Bandleader Artie Shaw has died

[NightTrain]

Bandleader Artie Shaw Dies at 94
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4252218

All Things Considered, December 30, 2004 · Bandleader, clarinetist and arranger Artie Shaw has died at home in Los Angeles. His health had declined since Thanksgiving. He was 94 years old.

Shaw's recording of "Begin the Beguine" became so popular in 1938 that it brought him to an even footing with the other so-called "King of Swing" -- Benny Goodman. The famously irascible Shaw later referred to the song as an anchor around his neck.

Shaw was an innovator as well as a hit maker. He was one of the first white bandleaders to hire black musicians, and his orchestral compositions won him respect in the classical music world.

But Shaw quit performing in the mid-1950s to compose and arrange music, write books, produce film -- and perfect fly-fishing techniques. Shaw once said his epitaph should read, "He did the best he could with the material he had." Then he changed it -- to "Go Away."

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

1. I was going to say - was he 4,000 years old???

Seriosly - that's kinda sad. He was a legend no doubt

[NightTrain]

2. Huh?

What's this about Shaw being 4,000 years old? He was 94!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

5. Ok - let me splain - I'm jaded by my reading (back to back) of Malcolm X &

Miles Davis's autobiographies. I think Artie Shaw was amazing - but I see the point of view of black jazz artists who resent him and Benny Goodman.

I am genuinely sad to se him go. I'm glad he lived such a long life.

[NightTrain]

6. Ah! Yes, I do see your point.

I also know (from the half-decade that I immersed myself in the history of the Beat Generation) that Jack Kerouac always hated swing. He thought of it as nothing more than watered-down jazz. And Kerouac was right!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

9. Follow it on - whenever Jazz hit commercial success it was white folks

(Who were good no doubt) succeeding in something even the legendary masters didn't succeed in. Think Benny Goodman vs Duke Ellington.

[NightTrain]

12. That shit continues to this day.

The blues initially became known to White America because the Gershwins incorporated elements of it into their compositions.

African-Americans all but created rock 'n' roll via rhythm & blues. But who was the first rock 'n' roll singer to have a #1 pop hit? Bill Haley, a white guy.

The first reggae record to hit #1 on the U.S. pop chart? "Red, Red Wine" by the half-white UB40.

The first rap record to hit #1 pop? Vanilla Ice's execrable "Ice Ice Baby."

I could go on, but it irritates me too much to think about it. :mad:

[brentspeak]

20. The pop charts are color-blind

The record-buying public has never behaved according to race. If they had, the Duke Ellingtons, Nat King Coles, Chuck Berrys, and Motowns would never have ruled the charts the way they did.

"Red, Red, Wine", if you forget, was written by a white guy (Neil Diamond). Many years before UB40, though, Johnny Nash, a black guy, had a #3 hit with a reggae song, "I Can See Clearly Now", a song he'd written. Plus, by "Red Red Wine", Bob Marley's best-of lp was already well on it's way to platinum sales. It's a safe bet that many more white people than black people own that album.

I don't know if George Gershwin was the one who introduced the music public to "the blues", a very wide term. I think of "the blues" as beginning as the music of poor, black Mississippi sharecroppers, playing their guitars on house porches. Black America completely ignored and forgot about that music for decades; it took white musicologists to rediscover the old blues players, re-teach them their instruments and own songs, and give them a second life.

[Pooka Fey]

16. Now that jazz isn't commercially popular anymore,

your truthful observation is no longer an issue. I say that having just completed a master's degree in Jazz Studies. Time has taken care of that imbalance in appreciation. I don't think Benny Goodman's or Artie Shaw's name came up once during the 4 years I was in my degree program. We sure as hell talked about Duke, Basie, Miles, Train, Bird, Pres, Satchmo, Diz, Monk, Mingus, Lady Day, apologies to all I'm leaving out here...

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

22. That's the thing - among acedemia and musicians the true innovators are

well covered. Among the general media consumers it's still a Benny Goodman world to an extent

[brentspeak]

24. I don't see that at all

For the past thirty years or so, it's been Coltrane/Miles/Monk/Parker records that sell in the jazz section (along with fusion groups like Weather Report and Pat Metheny Group).

