![]() ![]() He even belittled his own playing, contending that the role of the composer was much more important than that of the performer. In 1954, he quit performing for good and has never played the clarinet again.Īlways cantankerous, Shaw scorned the screaming teenage audiences who adored him, characterizing their behavior as moronic. After a wartime stint in the navy as a bandleader, a period that ended in illness and exhaustion, he formed a stringless band in late 1944. Despite it all, an unhappy Shaw walked off the bandstand in the middle of a performance in November 1939, only to return five months later with a string section added to his new band. He was widely recognized for his musical prowess in both jazz and classical music, not only as a first-rate, artistic performer, but also as the composer of many, and the arranger of most, of his recorded works. ![]() Shaw had eight hit records that each sold a million or more copies at a time when such achievements were much more difficult than they are today. Married eight times, his assorted wives included such luminaries as Lana Turner, Jerome Kern's daughter Elizabeth, Ava Gardner, Kathleen Winsor, Doris Dowling, and Evelyn Keyes. Artie Shaw, the superb clarinetist who was one of the most celebrated bandleaders during the swing era from the late thirties through the early fifties, was known as much for his independence and his various marriages as for his music. He had it all, but he didn't want most of it. (Studies in Jazz, 29.) Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2000. Artie Shaw: A Musical Biography and Discography. ![]()
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