I have spent a lot of time dancing to his music.
Artie Shaw, star bandleader, dies at 94
By Adam Bernstein
The Washington Post
Artie Shaw, 94, the dynamic, cantankerous swing era icon who abruptly quit the music business in 1954, disappointed by the industry's demand for dance music over the jazz innovation he championed, died Dec. 30 at his home in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
A clarinetist and bandleader, Shaw's music sold more than 100 million records with a stunning series of hit-making songs, including Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" and Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust." His music so defined its period that Time magazine wrote that on the verge of World War II, the United States meant to the Germans "skyscrapers, Clark Gable and Artie Shaw."
Still, he dismissed those popular recordings as pap, preferring to explore new sounds even if it alienated listeners and his music-company bosses.
Constantly driving for new possibilities, he was among the first white bandleaders to hire a black singer full-time, in his case Billie Holiday. He used stringed instruments to fuse classical and jazz music and delved into hard-driving bebop, "chamber jazz" groups with harpsichord and Afro-Cuban sounds. His unconventional theme song was the bluesy dirge "Nightmare." |
