BENNY GOODMAN

Benny Goodman, born Benjamin David Goodman, (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American jazz musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as "King of Swing", "Patriarch of the Clarinet", "The Professor", and "Swing's Senior Statesman".

Childhood and early years

Goodman was born in Chicago, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, who lived in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. His father was David Goodman, a tailor from Warsaw, his mother was Dora Rezinski (from Kaunas) and his actual birth name was Beno. His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born.

When Benny was 10, his father enrolled him and two of his older brothers in music lessons at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue. The next year he joined the boys club band at Jane Addams' Hull House, where he received lessons from the director James Sylvester. Also important during this period were his two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp. His early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists working in Chicago, notably Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo, and Jimmy Noone. Goodman learned quickly, becoming a strong player at an early age. He was soon playing professionally while still "in short pants", playing clarinet in various bands.

When Goodman was 16, he joined one of Chicago's top bands, the Ben Pollack Orchestra, with which he made his first recordings in 1926. He made his first record on Vocalion under his own name two years later. Remaining with Pollack through 1929, Goodman recorded with the regular Pollack band and smaller groups drawn from the orchestra. The side sessions produced scores of often hot sides recorded for the various dime-store record labels under a bewildering array of group names, such as Mills' Musical Clowns, Goody's Good Timers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, Jimmy Backen's Toe Ticklers, Dixie Daisies, and Kentucky Grasshoppers.

Goodman's father, David, was a working-class immigrant about whom Benny said (interview, Downbeat, February 8, 1956); "...Pop worked in the stockyards, shoveling lard in its unrefined state. He had those boots, and he'd come home at the end of the day exhausted, stinking to high heaven, and when he walked in it made me sick. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand the idea of Pop every day standing in that stuff, shoveling it around".

On December 9, 1929, David Goodman was killed in a traffic accident. Benny had recently joined the Pollack band and was urging his father to retire, since he (Benny) and his brother (Harry) were now doing well as professional musicians. According to James Lincoln Collier, "Pop looked Benny in the eye and said, 'Benny, you take care of yourself, I'll take care of myself.'" Collier continues: "It was an unhappy choice. Not long afterwards, as he was stepping down from a street car – according to one story – he was struck by a car. He never regained consciousness and died in the hospital the next day. It was a bitter blow to the family, and it haunted Benny to the end that his father had not lived to see the success he, and some of the others, made of themselves." "Benny described his father's death as 'the saddest thing that ever happened in our family.'"

Career

Goodman left for New York City and became a successful session musician during the late 1920s and early 1930s (mostly with Ben Pollack's band between 1926 and around 1929). He made a reputation as a solid player who was prepared and reliable. He played with the nationally known bands of Ben Selvin, Red Nichols, Isham Jones (although he is not on any of Jones' records), and Ted Lewis. He also recorded musical soundtracks for movie shorts; some fans are convinced that Benny Goodman's clarinet can be heard on the soundtrack of One A. M., a Charlie Chaplin comedy re-released to theaters in 1934.

During this period as a successful session musician, John Hammond arranged for a series of jazz sides recorded for and issued on Columbia starting in 1933 and continuing until his signing up with Victor in 1935, which was during his success on radio. (There was a number of commercial studio sides recorded for Melotone between late 1930 and mid-1931 under Goodman's name, as well). The all-star Columbia sides featured Jack Teagarden, Joe Sullivan, Dick McDonough, Arthur Schutt, Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins (for 1 session), and as vocalists, Jack Teagarden, Mildred Bailey, and the first two recorded vocals by a young Billie Holiday. All of these Columbia sides are widely acknowledged as jazz masterpieces.

In 1934 Goodman auditioned for NBC's Let's Dance, a well regarded radio program that featured various styles of dance music. Since he needed new arrangements every week for the show, his agent, John Hammond, suggested that he purchase jazz charts from Fletcher Henderson, an African-American musician from Atlanta who had New York's most popular African-American band in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Goodman, a wise businessman, caught Henderson in 1929 when the stock market crashed. He purchased all of Henderson's song books, and hired Henderson's band members to teach his musicians how to play the music.

The combination of Goodman's solid clarinet playing, the Henderson charts, and the well-rehearsed band made Goodman a rising star in the mid-1930s and though known only in Harlem, Chick Webb passed over his "King of Swing" title to Goodman. In early 1935, Goodman and his band were one of three bands featured on Let's Dance. His radio broadcasts from New York aired too late to attract a large East Coast audience. However, unknown to him, the timeslot gave him an avid following on the West Coast. He and his band remained on Let's Dance until May of that year when a strike forced the cancellation of the radio show.

With nothing else to do, the band set out on a tour of America. However, at a number of engagements the band received a hostile reception, as many in the audiences expected smoother, sweeter jazz as opposed to the "hot" style that Goodman's band was accustomed to playing. By August of 1935, Goodman found himself with a band that was nearly broke, disillusioned and ready to quit. It was at this moment that everything for the band and jazz changed.

Palomar Ballroom engagement

In July 1935, a record of the Goodman band playing the Henderson charts on "King Porter Stomp" backed with "Sometimes I'm Happy," Victor 78 25090, had been released to ecstatic reviews in both Down Beat and Melody Maker. This had made little impact on the tour, and the last scheduled stop came on August 21, 1935 at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, Goodman and his band scheduled for a three-week engagement. The Palomar provided the ideal environment, as there was a huge dance floor with a capacity of 4,000 couples. On hand for the engagement were famed musicians Gene Krupa, Bunny Berigan, and Helen Ward. The first night, Goodman and his band cautiously began playing recently purchased stock arrangements; the reaction was, at best, tepid. Realizing this, Krupa said "If we're gonna die, Benny, let's die playing our own thing." As George Spink states:

At the beginning of the next set, Goodman told the band to put aside the stock arrangements and called for charts by Fletcher Henderson and other swing arrangers who were writing for the band. When trumpeter Bunny Berigan played his solos on Henderson’s versions of "Sometimes I'm Happy" and "King Porter Stomp," the Palomar dancers cheered like crazy and exploded with applause! They gathered around the bandstand to listen to this new music.

This was the music the enthusiastic audience had heard on the "Let's Dance" radio show and that they had come to hear.

Over the nights of the engagement, a new dance labeled the "Jitterbug" captured the dancers on the floor, and a new craze had begun. Onlookers gathered around the edges of the ballroom floor. Within days of the opening, newspapers around the country were headlining stories about the new phenomenon that had started at the Palomar. Goodman was finally a nationally known star, and the Swing Era began, led by Goodman. Following this the big band era exploded.

