Shaw, Clarence Eugene "Gene"

Date of birth:: June 16th, 1926 (Detroit/Michigan, United States)
Date of death:: August 17th, 1973 (Santa Monica/California, United States)
Nationality:: American

Biography

Clarence Eugene Shaw is an American jazz trumpeter. He learned to play the piano at age four, the trombone at age six. He studied classical piano for two years. At 18, Shaw worked in a local grocery store. On June 16, 1944, he received his military draft order.
He was drafted on Dec. 21, 1944, and billeted on March 18, 1946. Gene served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II and in the Korean War.
Because of an accident during his army service, he recovered at the military hospital in Detroit.
Around 1946, Shaw reached back for a trumpet he had bought in the Philippines. After about three weeks, he found a job at the Hut Bar in Detroit. He learned a lot from city fellow trumpeter Little John Wilson. But when Shaw heard about the chords Gillespie used, he left the job at the Hut Bar. He felt he wouldn't be able to do all that.
He perfected his musical knowledge of harmony, theory, composition and arranging at DIMA (Detroit Institute of Music Arts).
In the second half of the 1950s, Shaw played on three albums by Charles Mingus.
In the early 1960s, he released three albums under his own name.
Shaw had studied Four Way psychology and with his wife taught hypnotism. Doctors, dentists, psychiatrists were clients at his Greenwich Village little school.
For many years Shaw was an active member of The Gurdjieff Foundation of Illinois in Chicago, named for their spiritual leader. Because of his philosophical views, he would bid farewell to the music scene a few times. Hence Shaw is described as a philosopher who thought deeply about life, music, the world and himself.
By the late 1960s, Shaw was so disillusioned that he moved to Panajachel, Guatemala, for two years. When he returned, he immediately moved to Santa Monica.
Shaw died at home of lung cancer on Aug. 17, 1973. He was cremated; there is no grave.

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