Friday, May 28, 2010

Artie Shaw as Pronunciation Police Officer

Stephen Holden's review of a Tuesday evening tribute concert to the great jazz bandleader Artie Shaw (whose 100th birth anniversary was last Sunday) concluded with this terrific little anecdote:
In a revealing anecdote about Shaw’s notorious perfectionism, Ms. [Daryl] Sherman recalled his telling her after a performance that it was “divine,” and at first thinking he had paid her an undeserved compliment. She was right. It was criticism of her pronunciation of a word in a song: it should be “divine,” not “dee-vine,” he told her sharply.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't suppose the title typo was on purpose?

Matt Winters said...

Alas, no... But it's nice to be busted by the anonymous typo police!