The occasion was the city’s first swing concert. Two weeks after the first Super Chief rolled out of LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, Artie Shaw rolled out his Interlude In B Flat in New York at the Imperial Theater, and for the first time fame began rolling his way. By the winter of 1935-36 everyone was talking about swing. Parleying a partnership with Fletcher Henderson and weekly national exposure on NBC into a recording contract with Victor and an MCA-backed national tour in 1935, he hit pay dirt in California and finally at the Congress Hotel in Chicago. And in the fall of 1934, he decided that just maybe he could be the one to do it. Artie Shaw was not the only young musician restless with authority and eager to break the monopoly of those sweet bands. Meanwhile, other things were happening during that critical time frame. He returned to New York to resume the grind that would lead to his first strike at the big time in the spring of 1936.

After a year, however, with no book or especially sizable thoughts forthcoming, Artie Shaw came to appreciate the burdens of his own ignorance. In 1933, in a Thoreauesque gesture, Artie Shaw retired to the rural life of Erwinna, Pennsylvania, to reflect and write large thoughts on the life of Bix Beiderbecke. It seemed unjust that the least accomplished musicians should be telling the most accomplished ones what to do. There was a restive frustration in the ranks of this young generation of virtuosos, bored with the tedium of bands led by singers, showmen and musical bureaucrats whose principle instrument was often a baton. Benny Goodman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Bunny Berigan and others were all in the same boat, great jazz musicians making a living playing bland commercial music far below their capacities. By the middle of 1931, Artie Shaw began the long grind that would carry him through the worst years of the Depression. Here’s a great Lindy Hop routine that’s danced to a splice of All the Cats Join in and Traffic Jam.Īnd a great Artie Shaw album on Amazon.Born May 23, 1910, on the Lower east Side of New York, Artie Shaw grew up in New Haven, CT, where he quit high school and began his career a working musician in his mid-teens. * indicates tunes that I’ve performed to at one time or another. Indeed, I remember that two of my early swing dance instructors, Kevin and Carla, loved performing to music by Artie Shaw as well as playing his music in classes…precisely because the unpredictability and surprise element in his music made it challenging and fun to dance to.Īrtie Shaw was quite prolific, so I’m not going to list all my favorite songs, but here are two sets of music that you might like: Artie Shaw tried to keep dancers on their toes by mixing up the riffs in less predictable ways…a way to challenge all but the best dancers. Dancers wanting to express the breaks and accents in a piece of music often latch onto repeated themes and recognizable riffs and patterns. With Benny Goodman already laying claim to the title “King of Swing”, Artie Shaw became known as the “King of Clarinet”, although Shaw argued that the titles should have been reversed.Īrtie Shaw was known to be a musical innovator, experimenting with unusual instrumentation, incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythms, and especially breaking away from the patterns of traditional big band dance music. During the 1930s he played as a session musician in New York City, and eventually put together his own big band that rivaled that of contemporary Benny Goodman in popularity.

He started out playing the saxophone when he was 13, but by age 16 had switched to the clarinet, the instrument for which he became famous. Artie Shaw was an American jazz clarinetist, composer and bandleader.

Scuttlebutt artie shaw