Artie Shaw on Tour

In Eastern cities and towns last week, jitterbugs by the thousand laid their dollars on the line to hear a new dance band. The band belonged to dark, dapper, moody Clarinetist Artie Shaw, who two years ago pronounced his jitterbug followers morons, declared that the music business stinks, and, consigning the whole shebang to hell, left his band, got out of his contracts, went off to Mexico.

In the past year and a half, Clarinetist Shaw has gone through his third marriage and divorce (to & from Cinemactress Lana Turner) and returned to music. Impatient, inquisitive, he brooded over the idea of a big band with which he could play concert jazz. The band he led last week represents a compromise. Among its 32 pieces are 15 strings, which play straight for Shaw's featured hot soloists--best-known: Negro Trumpeter "Hot Lips" Paige, Saxophonist Les Robinson, Trumpeter Max Kaminsky, Drummer Dave Tough.

Sadder but sweeter, Artie Shaw last week soft-talked the jitterbugs, dispensed autographs like grace notes. What he wants most is $25,000 to start his dream band, and the jitterbugs bring him a gross of $2,000 to $2,500 a night, five nights a week. Nevertheless Leader Shaw last week canceled 32 such golden dates in the South and Southwest, where he has never played. Reason: he was asked to shelve Negro Paige during that part of his tour. The South can take all-Negro bands like Cab Galloway's, and it doesn't mind small mixed combinations; against a Negro in a large white band it tends to draw the color line. But Artie Shaw, like most musicians, is colorblind.

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