Three Chords for Beauty's Sake: The Life of Artie Shaw [Hardcover] Review

In 1985, in what I now view as a life event, my wife and I saw Artie Shaw perform at the Blue Note in New York. I passed the 75 year-old jazz star in the hallway, and I was about to approach him, but his manner said stay away. It wasn't personal. Shaw disliked fans; in fact, he said, "Keep `em all away from me," that very night. So I never talked to Artie Shaw. Still, I felt I knew him, having read his memoir, "The Trouble With Cinderella," several times. And now I know him even better, thanks to "Three Chords for Beauty's Sake,The Life of Artie Shaw," an excellent new book by Tom Nolan. It's the tale of how Arthur Arshawsky, a Jewish kid from the Lower East Side, became a popular band leader and great jazz clarinetist almost by force of will. Nolan has all: The childhood anti-Semitism; the long musical apprenticeship; the breakthrough to stardom in 1938 with "Begin the Beguine;" Shaw's walkout from the music business a year later; his return with the mega-hit, "Frenesi;" his breaking of the color line by hiring Billie Holiday, Roy Eldridge and Hot Lips Page; the exquisite tone he drew from the clarinet. The women are here (Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Betty Grable, Lena Horne), and the war (fighting men cried when Navy Chief Shaw and his Rangers played in jungle outposts or on the decks of aircraft carriers). Here, too, are Shaw's postwar depression, his emergence with a new band, his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee and his struggle to write. The book is well-documented, for Shaw lived until 2004 and was always ready to talk about himself to journalists. And it's well-written. But there are two vast holes at the center of it, neither of them Nolan's fault. For one, we never find out why Shaw gave up the clarinet in 1954 after doing some of his best work with a small jazz combo. (He didn't play the night I saw him--he conducted, and shared memories in his gruff way). Shaw's own answers are unsatisfying. And how is it that a flawed human being like Shaw, who rejected his sons and was cruel to his wives, could produce some of the most romantic and lyrical recordings ever made, like "Star Dust," "Dancing in the Dark," "Alone Together" and "Summertime?" I've accepted the fact that I know very little about Artie Shaw.

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