SHAW, ARTIE

born May 23, 1910, New York City Artie Shaw (standing) in a scene from the movie Second Chorus, 1940 byname of Arthur Arshawsky American clarinetist and popular bandleader of the 1930s and '40s. He was one of the few outstanding jazz musicians whose commitment to jazz was uncertain. Shaw began playing in high school and turned professional in 1925. The first signs of indecision became apparent in the early 1930s, when he retired from music for a year. In 1935, at a New York swing concert, he played one of his own compositions accompanied by a string quartet. A jazz and dance band with a string section followed, but in 1937 he re-formed his band along more conventional lines and a year later became internationally known through his recording of Cole Porter's Begin the Beguine. From 1939 Shaw lived alternately in Mexico and the United States, experimenting occasionally with small jazz combos that he called the Gramercy Five regardless of membership. While several public comebacks followed, including leadership of a U.S. Navy orchestra, he dissociated himself from jazz almost totally after the early 1950s. An oft-married man of some wit, he wrote a revealing autobiography, The Trouble with Cinderella (1952).