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
music home guy
I can't understand guys who just have to have your autograph. What do you do when you get home, take it out & look at it?
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?
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?
fun way miserable
I wanted to resign from the planet, not just music. It stopped being fun with success. Money got in the way. Everybody got greedy, including me. Fear set in. I got miserable when I became a commodity.
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.
stars distance dust
The distance between me and Benny [Goodman], was that I was trying to play a musical thing, and Benny was trying to swing. Benny had great fingers; I'd never deny that. But listen to our two versions of 'Star Dust.' I was playing; he was swinging.
writing artist misunderstood
I'm not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is artists are misunderstood by all. I'm not interested in the clarinet but in music. we speak our emotions into music. An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away. My situation is the same. Let them concentrate on my music and not on me. I like the music. I love it and live it, in fact. But for me, the business part of music just plain stinks.
play clarinet goodman
Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.
has-beens
Any more would have been less.
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 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.
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?'
music writing artist
An artist should write for himself & not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.