Lew Shaw Still on the Beat at 95

Lew Shaw thanks his lucky stars that he was born in 1926. That meant he came of age—as a man and as a music fan—at the height of the Swing Era, when jazz was America’s popular music. As he celebrates his 95th birthday on January 14, Lew recalls the excitement of the big bands that so captivated him as a teenager growing up in Western Massachusetts. No wonder he went on to craft a multi-faceted career dedicated largely to the presentation and preservation of classic jazz. Lew, who writes a monthly column called Jazz Jottings for The Syncopated Times, has compiled two books of interviews with contemporary musicians and has excelled at organizational jazz tasks—serving on jazz societies and coordinating festivals—on both the East Coast and more recently in the Southwest. Raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, Shaw traces his jazz obsession to the Big Band Era. “When I was in high school, I had a huge collection of 78s,” Lew remembers. In those days, there was no YouTube, no internet on which to sample the tunes before you laid out your hard-earned cash. But retailers provided a sneak-peek method. “Every department store records section had at least one listening room where you could spin the disc and check it out,” Lew says. He focused primarily on big bands such as Duke El
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Russ Tarby is based in Syracuse NY and has written about jazz for The Syncopated Times, The Syracuse New Times, The Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse (JASS) JazzFax Newsletter, and several other publications.

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