[Dixielandjazz] Artie Shaw biography reviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Artie Shaw biography reviewed

Clarinetist Artie Shaw Cursed by Perfectionism
by Scott Eyman
Palm Beach Post, August 16, 2010

There are probably two ways to write a biography of Artie Shaw. One is to put yourself
inside the swamp of musical brilliance, ego and raw need that constituted his emotional
life. Call it the Nick Tosches, from-the-inside-out approach.
The other is the judicious, temperate, from-the-outside-in approach.
Tom Nolan has chosen the latter, and although at first it seems overly decorous for
the flamboyant personality of his subject, it gradually pays dividends. By the book's
end you're convinced that Nolan has given you the real man, and the real musician.
For most of his career, before he simply walked away from music in the early 1950s,
Shaw was in competition with Benny Goodman for the title of greatest clarinetist.
Goodman had better time, and could probably swing a little harder, but Shaw had a
luscious, almost erotic tone and an elegance Goodman could only dream about. You
pays your money and you takes your choice.
Where Goodman was a grind and something of a jerk, Shaw was a showman and a total
perfectionist, with an unusual range of neuroses. Before one eight-week gig, he held
six weeks of rehearsals and paid his musicians the whole time. "He seemed much happier
when he was playing," one of Shaw's musicians tells Nolan, "but he hated to play."
Shaw was born Avram Arshawsky to a poor Jewish family in New Haven, Conn. His father
was a dud, his mother was farbissenah. He had no use for either of them, or for the
Jewish religion. His only God was music, and, beyond that, writing. He was movie-star
handsome, played with Bix Beiderbecke and loved Louis Armstrong. "Beyond Louis, there
wasn't much to hear," he said.
(Shaw and Armstrong were friendly. One day Shaw dropped by Armstrong's dressing room
and found him pecking away at his typewriter. "What's up, Louis?" asked Shaw. "White
folks are still in the lead," answered Armstrong.)
Because Shaw's own standards were so high, he could be brutal and funny about the
competition. Glenn Miller was "Lawrence Welk, with a jazz accent. What Glenn did
was safe; you felt comfortable. That's not what it's about. It's supposed to be exciting.
Ellington had that; Lunceford had it. Fletcher Henderson didn't. Count Basie had
it."
Shaw lived to be 94, which means he spent more of his life out of music than in it.
Once, he tried to explain why he quit by talking about a Jascha Heifetz concert he
attended. Shaw thought Heifetz was spectacular and went backstage to congratulate
him.
"I thought I was a little bit off," Heifetz responded.
Shaw realized that "Heifetz was aiming at 100, and he probably hits 94 regularly.
So that night he only hit a 93 and it bothered him. There's not much difference but
he can hear it. And it's the same with the clarinet. If you really play it honestly,
if you're cursed with that, and you take even one day off, then you can't hit 94."
Shaw had eight wives, mostly sexpots -- Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Evelyn Keyes, the
novelist Kathleen Winsor. He was attracted to the obvious elements, but was always
shocked when he staggered out of the bedroom and discovered he and his wife had nothing
to talk about. Conversely, women who could give him an intellectual conversation
rarely interested him because they tended not to look like Ava Gardner. In any case,
Shaw was far more interested in his own monologue.
Shaw was an autodidact and never let you forget it. He published a memoir, a couple
of books of short stories, and spent decades wrestling with a bildungsroman about
the education of a musician that a friend of mine is currently trying to make publishable.
Shaw could write, in a blunt, sardonic, John O'Hara manner, but narrative was tough
for him; short stories were probably his metier.
Nolan brings this multi-faceted, deeply entertaining egomaniac to life. The book
made me want to run out and listen to batches of Shaw's music, and I'd be surprised
if it didn't have the same effect on everybody that reads it.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
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