Artie Shaw interview

all of the big names of the swing era are fascinating to talk to and reminisce but none is more colorful than the outspoken Artie Shaw why you always had never never never never had known here you are right here tonight why oh boy that's a good question would take me several volumes the basic reason I think is the number of people I respect musicians whose opinions I regard with some seriousness told me that this was one of the few authentic bands of the period why didn't I have it gone out today and they said there were audiences now who would accept what they would not accept from me back then in the late 30s so I thought I'd give it a shot basically you know this talk that people allow to come out the top of their heads about the big bands coming I'm worried about whether the audiences are coming back if the audiences are back we'll be back you know I think of rivercourt I think was in George Symonds book there is somewhere along the line you said I wish I didn't have to play their music I'd like to play my music well their music was a hit the begin to begins and all the one of the Billy Butterfield thing with style what is your music as opposed to their music well no I think that's a misquote I don't believe I ever said that I think when I made when everything I play is something I wanted to do at one point but the point the trouble was the reason I walked away from 7 million dollars at one point was because the audience put you in a straitjacket if you have a hit song you should be very happy with it but you're not happy when that's the only thing they will accept from you and I wanted to keep growing in the sense that the hit song was the result of an ongoing development ongoing evolution I didn't want to stop there I want to keep going I can't tell you how excited so many of us are that you are back in the band business I have followed your career you know when you were producing motion fixes you've been very very successful outside of the bands you've had oh gosh you've had like nine careers yeah that nine bands okay actually this is the music the music we're playing is a music out of about nine sets of music books the point being that well I don't know it just seems to me the important thing about being back is to enjoy what I'm doing people come up to me and say boy we enjoyed ourselves tonight I see nobody enjoys this more than I do and if I didn't I'd be long gone one question yeah they say you you don't play clarinet anymore that come on is there a clarinet stashed away and so are you a closet clarinetist that's what I know but the planets are in a closet I keep three instruments very fond if there were to be flats in 1a the a was for symphonic work and you know so forth the other two I keep because it took me in many many years to find two instruments it's in a little way not the same as the parallel to what you do when you play violin I look for the perfect strap these two buffets were the best Clarence I ever found so one day I'll hear somebody play and I'm gonna say here kid take this dude I'm so excited to see you and they hear you and to talk with you I'm very happy about this engage thank you Peter Thanks

Channel: Kerry MacKillop

Views: 24,682

Rating: 4.8888888 out of 5

Keywords: artie, shaw, disneyland, dick, johnson

Id: WLexZ556r_I

Length: 2min 51sec (171 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2013