Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got

Today, jazz musicians are expected to be intellectuals. In the 1940s, a clarinet player who read books, like Artie Shaw, was considered a novelty. That shift in attitude happened in the 1980s, when this film—released—and won the Oscar for best documentary. It was rarely seen since, due the filmmaker’s legal battles with her subject. Yes, Shaw could be difficult, as viewers learn during Brigitte Berman’s Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got, which has been fully restored before its VOD release this Friday.

Shaw was one of the more popular big band leaders of the 1940s, but he swung much harder than Glenn Miller or the Dorsey Brothers. Arguably, he was on par with Benny Goodman, so naturally the press developed a largely non-existent rivalry between them. According to Shaw, Goodman bought into that hype much more than he did. Regardless, many real fans preferred Shaw, like Mel Torme, one Berman’s impressive on-camera commentators, who duly explains his preference. (As a side note, both musicians published fiction. Torme released the novel Wynner and Shaw published a collection of short stories, The Best of Intentions.)

Shaw also gets credit for hiring black musicians when that was still a risky thing to do. Trumpeter Hot Lips Page was the first, but the most notable was vocalist Billie Holiday. Shaw also voluntarily enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor, leading a morale-boosting band for the Navy, much like Miller did for the Army Air Force. However, during his service Shaw suffered what sounds like the first of several nervous breakdowns.

Bergman and Shaw do a nice, thorough job covering his music and career, including his surprise breakout hit “Begin the Beguine,” and his ironic theme song, “Nightmare,” which radically contrasted with typically flag-waving numbers used as big band intros and sign-offs. Bergman scored several notable interview subjects, including Torme, former Shaw vocalist Helen Forrest, and Buddy Rich, who was one of the biggest-drawing jazz performers at the time. She also talked to former Shaw sidemen Lee Castle and John Best, who never attained fame themselves, but witnessed a lot of musical history.

There are two aspects about Berman’s film that remain frustrating and ironically date Shaw in unflattering ways. A lot of jazz listeners will wince every time he draws unflattering comparisons between swing-style jazz and supposedly “legit” classical music. Shaw is also somewhat disingenuous when dismissing his attendance at a World Peace Council congress, which prompted his testimony before HUAC. He flippantly claims he was unaware the WPC was a Communist front organization, but it was widely recognized as such—and maybe the fact they blamed the Hungarian government for the 1956 Soviet invasion should have been a sobering dose of humility.

Regardless, Berman nicely establishes Shaw’s place in music history and conveys a vivid sense of his strong, prickly personality. Obviously, Berman was already quite well versed in jazz history, having already helmed the excellent Bix: Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet (which was so good, it convinced Shaw to participate). It is a great documentary, but maybe it also proves the cliché that we should never meet our idols—Berman herself might be the first to agree. Highly recommended, Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got releases Friday (4/25) on VOD and screens next Sunday (4/27) at the USA Film Festival in Dallas.