Carnegie Hall concert

In bringing jazz to Carnegie, [Benny Goodman was], in effect, smuggling American contraband into the halls of European high culture, and Goodman and his 15 men pull[ed] it off with the audacity and precision of Ocean's Eleven.

In late 1937, Goodman's publicist Wynn Nathanson attempted a publicity stunt in the form of suggesting Goodman and his band should play Carnegie Hall in New York City. "Benny Goodman was initially hesitant about the concert, fearing for the worst; however, when his film Hollywood Hotel opened to rave reviews and giant lines, he threw himself into the work. He gave up several dates and insisted on holding rehearsals inside Carnegie Hall to familiarize the band with the lively acoustics."

The concert was the evening of January 16, 1938. It sold out weeks before, with the capacity 2,760 seats going for the top price of US$2.75 a seat, for the time a very high price. The concert began with three contemporary numbers from the Goodman band—"Don't Be That Way," "Sometimes I'm Happy," and "One O'Clock Jump." Then came a history of jazz, starting with a Dixieland quartet performing "Sensation Rag." Once again, initial crowd reaction, though polite, was tepid. Then came a jam session on "Honeysuckle Rose" featuring members of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington bands as guests. It did not go as well as hoped. As the concert went on, things livened up. The Goodman band and quartet took over the stage and performed the numbers that had already made them famous. Some of the later trio and quartet numbers were well-received, and a vocal on "Loch Lomond" by Martha Tilton, though nothing special, provoked five curtain calls and cries for an encore. The encore forced Goodman to make his only audience announcement for the night, stating that they had no encore prepared but that Martha would return shortly with another number.

By the time the band got to the climactic piece "Sing, Sing, Sing," success of the night was assured. Bettering the commercial 12-inch record, this live performance featured playing by tenor saxophonist Babe Russin, trumpeter Harry James, and then Benny Goodman, backed by drummer Gene Krupa in accompaniment. But the really unforgettable moment came when Goodman finished his solo and unexpectedly tossed the ball to pianist Jess Stacy. "At the Carnegie Hall concert, after the usual theatrics, Jess Stacy was allowed to solo and, given the venue, what followed was appropriate. Used to just playing rhythm on the tune, he was unprepared for a turn in the spotlight, but what came out of his fingers was a graceful, impressionistic marvel with classical flourishes, yet still managed to swing. It was the best thing he ever did, and it's ironic that such a layered, nuanced performance came at the end of such a chaotic, bombastic tune."

This concert has been regarded by some as the most significant in jazz history. After years of work by musicians from all over the country, jazz had finally been accepted by mainstream audiences. While the big band era would not last for much longer, it was from this point forward that the ground work for multiple other genres of popular music was laid.

Recordings were made of this concert, but even by the technology of the day the equipment used was not of the finest quality. Acetate recordings of the concert were made, and aluminum studio masters were also cut.

The recording was produced by Albert Marx as a special gift for his wife, Helen Ward and a second set for Benny. He contracted Artists Recording Studio to make 2 sets. Artists Recording only had 2 turntables so they farmed out the second set to Raymond Scott's recording studio. [...] It was Benny's sister-in-law who found the recordings in Benny's apartment [in 1950] and brought them to Benny's attention.

Goodman took the newly discovered recording to his record company, Columbia, and a selection from them was issued on LP. These recording have not been out of print since they were first issued.

In early 1998, the aluminum masters were rediscovered and a new CD set of the concert was released based on these masters.

Charlie Christian

Pianist/arranger Mary Lou Williams was a good friend of both Columbia records producer John Hammond and Benny Goodman. She first suggested to John Hammond that he see Charlie Christian.

Charlie Christian was playing at the Ritz in Oklahoma City where John Hammond heard him in 1939. Hammond recommended him to Benny Goodman, but the band leader wasn't interested. The idea of an electrified guitar didn't appeal, and Goodman didn't care for Christian's flashy style of dressing. Reportedly, Hammond personally installed Christian onstage during a break in a Goodman concert in Beverly Hills. Irritated to see Christian among the band, Goodman struck up "Rose Room," not expecting the guitarist to know the tune. What followed amazed everyone who heard the 45-minute performance.

Charlie was a hit on the electric guitar and remained in the Benny Goodman Sextet for two years (1939-1941). He wrote many of the group's head arrangements (some of which Goodman took credit for) and was an inspiration to all. The sextet made him famous and provided him with a steady income while Charlie worked on legitimizing, popularizing, revolutionizing, and standardizing the electric guitar as a jazz instrument.

Christian eventually stayed in New York City, jamming with bop musicians at Minton's in Harlem. "Charlie impressed them all by improvising long lines that emphasized off beats, and by using altered chords."[21] Charlie Christian died in Staten Island, March 2, 1942 of tuberculosis. Helping to broaden the form of jazz, Benny Goodman gave the nascent talent a huge start. Charlie Christian's recordings and rehearsal dubs he made at Columbia records with Benny Goodman in the early forties are widely known and widely respected.

Beyond swing
 
Goodman with his band and singer, Peggy Lee, in the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)

Goodman continued his meteoric rise throughout the late 1930s with his big band, his trio and quartet, and a sextet. He influenced almost every jazz musician who played clarinet after him. However, in time the movement in jazz that he ignited in 1935 began to fade. By the mid-1940s, big bands lost a lot of their popularity. There were several reasons for this decline. In 1941, ASCAP had a licensing war with music publishers. In 1942 to 1944 and 1948, the major musicians union went on strike against the major record labels in the United States, and singers took the spot in popularity that the big bands once enjoyed. Also, by the late 1940s, swing was no longer the dominant mode of jazz musicians.

Bebop, Cool Jazz

By the 1940s, jazz musicians were borrowing some of the more advanced ideas that classical musicians had been using. Bebop and then later cool jazz were beginning to be heard. The recordings Goodman made in the bop style for Capitol Records were highly praised by jazz critics. When Goodman was starting a bebop band, he hired Buddy Greco, Zoot Sims, Wardell Gray and a few other modern players.

Pianist/arranger Mary Lou Williams had been a favorite of Benny's since she first appeared on the national scene in 1936. [A]s Goodman warily approached the music of [Charlie] Parker and [Dizzy] Gillespie, he turned to Williams for musical guidance. Pianist Mel Powell was the first to introduce the new music to Benny in 1945, and kept him abreast to what was happening around 52nd Street.

Goodman enjoyed the new music of bebop and cool jazz that was beginning to arrive in the nineteen forties. When Goodman heard Thelonious Monk, a celebrated pianist and accompanist to bop players Parker, Gillespie and Kenny Clarke, he remarked, "I like it, I like that very much. I like the piece and I like the way he played it. I think he's got a sense of humor and he's got some good things there."
 
