Review: "Three Chords for Beauty's Sake - The Life of Artie Shaw"

[A...@rip.ax.lt]

(The New Republic) - Before he took up writing full-time, Shaw had
tried something he cared much less about � clarinet playing; and,
with little apparent exertion, he rose phenomenally fast to the top
of that field to become one of the most celebrated musicians of the
day. As a soloist in his own orchestra during the swing craze, as
well as in smaller groups that he led on and off until the early
1950s, Shaw earned his lasting reputation for playing with
exquisite sensitivity and lyricism. "It isn't how many notes, or
how good your playing is � nothin' to do with that. [It's] the
sound of the horn � what you do with the instrument," he is quoted
as saying in the first major life of Shaw, written by the veteran
biographer and music writer Tom Nolan and published this spring to
mark the centennial of Shaw's birth (Amazon:
http://xrl.us/ArtieShaw ). As Shaw is also widely quoted as saying,
with characteristic mordancy, "Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I
play music."...

It is simply impossible to reconcile the delicacy and beauty of
Shaw's playing on recordings such as "Begin the Beguine" and
"Frenesi" with the man behind the clarinet, who, by all accounts
(and not only those of his eight wives), was a cheerless, spiteful,
vicious, surly asshole...

Continued: http://xrl.us/ArtieShaw2