During the Swing Era Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw were the clarinetists that reigned supreme and serious fans divided themselves into factions that loved one or the other. Goodman was the peddler of popular tunes who got the crowd on their feet, while Shaw was the musician’s musician who preferred to make artistic statement that people listened to.

While both left their mark on the time period, nobody felt the tension between art and entertainment like Artie Shaw. He quit playing in the mid-fifties, frustrated by the music business and weary of a scene that demanded he regurgitate his hits when he had more artistic aspirations in mind. “Begin the Beguine” says it all; it was a tune that Shaw either loathed or grew bored with, depending on whom you ask, but it also established his career and made him wealthy. The problem was that Shaw wanted to be famous, but hated everything that came with fame. “Begin the Beguine” was one of his biggest hits, one that he had to play over and over to his chagrin. And it certainly wasn’t his best recording.

So why is “Begin the Beguine” one of the best records of the Swing Era? Because it is simply one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. It’s the perfectly sculpted fox trot tempo that coaxed people on the dance floor. It’s also the crisp call and response between the reeds and horns and Shaw’s sublime solo. In short, “Begin the Beguine” sums up all that was great about the Swing Era, all from a song that wasn’t even supposed to be a big hit.

The Beginning

Cole Porter, the composer of “Beguine,” wrote the song after a stop at Martinique on a cruise around the world. Porter heard the beguine rhythm and adopted it for a huge production number for his new musical Jubilee. At 108 bars, it was an extraordinarily long song. When Moss Hart heard it for the first time he said, “I thought it had ended when he was halfway through.”

When it opened it 1935, Jubilee was a flop. However, “Beguine” was the one song that stuck out in reviewers’ minds. The Times for one found “hints of distant splendors” in the melody. Reportedly, Porter was only miffed that nobody cared for “Just One of Those Things,” another song from the show.

However, by 1938 fans were asking Shaw if he knew how to play “Beguine,” and Shaw asked his arranger Jerry Gray to come up with a chart for the popular tune. Gray’s original version stuck with the beguine rhythm, but Shaw didn’t feel it would work for the ballroom crowd. According to guitarist Al Avola, Shaw kept Gray’s chords and changed it to a swinging four-four time called “bending the Charleston.” “We played it that night at the Roseland State Ballroom,” Avola reported, “and the first time we played it we could just feel the vibrations. We knew it was going to be big.”

However, “Beguine” wasn’t thought to be a big hit by the bigwigs at Bluebird, the record company Shaw had recently signed with. During that same year Shaw wanted it as a B side to “Indian Love Call,” but recalled, “the recording manager thought it was a waste of time and only let me make it after I had argued it would make a nice quite contrast to ‘Indian Love Call.’”

It wasn’t long before record buyers began to flip over the record to play the B side, and “Beguine” quickly overshadowed every hit from that year. It sold millions of copies, was featured on jukeboxes around the world and, as Shaw said, “that recording of that one little tune was the real turning point in my life.”

The Ending