Benny Goodman (third from left) in 1952 with some of his former musicians, seated around piano left to right: Vernon Brown, George Auld, Gene Krupa, Clint Neagley, Ziggy Elman, Israel Crosby and Teddy Wilson (at piano)

Benny had heard this Swedish clarinet player named Stan Hasselgard playing bebop, and he loved it ... So he started a bebop band. But after a year and a half, he became frustrated. He eventually reformed his band and went back to playing Fletcher Henderson arrangements. Benny was a swing player and decided to concentrate on what he does best.

By 1953, Goodman completely changed his mind about bebop. "Maybe bop has done more to set music back for years than anything [...] Basically it's all wrong. It's not even knowing the scales. Bop was mostly publicity and people figuring angles."

Forays into the classical repertoire

Goodman's first classical recording dates from April 25, 1938 when he recorded Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. After his bop period, Goodman furthered his interest in classical music written for the clarinet, and frequently met with top classical clarinetists of the day as well.

In 1949, when he was 40, Goodman decided to study with Reginald Kell, one of the world's leading classical clarinetists. To do so, he had to change his entire technique: instead of holding the mouthpiece between his front teeth and lower lip, as he had done since he first took a clarinet in hand 30 years earlier, Goodman learned to adjust his embouchure to the use of both lips and even to use new fingering techniques. He had his old finger calluses removed and started to learn how to play his clarinet again--almost from scratch.

Goodman commissioned and premiered works by leading composers for clarinet and symphony orchestra that are now part of the standard repertoire, namely Contrasts by Béla Bartók, Clarinet Concerto No. 2 Op. 115 by Malcolm Arnold, Derivations for Clarinet and Band by Morton Gould and Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto. While Leonard Bernstein's Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs was commissioned for Woody Herman's big band, it was premiered by Goodman. While the Ebony Concerto by Igor Stravinsky is generally also thought to be written for Goodman, it was also written for Woody Herman in 1945, and premiered by him in 1946. "Many years later Stravinsky made another recording, this time with Benny Goodman as the soloist."[28] He twice recorded Mozart's clarinet quintet, once on April 25 1938 with the Budapest String Quartet and once in the middle 1950s with the Boston Symphony Orchestra String Quartet; he also recorded the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart clarinet concerto in A major K 622 of on July 9, 1956, also with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the clarinet concertos from Carl Maria von Weber and Carl Nielsen.

Other recordings of classical repertoire by Goodman are:

Premiere Rhapsodie for Clarinet by Claude Debussy
Sonata no. 2 in E flat by Johannes Brahms
Rondo from Grand Duo Concertant in E flat from Carl Maria von Weber, and
An arrangement by Simeon Bellison of van Beethoven's Variations on a theme from Mozart's Don Giovanni

Touring with "Satchmo"

After forays outside of swing, Goodman started a new band in 1953. According to Donald Clarke, this was not a happy time for Goodman.

In 1953 Goodman re-formed his classic band for an expensive tour with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars that turned into a famous disaster. He managed to insult Armstrong at the beginning; then he was appalled at the vaudeville aspects of Louis’s act a contradiction of everything Goodman stood for.

The movies

Benny Goodman's band appeared as a specialty act in major musical features, including The Big Broadcast of 1937, Hollywood Hotel (1938), Syncopation (1942), The Powers Girl (1942), Stage Door Canteen (1943), The Gang's All Here (1943), Sweet and Lowdown (1944) and A Song Is Born (1948). Goodman's only starring feature was Sweet and Low Down (1944).

Goodman's success story was told in the 1955 motion picture The Benny Goodman Story with Steve Allen and Donna Reed. A Universal-International production, it was a follow up to 1954's successful The Glenn Miller Story. The screenplay was heavily fictionalized (Benny confessed that he and his wife would look at the finished film and laugh through it), but the music was the real drawing card. Many of Goodman's professional colleagues appear in the film, including Ben Pollack. Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton. and Harry James.

The film will be released in the UK for the first time on DVD on 22nd September 2008 by Eureka Entertainment

Personality and influence on American popular music

Goodman was regarded by some as a demanding taskmaster, by others an arrogant and eccentric martinet. Many musicians spoke of "The Ray", Goodman's trademark glare that he bestowed on a musician who failed to perform to his demanding standards. Guitarist Allan Reuss incurred the maestro's displeasure on one occasion, and Goodman relegated him to the rear of the bandstand, where his contribution would be totally drowned out by the other musicians. Vocalists Anita O'Day and Helen Forrest spoke bitterly of their experiences singing with Goodman. "The twenty or so months I spent with Benny felt like twenty years," said Forrest. "When I look back, they seem like a life sentence." At the same time, there are reports that he privately funded several college educations and was sometimes very generous, though always secretly. When a friend asked him why one time, he reportedly said, "Well, if they knew about it, everyone would come to me with their hand out."

Some suggest that Elvis Presley had the same success with rock and roll that Goodman achieved with jazz and swing. Both helped bring black music to a young, white audience. Some suggest that without Goodman there would not have been a swing era. It is true that many of Goodman's arrangements had been played for years before by Fletcher Henderson's orchestra. While Goodman publicly acknowledged his debt to Henderson, many young white swing fans had never heard Henderson's band. While most consider Goodman a jazz innovator, others maintain his main strength was his perfectionism and drive. Goodman was a virtuoso clarinetist and amongst the most technically proficient jazz clarinetists of all time."As far as I'm concerned, what he did in those days—and they were hard days, in 1937—made it possible for Negroes to have their chance in baseball and other fields."
—Lionel Hampton on Benny Goodman

Goodman is also responsible for a significant step in racial integration in America. In the early 1930s, black and white jazz musicians could not play together in most clubs or concerts. In the Southern states, racial segregation was enforced by the Jim Crow laws. Benny Goodman broke with tradition by hiring Teddy Wilson to play with him and drummer Gene Krupa in the Benny Goodman Trio. In 1936, he added Lionel Hampton on vibes to form the Benny Goodman Quartet; in 1939 he added pioneering jazz guitarist Charlie Christian to his band and small ensembles, who played with him until his untimely death from tuberculosis less than three years later. This integration in music happened ten years before Jackie Robinson became the first black American to enter Major League Baseball. "[Goodman's] popularity was such that he could remain financially viable without touring the South, where he would have been subject to arrest for violating Jim Crow laws." According to Jazz by Ken Burns, when someone asked him why he "played with that nigger" (referring to Teddy Wilson), Goodman replied, "I'll knock you out if you use that word around me again".

John Hammond and Alice Goodman

One of Benny Goodman's closest friends off and on, from the 1930s onward was celebrated Columbia records producer John H. Hammond.

