Artie Shaw took his clarinet to war, abandoning civilian celebrity to lead World War II’s most colorful navy band on an island-hopping odyssey that raised military morale but brought him into dark waters. Nightmare in the Pacific: The World War II Saga of Artie Shaw and His Navy Band recounts the offbeat wartime adventures of the bandleader and the musicians he recruited for the hard-swinging outfit popularly dubbed Shaw’s Rangers. This team of all-stars, seasoned pros, and promising up-and-comers were unmatched musically though never exactly squared away.
The group’s eleven-month overseas deployment started with an extended stay as a house band at a Pearl Harbor club for enlisted men. The cushy gig turned serious when Shaw’s Rangers shipped out on a battleship for the far reaches of New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and, most fatefully, Guadalcanal. It was there that the musicians would come under fire and Shaw’s own indomitable will would crack. But then, in an unexpected and poignant coda, the band that Artie Shaw conjured into existence would reach its musical peak once he was out of the picture.
Tapping a trove of navy personnel files, medical records, court documents and archival materials, as well as contemporary accounts, Nightmare in the Pacific combines musical and military history into one unique saga.
About the Author :
Michael Doyle is a reporter for E&E News and teaches advanced and introductory reporting at the George Washington University. He is the author of The Ministers’ War, Radical Chapters, and The Forestport Breaks.
Review :
"Michael Doyle's new book Nightmare in the Pacific, the World War II Saga of Artie Shaw and his Navy Band is an essential addition to big band-era and jazz scholarship and a must for anyone interested in 20th-century American music and musicians. . . . The veteran and aspiring musicians' saga, challenges, and achievements are long overdue for a genuine historical depiction, assessment, and appreciation."--Dennis M. Spragg, author of Glenn Miller Declassified, America Ascendant, and the forthcoming The Eagle and The Lion - The Essential Alliance
"Doyle correctly stresses Artie's strong connections with the talented trumpeter Max Kaminsky, drummer Dave Tough, pianist and arranger Claude Thornhill, saxophonist Sam Donahue and trumpeter Conrad Gozzo, all of whom he 'enlisted' or smuggled into the Navy Band 501. Shaw himself received the rank of chief petty officer. By all accounts, including his own, once the (all-white) band began touring and playing to US soldiers and sailors, they were rapturously received. They were also subject to attacks by Japanese aircraft, ships and submarines, and exhausted by travel on a variety of transports."--Jazz Journal
"Michael Doyle's compelling new book, Nightmare in the Pacific, offers a long-overdue deep dive into Shaw's remarkable, if turbulent, wartime journey. . . . For fans of swing, students of history, and anyone interested in the strange crossroads of art and war, Doyle's book is a must-read--an unforgettable journey into music, the madness of war, and the Pacific theater's untold stories."--Swing Street Radio
"Most summaries of Shaw's life rarely give the Navy orchestra more than a cursory sentence or two because so little was known about them, until now. Michael Doyle has certainly done his research and the result is the superlative hardcover book Nightmare In The Pacific. . . . The result is a very readable and valuable book that fills in an important gap in the Artie Shaw story."--The Syncopated Times
"Nightmare in the Pacific has great significance for jazz historians, big band fans, World War II students and scholars, military historians, and military libraries. It fills a large hole in the personal biography of Artie Shaw and the history of American military and popular music of World War II."--Russ Girsberger, librarian and Navy School of Music history specialist at the Naval School of Music Library "Nightmare in the Pacific adds to an understanding of the US Navy morale and entertainment operations during the war years, and how that branch of the armed forces diverged from others, including the similar but distinct music, radio, and film initiatives of the Army Air Forces. However, the main topic of the personality and challenges of Artie Shaw is paramount. The narrative of CPO Artie Shaw's Navy Band and, moreover, Shaw's actual experience in the navy, are a previously unreported and troubling period of the famous musician's career."--Dennis M. Spragg, American Music Research Center, University of Colorado-Boulder, and author of Glenn Miller
Declassified
"No white bandleader of the Swing Era had more of a mystique than Artie Shaw. And no chapter of his career is more intriguing than his stint leading a crack navy big band in the South Pacific. A scrupulous researcher, Michael Doyle tells this story with real panache while also debunking myths and exaggerations that have cropped up over the decades. He has a novelist's eye for vivid detail, and his prose crackles with the jumpy energy of a Bob Hope USO monologue." --David W. Stowe, author of Song of Exile: The Enduring Mystery of Psalm 137 and Swing Changes: Big Band Jazz in New Deal America
"Without a doubt, the definitive account of the nightmare years Shaw encountered in the navy. The level of research would please even Artie Shaw!"--Loren Schoenberg, senior scholar at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem
"Nightmare in the Pacific is first-rate, well-researched, and intriguingly written. Doyle provides sensitive portraits of the musicians involved in Band 501 and an absorbing account of Swing Music in the Big Band Era and World War II.: --Ricochet
