Artie Shaw:The Man Who Played Jazz To Perfection

The famous 20th century jazz clarinetist, Artie Shaw, was born on this day in 1910.

Shaw performing his Concierto for Clarinet in 1940

When he passed away in 2004 at the age of 94, Entertainment Weekly said this about him in his obituary:

Artie Shaw, one of the most popular bandleaders of the big-band era and the choice of many critics and musicians as the best clarinet player in jazz history, died on Thursday at his home outside Los Angeles. The ”Begin the Beguine” hit maker was 94 and apparently died of natural causes 

As a swing bandleader in the 1930s and ’40s, Shaw aspired to be considered a high-minded composer of art music, but his popularity kept getting in the way, with fans always clamoring to hear such monster hits as ”Begin the Beguine” and ”Frenesi.” Though he loathed the comparison, he was inevitably likened to Benny Goodman. Both were immensely popular, clarinet-playing big-band leaders, both were children of Jewish immigrants (Shaw’s given name was Arshawsky), and both had been among the earliest white ensemble leaders to integrate their groups racially (Goodman with players like Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton, Shaw with Billie Holiday and Roy Eldridge). During World War II, he joined the Navy and formed a band that crisscrossed the globe playing for U.S. troops; the band literally toured to exhaustion, leading to Shaw’s medical discharge.

You can read the rest of the story about his pursuit for perfection in performance here.

Shaw not only lived a long life but also a diverse one. He has been described as an exceptional writer who left us with one published autobiography, several novels and short stories, and an extensive autobiographical manuscript running over 1000 pages.

Here he is with his orchestra performing the two "monster hits" mentioned in the Entertainment Weekly post above:

These performances have certainly aged well over the past eighty years.