Off your list there’s no way I’d include Artie Shaw.
He was a terrific swing clarinetist and bandleader; I don’t believe that he was quite as good as Benny Goodman but he’s sure close (and I wouldn’t argue strongly with anyone who says he was better) and I do concede that he had a better ear for a catchy tune.
But the premise of my original post was who you would like to meet. . .
And I wouldn’t want to meet with Artie Shaw. The guy, despite being a heck of a musician, was a first-class jerk on a personal level.
Artie Shaw definitely had a reputation as a ladies man, amongst other things.
He’s also been described as a less than nice man in his early to middle age.
I do remember one of my customers - a univ. of manitoba professor writing a book about Shaw, with Shaw - around 1998 to 2002, Shaw was going on 95 when he passed in 2004.
Don’t know if Vladimir ever produced the book - or Shaw kiboshed it but Shaw gave far more interviews in his late 80s and 90s than he did in his earlier days.
He was also clinically analytical of the big band era and other developments in music - I always appreciate clinical analysis.
Music wise Goodman had the longer career as a big band leader and clarinetist as Shaw kinda stopped his band cold turker in the late 40s, early 50s while Goodman continued on, fighting a losing battle with rock 'n roll, soul, r&b, etc. well into the 60s and 70s.
I would like to ask JFK why he is messing around with MM when he is married.
I would like to get to know the real Jesse James.
Same with Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Bat Masterson and Kit Carson.
I would like to tell the first Native that took the beads that he was being ripped off.
I would like to tell the chiefs of tribes meeting white men for the first time to hide their buffalo and other sources of food and supplies, and to build fences, band together each tribe and meet the enemy at the fence. I would teach them the meaning of whites mans money and how to use it and get them to demand paid passage through.
While your at it, you should ask him why he did the same with Marlene Dietrich, Judith Exner
Priscilla Wear, Jill Cowen, Gene Tierney, Anita Ekberg, Inga Arvad, and a weekly supply of call girls and prostitutes that used to visit the Oval office late on Wednesday nights.
All true but then we should ask Jackie why she could continue to know and allow it to happen ? Apparently she knew it was the price she had to pay for marrying a man of power and the price for being the First Lady.
Don’t know if I believe the Dietrich gossip though. She would have been in her 60s and Jack liked them young. Dietrich liked to shock and she even said she had an affair with JFK’s father.
I look at it all this way. When you’re an Irish Catholic and you don’t drink much, something has gotta fill the void.