Artie Shaw quits performing for good

Now, A Jazz Moment...

MUSIC: "Frenesi," CD: The Essential Artie Shaw , Legacy C2K-69239 (disc 2, cut1)

NEA Jazz Master Artie Shaw was about the business of playing his clarinet. but he never really cared much about the business side of music.

Artie Shaw: And it was always at loggerheads with the public and the arrangers and the and the owners of the theaters. I never could get together with those people. You'd play a theatre. You'd have to understand that in those days we'd do as many as eight shows a day. The manager would come screaming backstage if you changed a note. He's say, those kids are going to stay here all day. So seven, eight times a day, eight times a week, for months at a time, you were playing the same bloody pieces. That would drive me nuts.

At age 44, Shaw became so frustrated with show business that he quit performing for good. Instead, he focused on composing music, writing books and teaching. He died in 2004 at the age of 94. This Jazz Moment was created by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artie Shaw quits performing for good