Nolan - Artie Shaw, King of the Clarinet

A LSO BY T OM N OLAN

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E DITED BY T OM N OLAN

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His Life and Times

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

New York London

Previously published as Three Chords for Beautys Sake: The Life of Artie Shaw

Frontispiece: The charismatic maestro of deluxe swing, 1940.
Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

Copyright 2010 by Tom Nolan

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nolan, Tom.
Three chords for beautys sake: the life of Artie Shaw / Tom Nolan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 978-0-393-06201-4
1. Shaw, Artie, 19102004. 2. Jazz musiciansUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.
ML419.S52N65 2010
788.62165092dc22

[B]

2010006301

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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For Mary

Arthur Arshawsky with family: his looming father, Harold; his distraught mother, Sarah; his own wary self at maybe five years old. (Unpublished photograph of Artie Shaw used with the kind permission of the Estate of Artie Shaw)

Art Shaw in Chicago in the summer of 1930: just twenty but already posing for one of the best photographers in town. (David R. Phillips Collection)

Causing a sensation at the Imperial Theatre Swing Concert with his Interlude in B-flat, May 24, 1936. (Photo by Charles Peterson, courtesy of Don Peterson)

The legendary jam session at Brunswick Records on March 14, 1937: Chick Webb, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington. (Photo by Charles Peterson, courtesy of Don Peterson)

Artie Shaw and Billie Holiday at the Roseland-State Ballroom in Boston, in the spring of 1938. How young the two of them looked, and were. (Courtesy of Bob Inman)

The King of Swing and the King of the Clarinet: Benny Goodman greets Artie Shaw at the Waldorf-Astoria, 1939. (Wayne Knight Collection)

Shaws orchestra, with drummer Buddy Rich, on the air for NBC. (Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)

Art surrounded by Ann Rutherford, June Preisser, and Lana Turner on the MGM set of Dancing Co-Ed, 1939: All these great chickscomin at you. (Courtesy Photofest)

With Betty Grable at the Hollywood Brown Derby in the autumn of 1939, after she sued Jackie Coogan for divorce. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Artie and Lana Turner Shaw arrive in New York City on the 20th Century Limited, spring of 1940. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Shaw with his 1941 trumpet stars, Oran Hot Lips Page and Max Kaminsky. (Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University)

Somewhere in the South Pacific, 1943, with Dave Tough on drums. (Frank Driggs Collection)

The star-studded postwar band that included Roy Eldridge, Ray Conniff, Barney Kessel, Dodo Marmarosa (here playing cymbal), and drummer Lou Fromm. (Frank Driggs Collection)

On the town with Ava Gardner in New York City, before the marriage that made the divorce inevitable. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Opening night at Bop City, 1949: critical fiasco, box-office smash. (Martha Holmes, Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images)

Swearing to tell the truth to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1953: To the best of my knowledge, I have never been a member of the Communist Party. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Artie with Evelyn Keyes, 1967. His longest marriage: twenty-eight years. (Bettmann/Corbis)

With the Pastor Brothers and their mother on the boys opening night in New York City, 1971. Artie to Tony Jr. (far left): I think you should lead my band (Tony Pastor Collection)

The lion in midwinter: as always, reading a book. (Photograph by William Claxton / Courtesy Demont Photo Management, LLC)