Doxy
In a NYTimes interview, clarinetist Artie Shaw, 84 at the time, was asked how he felt about the rivalry between himself and Benny Goodman. He said he thought Goodman was too intense. He said, “Benny plays the clarinet and I play music.”
Shaw quit his big band in the fifties, said he was played out, but tried a comeback in the seventies only to give up again, said, no matter what I try to do, all the public wants is “Begin the Beguine.” His first record for Victor featured an arrangement of “Indian Love Call” of which he was quite proud. In those days of 78 rpm’s, one side would feature what the artist thought would be a hit with a “filler” or “throw away” on the flip side. The filler was Cole Porter’s “Beguine,” one of the largest selling records ever.
I don’t know what this has got to do with anything. I could never quite make up my mind about Shaw and Goodman, but it was always a rich subject for young wannabe jazz players to fuss over. We were very much into Dixieland two-beat in those days, as if we were some sort of know-it-alls. On the other hand, if it weren’t for my own ambivalance, I might suggest that the story sort of illustrates something about orthodoxy and some other kind of doxy. I can get less ambivalent about that. Are you with me?