PERFORMER: ARTIE SHAW
ALBUM: THE LAST RECORDINGS
LABEL: MUSICMASTERS
THE BOTTOM LINE: Shaw's truncated jazz career was a great one. Would a longer one have been greater?
NOBODY WILL EVER FIGURE IT out. Artie Shaw had achieved everything that success as a bandleader in his era could bestow: pop-idol celebrity, money, movie-star wives, near veneration for his instrumental virtuosity. Why did he suddenly walk away from it all? In 1954, after two high-flying decades at the head of ensembles as popular as -- and often more innovative than -- Glenn Miller's, Tommy Dorsey's and Benny Goodman's, after a succession of hits...