Artie Shaw
Artie Shaw
Artie Shawwas an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and actor. Also an author, Shaw wrote both fiction and non-fiction...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth23 May 1910
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
thinking definitions needs
I'm not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word 'definition' is based on the word 'finite,' which would seem to indicate that once we've defined something, we don't need to think about it anymore.
ideas funny-marriage no-idea
You have no idea of the women I didn't marry.
audience
An audience is in many respects no more than a mob under loose control.
country art jobs
Essentially, the popular musician in America must learn that his basic job is to entertain people, to make them forget their sorrows for a moment or two; in the same sense that any popular art form must aim at the same distraction value. Any such job as that is basically a young man's business. It takes a young man's energy to go traveling around the country, night after night in a different place, prancing and cavorting around in front of mobs of people all out to try to forget their problems for an evening. And for a young man it can be a good enough way of life, if he happens to like it.
thinking swings said
Somebody asked me once, 'Do you think that swing will ever come back?' And I said, 'Do you think the 1938 Ford will ever come back?'
play clarinet goodman
Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.
running school talking
I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn't making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don't understand the part of money in running a band.
has-beens
Any more would have been less.
music facts stink
I like the music. I love it & live it in fact. But for me the business part of music just plain stinks.
games why-not phrases
There's such a cynicism about the phrase 'I laughed all the way to the bank.' It's as though money is what you're doing, rather than playing music. If you're playing a money game, why not get into banking?
swings band firsts
It ["Begin the Beguine"] became such a hit that it superseded anything that any band had ever had. It was the first time that a so-called swing band played something melodic and still gave it a beat.
thinking band jazz
I think that band [Glenn Miller] was the beginning of the end. It was a mechanized version of what they called jazz music. I still can't stand to listen to it.
beautiful running i-like-you
You run into a party and [a] woman comes up to you. She's the most beautiful creature you ever saw - Ava Gardner - and says, "I like you and why don't we get together?" What are you going to say, "No"? You'd have to be an idiot. She was an incredible creature.
funny light people
People ask what those women saw in me. Let's face it, I wasn't a bad-looking stud. But that's not it. It's the music; it's standing up there under the lights. A lot of women just flip; looks have nothing to do with it. You call Mick Jagger good-looking?