Artie Shaw famous quotes

06-16-2025

'Swing' is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a 'swing band' in music.
-- Artie Shaw

#Swings #Nouns #Musician
Dance music-as I keep saying, you can dance to a windshield wiper... a windshield wiper that's fairly steady gives you a beat and all you need is an out-of-tune playing 'Melancholy Baby' and you've got dance music.
-- Artie Shaw

#Baby #Giving #Tunes
If you wanna dance, a windshield wiper'll do it-all you need is a beat.
-- Artie Shaw

#Ballet #Needs #Beats
If you donâ€™t see the wonder in the most ordinary phenomenon, youâ€™re not going to resonate very much.
-- Artie Shaw

#Ordinary #Wonder #Phenomenon
That's the clarinet I used to use... but it's just a piece of wood, you know, with holes in it and they put these clumsy keys on it and you're supposed to try to take that and manipulate it with throat muscles and chops... and try to make something happen that never happened before. And when you do, you never forget it. It beats sex, it beats anything...
-- Artie Shaw

#Sex #Keys #Trying
Benny Goodman plays the clarinet. I play music.
-- Artie Shaw

#Play #Clarinet
The good old days are neither better nor worse than the ones we're living through right now.
-- Artie Shaw
I was really running a music school back then, because my band wasn't making any money. I keep talking about money, because most people don't understand the part of money in running a band.
-- Artie Shaw

#Running #School #Talking
Any more would have been less.
-- Artie Shaw
There's such a cynicism about the phrase 'I laughed all the way to the bank.' It's as though money is what you're doing, rather than playing music. If you're playing a money game, why not get into banking?
-- Artie Shaw

#Games #Playing Music #Why Not
It ["Begin the Beguine"] became such a hit that it superseded anything that any band had ever had. It was the first time that a so-called swing band played something melodic and still gave it a beat.
-- Artie Shaw

#Swings #Band #Firsts
I think that band [Glenn Miller] was the beginning of the end. It was a mechanized version of what they called jazz music. I still can't stand to listen to it.
-- Artie Shaw

#Thinking #Band #Jazz
Jazz was born out of the whiskey bottle, was raised on marijiana, and will expire on cocaine.
-- Artie Shaw

#Bottles #Jazz #Whiskey
Somebody asked me once, 'Do you think that swing will ever come back?' And I said, 'Do you think the 1938 Ford will ever come back?'
-- Artie Shaw

#Thinking #Swings #Said
If I could have done anything more, it would have been less
-- Artie Shaw

#Done
You have no idea of the women I didn't marry.
-- Artie Shaw

#Ideas #Funny Marriage
I can't understand guys who just have to have your autograph. What do you do when you get home, take it out & look at it?
-- Artie Shaw

#Music #Home #Guy
An artist should write for himself & not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.
-- Artie Shaw

#Music #Writing #Artist
I like the music. I love it & live it in fact. But for me the business part of music just plain stinks.
-- Artie Shaw

#Music #Facts #Stink
An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself.
-- Artie Shaw

#Music #Artist #Please
I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.
-- Artie Shaw

#Music #Clarinet

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