John Henry Hammond II was born December 15, 1910 in an eight-story mansion in New York City. He was the son of James Henry Hammond, a very successful businessman and lawyer, and Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, an heir to the Sloan Furniture and - as a granddaughter of William Henry Vanderbilt - to the Vanderbilt fortunes. John H. Hammond II attended the esteemed Hotchkiss Prep School and Yale University.

Hammond and Goodman were so close that Hammond influenced Goodman's move from RCA records to the newly created Columbia records in 1939. Benny Goodman dated John H. Hammond's sister, Alice Frances Hammond (1913 - 1978) for three months. They married on March 14, 1942. They had two daughters, Benjie and Rachel. Both daughters studied music to some degree, though neither became the musical prodigy Goodman was. Hammond had encouraged Goodman to integrate his band, having persuaded him to employ pianist Teddy Wilson. He all but forced Goodman to audition Charlie Christian, Goodman believing no one would listen to an electric guitarist. But Hammond's tendency to interfere in the musical affairs of Goodman's and other bands led to Goodman pulling away from him. In 1953 they had another falling-out during Goodman's ill-fated tour with Louis Armstrong, which was produced by John Hammond. Goodman appeared on a 1975 PBS salute to Hammond but remained at a distance. In the 1980s, following the death of Alice Goodman, John Hammond and Benny Goodman, both by then elderly, reconciled. On June 25, 1985, Goodman appeared at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City for "A Tribute to John Hammond".

Later years

After winning numerous polls over the years as best jazz clarinetist, Goodman was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1957.

Goodman continued to play on records and in small groups. One exception to this pattern was a collaboration with George Benson in the 1970s. The two had met when they taped a PBS salute to John Hammond and re-created some of the famous Goodman-Charlie Christian duets.[42] Benson later appeared on several tracks of a Goodman album released as "Seven Come Eleven." In general Goodman continued to play in the swing style he was most known for. He did, however, practice and perform classical music clarinet pieces and commissioned some pieces for the clarinet. Periodically he would organize a new band and play a jazz festival or go on an international tour.

Despite increasing health problems, he continued to play the clarinet until his death from a heart attack in New York City in 1986 at the age of 77, in his home at Manhattan House, 200 East 66th Street. A longtime resident of Pound Ridge, New York, Benny Goodman is interred in the Long Ridge Cemetery, Stamford, Connecticut. The same year, Goodman was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[43] Benny Goodman's musical papers were donated to Yale University after his death.

He is a member of the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the radio division.

Discography

(This discography combines LP and CD reissues of Goodman recordings under the dates of the original 78 rpm recordings through about 1950)
A Jazz Holiday (1928, Decca)
Benny Goodman and the Giants of Swing (1929, Prestige)
BG and Big Tea in NYC (1929, GRP)
Swinging '34 Vols. 1 & 2 (1934, Melodean)
Sing, Sing, Sing (1935, Bluebird)
The Birth of Swing (1935, Bluebird)
Original Benny Goodman Trio and Quartet Sessions, Vol. 1: After You've Gone (1935, Bluebird)
Stomping at the Savoy (1935, Bluebird)
Air Play (1936, Doctor Jazz)
Roll 'Em, Vol. 1 (1937, Columbia)
Roll 'Em, Vol. 2 (1937, CBS)
From Spirituals to Swing (1938, Vanguard)
Carnegie Hall Concert Vols. 1, 2, & 3 (Live) (1938, Columbia)
Mozart Clarinet Quintet (with Budapest String Quartet) (1938, Victor)
Ciribiribin (Live) (1939, Giants of Jazz)
Swingin' Down the Lane (Live) (1939, Giants of Jazz)
Featuring Charlie Christian (1939, Columbia)
Eddie Sauter Arrangements (1940, Columbia)
Swing Into Spring (1941, Columbia)
Undercurrent Blues (1947, Blue Note)
Swedish Pastry (1948, Dragon)
The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert (1950, Columbia)
Sextet (1950, Columbia)
BG in Hi-fi (1954, Capitol)
The Benny Goodman Story Volume 1 (1955?, Decca)
The Benny Goodman Story Volume 1 (1955?, Decca)
Mozart Clarinet concerto (with Boston symphomy) (1956)
Peggy Lee Sings with Benny Goodman (1957, Harmony)
Benny in Brussels Vols. 1 & 2 (1958, Columbia)
In Stockholm 1959 (1959, Phontastic)
The Benny Goodman Treasure Chest (1959, MGM)
Swing With Benny Goodman And His Orchestra (1960s?, Columbia/Harmony)
Benny Goodman in Moscow (1962, RCA Victor)
Benny Goodman And His Orchestra (1977)
The King Swings Star Line
Pure Gold (1992)
1935-1938 (1998)
Portrait of Benny Goodman (Portrait Series) (1998)
Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert '38 (1998)
Bill Dodge All-star Recording (1999)
1941-1955 His Orchestra and His (1999)
Live at Carnegie Hall (1999)
Carnegie Hall: The Complete Concert (2006) Remastered again

References

Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 19.
the days
The Official Benny Goodman Website
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 18.
a b "JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns: Selected Artist Biography - Benny Goodman". PBS. 2001-01-08. Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 26–34.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 35.
Collier, James Lincoln (1989). Benny Goodman and the Swing Era. Oxford University Press.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 42.
Firestone, Ross. Op. cit.; p. 134
a b "70 Years Ago: Goodman Opens at the Palomar". 2005-08-20. Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
BBC (2006-03-22). "Jitterbug". Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
Will Friedwald (2006-11-20). "Arts and Letters: Peplowski Blows Back to His Roots". Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
Mike Joyce. "The 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert". Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
"insert booklet", "The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert" Sony 199 2 CD reissue .
David Rickert (2005-01-31). "Benny Goodman: "Sing, Sing, Sing"". Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 366.
Mary Lou Williams: "Swinger with a Mission", by Catherine O'Neill, "Books & Arts," 12/7/79
Charles Christian: Musician
Texas Monthly: Texas Music Source
a b Biography2
Big Band Era Recording Ban Of 1942
Jazz History Time Line
a b c Schoenberg, Loren (1995), "Liner Notes", Benny Goodman: Undercurrent Blues, Capitol.
Post-Gazette. May 8, 2005. Nate Guidry. A Life in Tune: New works trumpet Doc Wilson's longevity on the music scene
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 354.
Current Biography (1962). The H. W. Wilson Company. Benny Goodman
Three Cheers for Yeh!
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 246–247, 250, 252, 324.
Available on compact disc: Benny Goodman - Clarinet Classics, Pavilion Records Ltd. Pearl GEM0057
Donald Clarke. "The Rise and Fall of Popular Music". Retrieved on 2007-02-30.[dead link]
IMDb: The Benny Goodman Story (1955)
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 173.
a b Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 296, 301–302, 401.
"Ibid"; Firestone, Ross p. 183-184.
Benny Goodman
Charlie Dahan. "Jazz Impressario: John Hammond". Retrieved on 2007-03-30.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 258–259.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 309–310.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 380.
John S. Wilson (1985-06-29). "JAZZ FESTIVAL; BENNY GOODMAN JOINS JOHN HAMMOND TRIBUTE". New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-04-02.
Firestone, Ross (1993). Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman. New York: Norton. pp. 433–434.
"Lifetime Achievement Award". The Recording Academy. Retrieved on 2007-04-02.
"NAB Hall of Fame". National Association of Broadcasters. Retrieved on 3 May 2008.