[progmom]

25. Sorry dude.

The records that sell out of the jazz section these days are:
Diana Krall
Harry Connick Jr
Jane Monheit
Peter Cincotti
Jamie Cullum

You get some decent catalog sales from Miles and Trane, but nothing like you get from the new young white singers.

Not trying to make a point, just frustrated with the jazz that sells these days. Tho I suppose I should be grateful that any jazz is selling.

[Ron Green]

11. I think Kerouac might have been doing a little rebelling against the

"establishment" when he said that. After all, swing WAS jazz when Jack was a little boy. It just stayed around a little too long for a cutting-edge hipster to dig.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

14. the undercurrents that were to become BeBop were bubbling even then

so.....

[Ron Green]

18. Right, well, nothing got "watered down;" but when players had to move on

artistically, the dancers got left behind. Bebop was cool, but not very danceable. Maybe Kerouac couldn't dance.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

21. Nor Miles, Gillespie, Adderley, Trane and a thousand others

[Ron Green]

29. "Musicians don't dance..."

(or at least that's what I always told my girlfriends)
;-)

[redqueen]

3. DAMMIT

I thought it was just supposed to come in 3s! Stop dying!

[Spinzonner]

4. Apparently the new standard is multiples of 100,000

Iraq, Tsunami ...

[Skittles]

7. married 8 times, including Lana Turner and Ava Gardner

last one must have been good, married 47 years to Evelyn Keyes.

[Left Is Write]

13. Six of his eight wives were actresses.

He was a glamourous sort.

Edit: Maybe it was five. I'd have to look it up.

[no_hypocrisy]

27. He broke Judy Garland's heart. He was her first love when she was in

her teens. She snuck out at night, behind her mother's back, and Artie showed her a real good time, and made her think he was going to propose marriage. Judy woke up one morning and read in the paper that Artie had eloped with her Metro rival, Lana Turner. The first of many men who let Judy down . . .

[Ron Green]

8. My favorite Swing-era guy. Enormous talent, great band, and

he did not suffer fools gladly. He famously derided the "fans" who insisted on mindlessly dancing to what was at the time the best listening music going. He was much bigger than a "star," so he left the business.

[Pooka Fey]

10. Thanks for posting this, NightTrain.

I like to pay my respects to these great band leaders and musicians of the swing era; so many of them have passed on now. Jazz musicians, both black and white, were way ahead of the curve in breaking down U.S. institutionalized racism.
When I think about what went down in Ohio this election with the disenfranchisement; and I see that no one in the mainstream media is talking about it, and that no one in power seems pissed except Jesse and Conyers; it depresses the hell out of me. It's not that real change is so damn slow, it's that it looks like we're moving back wards now.
Respect out to Artie Shaw.

[DemoTex]

15. RIP Artie. You certainly lifted our hearts with your music.

Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine," was never played any better than by Artie Shaw. "Begin the Beguine" was in my big-band's "book" in the mid-60s. We didn't have a clarinetist, so it was scored for solo tenor sax with the big-band back-up. Never sounded as good as Artie's arrangement.

[No Mandate Here.]

17. Interesting coincidence. Listened to "Moonglow" at dinner

Every night we can gather at least three of the family to the table, we listen to at least two album sides. (Real LPs, by the way.)

Tonight, we listened to the 1955 "Moonglow" album, which was sort of a greatest hits collection, and one of my favorite LPs of all. Sat down to read the NYTimes updates and DU a bit, and read this news. I was actually surprised he was still around. The last time I saw him was on an ancient panel game show like What's my Line, or something.

He was a better composer and arranger than Benny, although I enjoy several of his LPs, as well.

[Liberal_Andy]

19. Moonglow is such a great album! One of my favorites!

To Artie! :toast:

[CBHagman]

23. Join the gang in the next life, A.S.

I guess he was the last of the big band leaders. What a crowd of band leaders went before him, to say nothing of the great singers and instrumentalists.


Now is the time to celebrate his life, not tear it down.

[progmom]

26. RIP Artie Shaw

You were always one suave motherfucker.

[Pooka Fey]

28. GREAT photo. My, my, my those folks in the '40's had so much STYLE.