9 for the ‘90s : Be They 9 or 89, Individuals Harbor Strong Ideas About What the Future Holds : Zigs and Zags

Artie Shaw, at 79, describes himself as “getting to a nice curmudgeonly state. I was a young fogie. Now I’m a good old one.”

At his most curmudgeonly, the legendary bandleader-clarinetist, who lives quietly in Newbury Park and is writing his fourth book, says of the coming decade: “I’m delighted to see we’re going to get into the ‘90s. For a long time I’ve been doubting that. And I have a strong doubt we’ll get into the next century.”

Progress zigs and zags, Shaw observes, “and we’re on a big zag right now.”

He despairs of a human race intent on “covering (the earth) with cement,” “cutting the horns off rhinos” and “screwing ourselves up” through technology.

He considers himself “as close to being sane as I know of.” He lectures often, helping people make sense of the information overload. “Everybody’s up to his nostrils in ignorance,” he says. “I’m a professional confusion defuser.”

Although acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest living clarinetists, he dismisses that superlative, saying, “What are the criteria? It’s all in the ear of the beholder.”

He hasn’t touched the clarinet since 1954. No, not even for his own amusement. “How can it be amusing?” he asks. “It’s like asking a fighter if he goes into the ring for his own amusement. It’s very hard work. You’re always trying to do what you did better.”

But even today, he says, “my fingers are playing music. I wake up with dreams of looking for the concert hall, the theater. . . . “ Still, he “hated, loathed” being a celebrity and the price it exacted.

In the ‘30s and ‘40s, that meant endless one-night-stands. He says, “My definition of hell is to have to play ‘Begin the Beguine’ (his 1938 classic) the rest of my life. Now, Cole Porter wrote a damned good piece of music, but. . . . “

There’s still an Artie Shaw band on the road, but Shaw himself is a homebody who believes “the best trip is the one where you can be home by noon.”

Wed eight times--his wives included Lana Turner and Ava Gardner--he says he and companion Midge Hayes, a former librarian, have no plans to marry: “We both did that.”

People send him records, most of which he considers “a lot of noise and a lot of anger . . . most of the so-called music, rock and all that, it’s glitz . . . show business.”

Back to the future--”I hope we make it,” Shaw says, adding, “whatever happens, I’m going to be doing what I like when it does.”