External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman official site
Benny Goodman Biography at PBS Kids
Benny Goodman scores (a portion of the musician's estate) in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Benny Goodman papers (the bulk of the musician's estate) in Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University
Benny Goodman biography

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For a kid who liked jazz, Chicago was a great town to grow up in. Musicians had begun working their way north from New Orleans about the turn of the century, and by the early 1920s giants like "Jellyroll" Morton, Sidney Bechet, "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong were playing in Chicago and making history.

Kids who paid attention to this development were going to make history themselves in a few more years - Bud Freeman, Davie Tough, Eddie Condon, Milt Mesirow (Mezz Mezzrow), Gene Krupa, "Muggsy" Spanier, Jimmy McPartland, Jess Stacy - and a kid in short pants who played the clarinet.

Benny Goodman was only 10 when he first picked up a clarinet. Only a year or so later he was doing Ted Lewis imitations for pocket money. At 14 he was in a band that featured the legendary Bix Beiderbecke. By the time he was 16 he was recognized as a "comer" as far away as the west coast and was asked to join a California-based band led by another Chicago boy, Ben Pollack.

Goodman played with Pollack's band for the next four years. His earliest recording was made with Pollack, but he was also recording under his own name in Chicago and New York, where the band had migrated from the west coast. In 1929, when he was just 20, Benny struck out on his own to become a typical New York freelance musician, playing studio dates, leading a pit orchestra, making himself a seasoned professional.

By 1934 he was seasoned enough to be ready for his first big break. He heard that Billy Rose needed a band for his new theatre restaurant, the Music Hall, and he got together a group of musicians who shared his enthusiasm for jazz. They auditioned and got the job.

Then Benny heard that NBC was looking for three bands to rotate on a new Saturday night broadcast to be called "Let's Dance," a phrase that has been associated with the Goodman band ever since. One band on the show was to be sweet, one Latin, and the third hot. The Goodman band was hot enough to get the job, but not hot enough to satisfy Benny. He brought in Gene Krupa on drums. Fletcher Henderson began writing the arrangements - arrangements that still sound fresh more than a half century later. And the band rehearsed endlessly to achieve the precise tempos, section playing and phrasing that ushered in a new era in American music. There was only one word that could describe this band's style adequately: Swing.

After six months of broadcasting coast to coast the band was ready for a cross-country tour. The band was ready but the country was not. The tour was a disaster until its last date in August, 1935, at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. The only plausible explanation for what happened there is that "Let's Dance" was aired three hours earlier on the west coast than in the east. The kids in Los Angeles had been listening, and thousands of them turned out to hear the band in person at the Palomar. They hadn't even come to dance; instead they crowded around the bandstand just to listen. It was a new kind of music with a new kind of audience, and their meeting at the Palomar made national headlines.

When the band headed east again, after nearly two months at the Palomar, they were famous. They played for seven months at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, where Teddy Wilson joined them to complete the Benny Goodman Trio. Back in New York Lionel Hampton made it the Benny Goodman Quartet, and the band was a sensation at the Hotel Pennsylvania's Madhattan Room.

The band made it even bigger at the Paramount Theatre, where lines began forming at breakfast time and continued through the last daily show. It was grueling for the kids who waited for hours to dance in the aisles. It was more grueling for the band; they returned each night to the Madhattan Room for still more swing.

At the age of 28 Benny Goodman had reached what seemed to be the pinnacle of success. The new radio program, "The Camel Caravan," was scheduled in prime time, and the whole nation listened not only to the band itself but to the intelligent commentary by some of the most influential critics of the day, including Clifton Fadiman and Robert Benchley.

But it was not quite the pinnacle. On January 16, 1938, Sol Hurok, the most prestigious impresario in America, booked the Benny Goodman band into Carnegie Hall. For generations Carnegie Hall had been the nation's greatest temple of musical art, home of the New York Philharmonic and scene of every important artist's debut (even if they had played in a hundred other concert halls first).

So this was a debut not only for Benny Goodman but for jazz. Though many others followed him to Carnegie Hall, there has never been another concert with such an impact. It even made his "classical" Carnegie Hall debut more newsworthy a few years later when Benny returned there to launch his second career, as a soloist with major symphony orchestras and chamber groups.

Benny Goodman was indisputably the King of Swing - the title was invented by Gene Krupa - and he reigned as such thereafter until his death in 1986 at age 77. Over the years he played with the greatest figures in jazz: Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Mildred Bailey, Bessie Smith and countless others. Many of those who played with him as sidemen later achieved fame as leaders of their own bands, as soloists, or even as movie or TV actors - Harry James, Ziggy Elman, Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton to name a few. A list of Benny's hits would fill a book. In fact it filled several books by his devoted discographer/biographer Russ Connor. 

That crowded career, spanning more than six decades, had an almost unparalleled impact on popular music and the importance of the clarinet in both jazz and classical music. Thousands of youngsters throughout the world were influenced to play the clarinet through listening to Benny Goodman's recordings and live performances, and the style of those who turned to jazz was universally patterned after what they heard Benny play, whether or not they realized it. The popularity of the "big band" format is another of the legacies of this musical giant.

Source: For a kid who liked jazz, Chicago was a great town to grow up in. Musicians had begun working their way north from New Orleans about the turn of the century, and by the early 1920s giants like "Jellyroll" Morton, Sidney Bechet, "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong were playing in Chicago and making history.

Kids who paid attention to this development were going to make history themselves in a few more years - Bud Freeman, Davie Tough, Eddie Condon, Milt Mesirow (Mezz Mezzrow), Gene Krupa, "Muggsy" Spanier, Jimmy McPartland, Jess Stacy - and a kid in short pants who played the clarinet.

