[2] After leaving college in 1960, Shew was drafted into the U.S. Army and played trumpet and toured with the NORAD joint forces band stationed in Colorado Springs.

[3] In 1972, Shew moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, where he did much studio work as well as play with some of the top big bands of the era through the end of the 1970s: Akiyoshi/Tabackin, Louis Bellson, Maynard Ferguson, and others.

He has taught a two-week workshop for high school students at the Skidmore Summer Jazz Institute in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Shew also performs and teaches worldwide, including a two-week residency at the Graz University of Music in Austria in 2017.

He has taught at leading European music schools in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and also in Canada.