Artie Shaw, 94

Big band leader Artie Shaw quit the music business 50 years ago. But before he did: “A clarinetist and bandleader, Mr. Shaw’s music sold more than 100 million records with a stunning series of hit-making songs, including Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” and Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust.” His music so defined its period that Time magazine wrote that on the verge of World War II, the United States meant to the Germans ‘skyscrapers, Clark Gable and Artie Shaw’.”