Benny Goodman was only 10 when he first picked up a clarinet. Only a year or so later he was doing Ted Lewis imitations for pocket money. At 14 he was in a band that featured the legendary Bix Beiderbecke. By the time he was 16 he was recognized as a "comer" as far away as the west coast and was asked to join a California-based band led by another Chicago boy, Ben Pollack.

Goodman played with Pollack's band for the next four years. His earliest recording was made with Pollack, but he was also recording under his own name in Chicago and New York, where the band had migrated from the west coast. In 1929, when he was just 20, Benny struck out on his own to become a typical New York freelance musician, playing studio dates, leading a pit orchestra, making himself a seasoned professional.

By 1934 he was seasoned enough to be ready for his first big break. He heard that Billy Rose needed a band for his new theatre restaurant, the Music Hall, and he got together a group of musicians who shared his enthusiasm for jazz. They auditioned and got the job.

Then Benny heard that NBC was looking for three bands to rotate on a new Saturday night broadcast to be called "Let's Dance," a phrase that has been associated with the Goodman band ever since. One band on the show was to be sweet, one Latin, and the third hot. The Goodman band was hot enough to get the job, but not hot enough to satisfy Benny. He brought in Gene Krupa on drums. Fletcher Henderson began writing the arrangements - arrangements that still sound fresh more than a half century later. And the band rehearsed endlessly to achieve the precise tempos, section playing and phrasing that ushered in a new era in American music. There was only one word that could describe this band's style adequately: Swing.

After six months of broadcasting coast to coast the band was ready for a cross-country tour. The band was ready but the country was not. The tour was a disaster until its last date in August, 1935, at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. The only plausible explanation for what happened there is that "Let's Dance" was aired three hours earlier on the west coast than in the east. The kids in Los Angeles had been listening, and thousands of them turned out to hear the band in person at the Palomar. They hadn't even come to dance; instead they crowded around the bandstand just to listen. It was a new kind of music with a new kind of audience, and their meeting at the Palomar made national headlines.

When the band headed east again, after nearly two months at the Palomar, they were famous. They played for seven months at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, where Teddy Wilson joined them to complete the Benny Goodman Trio. Back in New York Lionel Hampton made it the Benny Goodman Quartet, and the band was a sensation at the Hotel Pennsylvania's Madhattan Room.

The band made it even bigger at the Paramount Theatre, where lines began forming at breakfast time and continued through the last daily show. It was grueling for the kids who waited for hours to dance in the aisles. It was more grueling for the band; they returned each night to the Madhattan Room for still more swing.

At the age of 28 Benny Goodman had reached what seemed to be the pinnacle of success. The new radio program, "The Camel Caravan," was scheduled in prime time, and the whole nation listened not only to the band itself but to the intelligent commentary by some of the most influential critics of the day, including Clifton Fadiman and Robert Benchley.

But it was not quite the pinnacle. On January 16, 1938, Sol Hurok, the most prestigious impresario in America, booked the Benny Goodman band into Carnegie Hall. For generations Carnegie Hall had been the nation's greatest temple of musical art, home of the New York Philharmonic and scene of every important artist's debut (even if they had played in a hundred other concert halls first).

So this was a debut not only for Benny Goodman but for jazz. Though many others followed him to Carnegie Hall, there has never been another concert with such an impact. It even made his "classical" Carnegie Hall debut more newsworthy a few years later when Benny returned there to launch his second career, as a soloist with major symphony orchestras and chamber groups.

Benny Goodman was indisputably the King of Swing - the title was invented by Gene Krupa - and he reigned as such thereafter until his death in 1986 at age 77. Over the years he played with the greatest figures in jazz: Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Mildred Bailey, Bessie Smith and countless others. Many of those who played with him as sidemen later achieved fame as leaders of their own bands, as soloists, or even as movie or TV actors - Harry James, Ziggy Elman, Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton to name a few. A list of Benny's hits would fill a book. In fact it filled several books by his devoted discographer/biographer Russ Connor. 

That crowded career, spanning more than six decades, had an almost unparalleled impact on popular music and the importance of the clarinet in both jazz and classical music. Thousands of youngsters throughout the world were influenced to play the clarinet through listening to Benny Goodman's recordings and live performances, and the style of those who turned to jazz was universally patterned after what they heard Benny play, whether or not they realized it. The popularity of the "big band" format is another of the legacies of this musical giant.

Source: For a kid who liked jazz, Chicago was a great town to grow up in. Musicians had begun working their way north from New Orleans about the turn of the century, and by the early 1920s giants like "Jellyroll" Morton, Sidney Bechet, "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong were playing in Chicago and making history.

Kids who paid attention to this development were going to make history themselves in a few more years - Bud Freeman, Davie Tough, Eddie Condon, Milt Mesirow (Mezz Mezzrow), Gene Krupa, "Muggsy" Spanier, Jimmy McPartland, Jess Stacy - and a kid in short pants who played the clarinet.

Benny Goodman was only 10 when he first picked up a clarinet. Only a year or so later he was doing Ted Lewis imitations for pocket money. At 14 he was in a band that featured the legendary Bix Beiderbecke. By the time he was 16 he was recognized as a "comer" as far away as the west coast and was asked to join a California-based band led by another Chicago boy, Ben Pollack.

Goodman played with Pollack's band for the next four years. His earliest recording was made with Pollack, but he was also recording under his own name in Chicago and New York, where the band had migrated from the west coast. In 1929, when he was just 20, Benny struck out on his own to become a typical New York freelance musician, playing studio dates, leading a pit orchestra, making himself a seasoned professional.

By 1934 he was seasoned enough to be ready for his first big break. He heard that Billy Rose needed a band for his new theatre restaurant, the Music Hall, and he got together a group of musicians who shared his enthusiasm for jazz. They auditioned and got the job.

Then Benny heard that NBC was looking for three bands to rotate on a new Saturday night broadcast to be called "Let's Dance," a phrase that has been associated with the Goodman band ever since. One band on the show was to be sweet, one Latin, and the third hot. The Goodman band was hot enough to get the job, but not hot enough to satisfy Benny. He brought in Gene Krupa on drums. Fletcher Henderson began writing the arrangements - arrangements that still sound fresh more than a half century later. And the band rehearsed endlessly to achieve the precise tempos, section playing and phrasing that ushered in a new era in American music. There was only one word that could describe this band's style adequately: Swing.

After six months of broadcasting coast to coast the band was ready for a cross-country tour. The band was ready but the country was not. The tour was a disaster until its last date in August, 1935, at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. The only plausible explanation for what happened there is that "Let's Dance" was aired three hours earlier on the west coast than in the east. The kids in Los Angeles had been listening, and thousands of them turned out to hear the band in person at the Palomar. They hadn't even come to dance; instead they crowded around the bandstand just to listen. It was a new kind of music with a new kind of audience, and their meeting at the Palomar made national headlines.

