Artie Shaw: A Musical Biography and Discography (review)

Artie Shaw: A Musical Biography and Discography. By Vladimir Simosko. (Studies in Jazz, 29.) Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2000. [xiii, 281 p. ISBN 0-8108-3397-2. $70.]

He had it all, but he didn't want most of it. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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. In 1954, he quit performing for good and has never played the clarinet again.

Always cantankerous, Shaw scorned the screaming teenage audiences who adored him, characterizing their behavior as moronic. He even belittled his own playing, contending that the role of the composer was much more important than that of the performer. Complex, very articulate, and highly intelligent, he preferred isolation, life on his farm, and time to indulge a passion for reading the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer (whom he sometimes read even on the bandstand), writing books, and creating paintings and sculpture. At this date, he has passed the age of ninety and continues energetically to pursue the writing of his magnum opus, "The Education of Albie Snow."

Vladimir Simosko calls his work A Musical Biography and Discography, and accordingly, he refers only occasionally to Shaw's personal life, and then largely through quotes by others. A complete and detailed annotated diary, it is a meticulously researched work, which, with the aid of its subject, succeeds in accurately describing where, when, and with whom Shaw performed. Audience reaction in public performances is noted, and an effort is made to evaluate both the financial and artistic success of the studio recordings. Shaw himself describes how he named his famous Gramercy 5 and other small groups: "That . . . was simply the prefix of one of the numbers in the 1940 New York telephone directory, as were . . . the Chelsea 3, the Regent 4, the Vanderbilt 6, the Trafalgar 7, and of course the eponymous (as in John O'Hara's novel) Butterfield 8" (p. vii).

The discography includes matrix numbers and extensive information about each session, often including even the time of day. Listings are limited to the original issues; by design, Simosko made no attempt to identify further issues and reissues. Extensive indexes of song titles, with composers and lyricists noted, are offered and referenced by date. Further appendixes provide useful information about Shaw's vocalists, a selective bibliography, and a list of major reference sources.

Simosko rarely attempts the difficult task of describing Shaw's music in words, except in the most rudimentary fashion, and one yearns for a better musical understanding of what made his playing so special, as indeed it was. Other first-rate jazz clarinetists, such as Buddy DeFranco, consider Shaw to have been the nonpareil performer on the instrument, notwithstanding the challenge of contemporaries like Benny Goodman. A more serious comparison of Shaw's and Goodman's styles and those of their orchestras would have been welcome. There is no music notation because the book is intended for...