Artie's take on Cole Porter's "Begin The Beguine" is as good as it gets....... 'Goosebumps' & all !!! My late LA mother often talked about dancing at the Hollywood Palladium to Artie Shaw and his Big Band...
If only America would embrace and learn to accept an artist's demand for change and posture in their music, the industry(I think) would be much different today. Right on Artie, a phenomenal clarinetist AND a truly articulate individual!
My first Artie Shaw "78" was "Softly as in the morning sunrise" - bought in 1958. I heard he was semi-retired living on the Costa Brava in the town of Begur,(about 80km along the coast north of Baracelona) Spain writing a book. I went there to see if I could actually meet him - but to no avail. Later I went many times on holidays on the Costa Brava and would sometimes stop for a coffe in Begur - and just dream. His music is still very much part of me.
He lived 25 or 30 years beyond this so he must have had intuition about what was best for him regarding that he stopped playing. We don't know that he stopped playing in private or with a private group, though. He quit the shows etc, but I cannot believe he didn't play at all, after a certain year. It's a physical act though so one has to be in relatively good shape to keep it up. I listen to him every single day, and wouldn't be able to get through certain unpleasant mundane tasks without hearing his music. 🎼🎶
He stopped performing in the early 1950s because he was basically fed up with the direction popular music was headed. He was famously mercurial, even walking away from one band without warning. By the late 1960s he realized there was still enough interest in his music that he decided to try for a comeback. In 1968 he put together a group of studio musicians to record re-creations of his 1938 band's hits, which was sufficiently successful that he later decided to go on the road again - but only as the conductor rather than performing.
A highly intelligent man. He also had an emotional depth and a sense of humour which simply placed him head and. shoulders above most (regardless of which shampoo he used)
So Artie has just answered that timeless riddle of what type of clarinet he played... and yes it was a Buffet. But the question now becomes was the instrument responsible for that imcomparable mellow tone or was that due to his embouchure and style.
How's this for an amazing coincidence. Shaw was born in May 1910 whilst his great rival Benny Goodman was born in May 1909. May must have been a great month for the birth of clarinetists because Woody Herman was born in May 1913
Another interesting coincidence was that Jimmy Dorsey came into this world on Feb. 29, 1904. And the next day one Alton G. Miller was born. But of course he preferred his middle name.
How on earth can anybody who could play like this can give up the black lady altogether?? This is far beyond my understanding. I know Thelonious Monk gave up playing piano at the end of his life, and maybe a few other musicians gave up their instruments voluntarily. But to me, this is like cutting contacts with one of your children. Just can't grasp it. I get depressed when I can't play my clarinet for a week.
Artie Shaw was a perfectionist who rehearsed six hours a day as a performer. At several points in his career he had to stop because he had rehearsed/performed to exhaustion. When one no longer has the musical capacities that he once had, he can decide to give it up--its not that uncommon for professional singers to hang it up. Artie Shaw prided himself on being able to play faster, higher and louder than everyone else. When that was no longer true he moved on. Also, his choice to become a musician was always so that he could afford to be a debutante in his middle and advanced age. He always viewed music as a means to a financial end.