When the band headed east again, after nearly two months at the Palomar, they were famous. They played for seven months at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, where Teddy Wilson joined them to complete the Benny Goodman Trio. Back in New York Lionel Hampton made it the Benny Goodman Quartet, and the band was a sensation at the Hotel Pennsylvania's Madhattan Room.

The band made it even bigger at the Paramount Theatre, where lines began forming at breakfast time and continued through the last daily show. It was grueling for the kids who waited for hours to dance in the aisles. It was more grueling for the band; they returned each night to the Madhattan Room for still more swing.

At the age of 28 Benny Goodman had reached what seemed to be the pinnacle of success. The new radio program, "The Camel Caravan," was scheduled in prime time, and the whole nation listened not only to the band itself but to the intelligent commentary by some of the most influential critics of the day, including Clifton Fadiman and Robert Benchley.

But it was not quite the pinnacle. On January 16, 1938, Sol Hurok, the most prestigious impresario in America, booked the Benny Goodman band into Carnegie Hall. For generations Carnegie Hall had been the nation's greatest temple of musical art, home of the New York Philharmonic and scene of every important artist's debut (even if they had played in a hundred other concert halls first).

So this was a debut not only for Benny Goodman but for jazz. Though many others followed him to Carnegie Hall, there has never been another concert with such an impact. It even made his "classical" Carnegie Hall debut more newsworthy a few years later when Benny returned there to launch his second career, as a soloist with major symphony orchestras and chamber groups.

Benny Goodman was indisputably the King of Swing - the title was invented by Gene Krupa - and he reigned as such thereafter until his death in 1986 at age 77. Over the years he played with the greatest figures in jazz: Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Mildred Bailey, Bessie Smith and countless others. Many of those who played with him as sidemen later achieved fame as leaders of their own bands, as soloists, or even as movie or TV actors - Harry James, Ziggy Elman, Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton to name a few. A list of Benny's hits would fill a book. In fact it filled several books by his devoted discographer/biographer Russ Connor. 

That crowded career, spanning more than six decades, had an almost unparalleled impact on popular music and the importance of the clarinet in both jazz and classical music. Thousands of youngsters throughout the world were influenced to play the clarinet through listening to Benny Goodman's recordings and live performances, and the style of those who turned to jazz was universally patterned after what they heard Benny play, whether or not they realized it. The popularity of the "big band" format is another of the legacies of this musical giant.

Source: The Official Site of Benny Goodman

---------------

Born into a large, poverty stricken family, Benny began playing the clarinet at an early age. He was associated with the Austin High School Gang, having gone to school with drummer Dave Tough. By the time he was twelve, Goodman appeared onstage imitating famous bandleader/clarinetist Ted Lewis. It was at this concert that Ben Pollack heard the young clarinetist and Benny was soon playing in Pollack’s band. Goodman’s first recordings were made with the Pollack group in 1926, and give a strong example of Benny’s influences at the time including Jimmie Noone, who was then with Doc Cook and His Dreamland Orchestra and Leon Roppolo of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. During this period Goodman recorded his first sides as a leader with members of the Pollack band including one 1928 date which features the only known recording of Benny on alto and baritone saxophones. 

Following the musical migration out of Chicago and into New York, Goodman became a very successful and popular free-lancer, joining the likes of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey in New York studios. In 1934 Benny put together his first big band, featuring Bunny Berigan on trumpet, Jess Stacey on piano and Gene Krupa on drums. With the addition of some excellent, sophisticated arrangements by Fletcher Henderson, the “Swing Era” was born. 

Goodman spent the next fifty years recording and touring with various groups big and small, including some very successful trips to Russia and the Far East. He also played many concerts on a classical format that received mixed reviews. 

Known by musicians for his stand-offish and “cheap” nature, many sidemen had a love/hate relationship with Goodman. Many musicians claimed that Benny was dishonest when it came time to pay off the band and many more recalled the Goodman “ray”, the dirtiest of looks received when a mistake was made. That aside, its clear that without Goodman the “Swing Era” would have been nowhere near as strong when it came, if it came at all. 

After his death, the Yale University library received the bulk of Goodman’s personal collection including many private never-before-heard recordings and rare unpublished photos.

Source: Ted Gottsegen

---------------

Benny Goodman received rudimentary musical training in 1919 at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue and the next year joined the boys club band at Jane Addams's Hull House, where he received lessons from the director James Sylvester. Also important during this period were his two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp. 

Goodman made his professional debut in 1921 at the Central Park Theater in Chicago with an imitation of Ted Lewis. After entering Harrison High School in 1922, he played occasionally with the so-called Austin High School Gang (Bud Freeman, Jimmy McPartland, Frank Teschemacher, Dave Tough, and others), who modeled their music after the New Orleans Rhythm Kings; the clarinetist with the Rhythm Kings, Leon Roppolo, was an early influence on Goodman. During these formative years, he also absorbed the music of New Orleans musicians such as King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, and especially the clarinetists Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone, Buster Bailey, Albert Nicholas, and Barney Bigard.

In 1923, Goodman joined the musicians' union and played regularly with Murph Podalasky and Jules Herbevaux. That summer, on a lake excursion boat, he met Bix Beiderbecke for the first time. Beiderbecke's influence may be heard in Goodman's on-the-beat attacks, careful choice of notes, and across-the-bar phrasing on his recordings in 1928 of A Jazz Holiday and Blue. The latter especially shows these techniques in which Goodman played solos on both alto and baritone saxophone. 

In August 1925, Goodman left for Los Angeles to join Ben Pollack. In January 1926, Pollack returned to Chicago, where Goodman recorded his first solo, He's The Last Word, on December 17, 1926. Early in 1928, Pollack's band went to New York, which subsequently became Goodman's base. Goodman stayed with Pollack until September 1929, but also performed with Sam Lanin, Nat Shilkret, and Meyer Davis, and from 1929 to 1934 was a leading freelance musician. He worked for radio and in recording studios for Red Nichols, Ben Selvin, Ted Lewis, Johnny Green, and Paul Whiteman, and on Broadway in George Gershwin's Strike Up The Band and Girl Crazy (both in 1930), and Richard Whiting's Free For All in 1931. His important associations with John Hammond and Teddy Wilson began during this period.

In spring 1934, Goodman organized his first big band, a 12-piece group (three saxophones, three trumpets, two trombones, and four rhythm instruments), auditioned successfully for Billy Rose's new Music Hall, and started recording for Columbia Records. His small repertory included a few distinctive arrangements by Deane Kincaide, Will Hudson, and especially Benny Carter. Carter's composition and arrangement of Take My Word, requiring four saxophones (Goodman played tenor) to play four-note chords in parallel motion in the style of improvised solos, set the standard for the treatment of saxophone sections during the swing period. 

