No sooner do we release the new eBook of Mark Steyn's Passing Parade (which Amazon customers call "incisive and entertaining" and "a masterpiece") than readers start bombarding me with demands to know where the audio book is. Well, one day they'll chain me to the microphone and I'll get it done. In the meantime, here's the nearest to an audio excerpt from the book - a salute to Artie Shaw first aired here upon the centenary of his birth in 2010 and adapted from my appreciation of him in Passing Parade as well as a couple of radio interviews I did with him.
Shaw was a clarinettist, bandleader, and (as he billed himself) "ex-husband of love goddesses", among them Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. He was also a pugnacious and opinionated interviewee, as you'll hear when he discusses a famous disagreement with Leonard Bernstein, the "fraud" of jazz improvisation, the need for immortality, and many other subjects. There's plenty of great music along the way, including "Begin The Beguine", "Summertime", "Stardust", "Indian Love Call", "Frenesi", "Moonglow", "These Foolish Things", "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered" and, of course, Shaw's own compositions, including his Concerto for Clarinet plus "Summit Ridge Drive" and the song he wrote for Billie Holiday, "Any Old Time".
To listen to Part One of our Artie Shaw salute, click the top button above, and, when you're through, click the button just below it for Part Two.
~For a print excerpt from Mark Steyn's Passing Parade - on a very different character from Artie Shaw - see my appreciation for the late Duke of Devonshire. His Grace and Mr Shaw are two of the eclectic ensemble featured in Mark Steyn's Passing Parade, personally autographed print editions of which are exclusively available here. The new expanded eBook edition can be yours within minutes - from Barnes & Noble in the US, from Indigo-Chapters in Canada, and from Amazon outlets worldwide. Click below for your nearest branch office:
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