increasingly frustrated with not having time to create new arrangements and having to play the same pop tunes repeatedly. In an interview, he said, "'Begin the Beguine' is a pretty nice tune. But not when you have to play it 500 nights in a row." Finally, in frustration, he left the Café Rouge bandstand while on the air and quit the band two days later. He went to Mexico, and the band continued without him until January but eventually broke up.

After returning from Mexico in 1940, and still under contract to RCA Victor, he experimented with a group of session musicians in Hollywood, trying to combine strings and woodwinds with a jazz band. The result was the hit "Frenesi."

He was hired as bandleader for the Burns and Allen Show broadcast from Hollywood. He organized a band modeled after his swing band concept from the late 1930s, adding six violins, two violas, and one cello. Adding a string section to a big band was not new, as it had been done by Paul Whiteman and others since the 1920s. Shaw updated the idea with the music trends of the 1940s. Strings gave him more musical options and allowed him to focus on ballads instead of the fast dance songs of the swing era. Shaw was among the top skilled jazz bandleaders. The band was featured on the Burns and Allen program every week.

In 1940, at the height of his popularity, the 30-year-old Shaw earned up to $60,

Personal life

Shaw was known as a "very difficult man" and was married eight times. Two of these marriages were annulled, meaning they were legally ended before the marriage was official. The rest ended in divorce: Jane Cairns (1932–33; annulled); Margaret Allen (1934–37); actress Lana Turner (1940); Betty Kern, the daughter of songwriter Jerome Kern (1942–43); actress Ava Gardner (1945–46); Forever Amber author Kathleen Winsor (1946–48; annulled); actress Doris Dowling (1952–56); and actress Evelyn Keyes (1957–85). He had two sons: Steven Kern, born to Betty Kern, and Jonathan Shaw, born to Doris Dowling. Both Lana Turner and Ava Gardner later described Shaw as being extremely emotionally abusive. He often threatened his wives publicly, promising to "teach them a lesson later on" if they did not "shut their yapper." His controlling behavior and constant verbal abuse caused Turner to experience a nervous breakdown, after which she divorced him. In 1940, before marrying Lana Turner, Shaw briefly dated actresses Betty Grable and Judy Garland. According to Tom Nolan's biography, he also had an affair with Lena Horne.

Shaw had a strong interest in music and was also highly intelligent, with a deep love for learning and reading. During periods when he took time away from the music industry, he studied advanced mathematics, as noted in Karl Sabbagh's book The Riemann Hypothesis.

In 1946, Shaw attended a meeting of the Independent Citizens' Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. Olivia de Havilland and Ronald Reagan, who were part of a group of actors and artists trying to move the organization away from Communism, presented an anti-Communist declaration that would be published in newspapers. Chaos followed as many people supported the Communist cause, and Shaw praised the democratic standards of the Soviet constitution. In 1953, Shaw was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about his involvement with leftist activities. The committee was investigating a peace activist group called the World Peace Council.

Shaw was also a skilled marksman, placing fourth in the United States in 1962, and an expert fly fisherman. In his later years, he lived and wrote in the Newbury Park section of Thousand Oaks, California.

Death and estate

Shaw passed away on December 30, 2004, at the age of 94. His spokesperson stated that he had been "not feeling well for a long time, but the exact reason for his death is unknown." Shaw had diabetes since the 1980s.

In 2005, Shaw’s eighth wife, actress Evelyn Keyes, filed a lawsuit to claim one-half of his estate based on a legal agreement about creating a will. In July 2006, a jury in Ventura, California, decided unanimously that Keyes was owed almost half of Shaw’s estate, which was valued at $1,420,000.

Awards and honors

In 1980, Shaw gave his papers to Boston University. These papers included his music library with more than 700 scores, parts, and about 1,000 sheet music pieces. In 1991, the collection was moved to the School of Music at the University of Arizona in Tucson. In 2004, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1938, readers of DownBeat magazine chose Artie Shaw's band as the best swing band.

After Benny Goodman was called the "King of Swing," Shaw's fans called him the "King of the Clarinet." Shaw thought the titles should be switched. He said, "Benny Goodman played clarinet. I played music."

Barney Bigard, who played clarinet for Duke Ellington for a long time, said Shaw was his favorite clarinet player.