In November 1934, Goodman auditioned successfully for Let's Dance, an NBC radio series. Since the program's budget included funds for new arrangements, with Hammond's encouragement, he engaged Fletcher Henderson to write for him. Henderson's arrangements of traditional jazz instrumental numbers, for example, Jelly Roll Morton's King Porter Stomp and such popular songs as Sometimes I'm Happy, established the band's musical character. Under Goodman's exacting direction, the members' playing was a model of ensemble discipline. With his own impeccable musicianship, he set a high standard for his sidemen, from whom he demanded accurate intonation, matched vibrato, phrasing, and a careful balancing of parts — performance standards rare in the bands of that time. It was during these broadcasts that Gene Krupa joined Goodman. 

In July 1935, after playing together in a jam session, Goodman asked Teddy Wilson to record with Krupa and himself. that summer, as the Benny Goodman Trio, they recorded four classic sides of jazz chamber music. Goodman's solo on After You've Gone from that session is an example of his mature style — his flawless playing utilizes almost the complete range of the instrument, and his disciplined explorations of the harmony and fondness for the blue thirds reveals the technical mastery and controlled expression that formed the essence of his art. 

After the conclusion of the Let's Dance series in May 1935 and a disappointing reception at an engagement at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, Goodman's band embarked on its first tour under the auspices of Willard Alexander and the Music Corporation of America. The trip culminated in the now historic performance on August 21 before a capacity crowd at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, which was broadcast nationwide to great critical and popular acclaim, and is often cited as the beginning of the swing era. Later that year, while appearing at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, Goodman began a series of important early jazz concerts in America. For the last of these, Easter Sunday 1936, he brought in Wilson from New York. 

In August 1936, the Benny Goodman Trio became a quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton. The group made its first recording, Moonglow, on August 21. In 1936-9, Goodman's band reached the peak of its success. It began with a series of CBS broadcasts, The Camel Caravan, which continued for more than three years. They made their first films, The Big Broadcast of 1937 and Hollywood Hotel, and on March 3, 1937 began a three-week engagement at the Paramount Theater in New York. 

The success of these performances, attended by a large, predominantly teenage audience, and the resultant publicity clearly demonstrated that Goodman was the "King of Swing" and a popular idol. On January 16, 1938, Goodman brought a new level of recognition to jazz with a concert in Carnegie Hall, presenting Harry James, Ziggy Elman, Jess Stacy, Hampton, Krupa, and Wilson from his own entourage, as well as guest soloists from the bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. 

In the same period, Goodman became the first famous jazz musician to achieve success performing classical repertory. His early training with Schoepp had prepared him for this dual career by laying the foundation for a "legitimate" clarinet technique, which he continued to improve in later study with Reginald Kell. In 1935, he performed Mozart's Clarinet Quintet before an invited audience in the home of John Hammond, and three years later he recorded the work with the Budapest String Quartet. He appeared in his first public recital at Town Hall in New York in November 1938. That year he also commissioned the work Contrasts from Bartok and gave its premiere at Carnegie Hall in January 1939. He later commissioned clarinet concertos from Copland and Hindemith in 1947. Goodman appeared with all the leading American orchestras, performing and recording works by Leonard Bernstein, Debussy, Morton Gould, Darius Milhaud, Carl Nielsen, Poulenc, Stravinsky, and Carl Maria von Weber. 

In July 1940, illness forced Goodman to disband his group, and when he reformed it in October, changes in personnel gave the new band a different sound. Krupa, James, Wilson, and Stacy had already moved on, and during the hiatus of 1940 Hampton and Elman also left. New members who joined Goodman the previous year included Artie Bernstein, Fletcher Henderson, Johnny Guarnieri, Charlie Christian, and Eddie Sauter. Among the new soloists was Christian, with his long melodic lines influenced by Lester Young, who contributed most to the band, but it was the compositions and arrangements of Sauter, who had been trained at the Juilliard School, that established the band's musical character. During World War II, the recording ban by the musicians' union from August 1942 to November 1944 prevented Goodman from recording for Columbia, but he continued to make V-discs and transcriptions for the Armed Forces Radio Service. 

In 1947, Goodman assembled his last and most controversial traveling band (his later groups were recruited for specific engagements) to play and record arrangements in the new bop style for Capitol Records. Although he had been critical of bop, he genuinely admired the playing of Wardell Gray, Fats Navarro, and Doug Mettome, whom he featured in the band and in his new sextet. As a soloist Goodman was more comfortable with the small group than the big band, but even there, however, few of the harmonic or rhythmic novelties of bop penetrated his style. The recording Stealin' Apples in 1948 is characteristic of this period — all the solos are in the new style except those of Goodman, who retained his classic manner. In October 1949, Goodman disbanded the group on completion of his recording contract with Capitol. 

In the 1950s, Goodman continued to record and tour occasionally with ad hoc small groups and big bands, visiting Europe (1950) and, under the auspices of the US Department of State, the Far Fast (1956-7). At the conclusion of another European tour in 1958 he made a triumphant appearance in the American Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair. The original Benny Goodman Trio was reunited for a benefit recording for Fletcher Henderson (1951) and a television appearance on NBC (1953), and also appeared in a film based on Goodman's life, The Benny Goodman Story (1956). 

In the 1960s, Goodman expanded his role as jazz ambassador with tours of South America (1961), the USSR (1962), and Japan (1964). During the 1960s and 1970s, he toured about half of each year, dividing his time between appearances with small groups and increasingly frequent commitments to performing classical works. The 40th anniversary of his concert in Carnegie Hall was celebrated there on January 17, 1978. Although he put together a big band for the occasion, he made no attempt to recreate the original program. A recording (released in 1982) with George Benson clearly demonstrated that Goodman had lost none of his creative energy or technical facility. He was one of the five recipients of the fifth annual Kennedy Center Honors awards in1982. Many of his recordings have been newly issued by Sunbeam, a label devoted largely to aspects of his work. His collection of scores, recordings, and other materials was bequeathed to Yale University. 

As a jazz clarinetist, Goodman had no peer. His flawless solo improvisations set standards of excellence for jazz performance. He founded and directed the most important musical organization of the swing era and helped to open a new epoch in American popular music. He was the first white bandleader to adopt and popularize an uncompromising jazz style. He was also among the first to feature black jazz players, an action that might have compromised his own career at a time when racial integration was not a popular concept. His concerts brought a new audience and a new level of recognition to jazz. 

Source: The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz