Benny Goodman

Musician

• Born: May 30, 1909
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: June 13, 1986
• Place of death: New York, New York

American musician

A superb jazz clarinetist, Goodman led a series of outstanding dance bands that shaped the character of American swing music between 1935 and 1950.

Area of achievement Music

Early Life

Benny Goodman’s parents were poor Jewish immigrants who settled in Chicago in 1903. His father, David, worked in the stockyards and the garment business. His mother, Dora, stayed at home and cared for the couple’s twelve children.

When Goodman was about twelve years old, his father arranged for him and two brothers to take music lessons and join a band sponsored by their synagogue. Goodman began to learn the clarinet. He progressed to a band sponsored by Hull House and to private lessons from Franz Schoepp, one of the best clarinet teachers in the country. He helped give Goodman, whose extraordinary talent was quickly evident, a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of the instrument.

At that time, jazz music was rising in popularity, spurred by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which began producing phonograph records in 1917. Goodman was impressed by recordings by clarinetist Ted Lewis and his band and liked to imitate Lewis’s distinctive (and sometimes humorous) style. Jazz music stressed a strong and steady beat with improvised variations around the simple chord patterns of popular songs or the blues. Goodman quickly became a skilled improviser but could also read music far better than most of his musical associates.

By age fourteen, Goodman was finding as much paid work as he could handle with pickup groups playing dance music and jazz. He quit school and earned enough money to contribute substantially to the family income. In 1925 he was recruited into Ben Pollack’s orchestra, a jazz-oriented dance band in which Goodman worked with such jazz notables as Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland, Bud Freeman, and Jack Teagarden. Beginning in late 1926, the Pollack band was recording for Victor Records, with Goodman featured on jazz solos. By 1928 he was also recording with many pickup jazz groups, sometimes under his own name, playing saxophone and clarinet.

Life’s Work

Goodman left the Pollack band in 1929. For the next few years he lived and worked in New York City, where there was a lot of well-paid work for musicians in radio as well as local clubs and shows. In 1932 he organized and briefly managed a dance band fronted by pop singer Russ Columbo.

By 1934, perhaps because freelance earnings were skimpy and his temperament was not well suited to working under other people’s direction, Goodman organized a real dance band under his own name. The band was booked into the recently opened Billy Rose Music Hall. Just as their engagement ended in October, the band successfully auditioned for a three-hour, three-band Saturday night national network radio series entitled Let’s Dance. The terms provided the band with a generous allowance to pay for new arrangements. Let’s Dance premiered in December, 1934, with a large live audience as well as the radio broadcast. By then the band featured Helen Ward, the first of Goodman’s female vocalists, and included drummer Gene Krupa and jazz trumpet star Bunny Berigan. Goodman rapidly acquired a book of fine arrangements by Spud Murphy, Fletcher and Horace Henderson, Jimmy Mundy, Edgar Sampson, and many others.

In 1935, Goodman’s band was signed by the Music Corporation of America (MCA), which was the nation’s largest booking agency at the time. This came just in time because the radio show, although very popular, was terminated in May, 1935. Fortunately the band’s recordings for Victor Records were selling well. Noteworthy was the July, 1935, version of “King Porter Stomp,” a showpiece for Berigan’s trumpet. The band’s growing popularity also reflected their ability to enhance undistinguished pop songs with good arrangements and swinging performances.

In an engagement at the new Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, California, in August, 1935, the band’s popularity suddenly exploded. After two months, they moved back to a Chicago hotel ballroom, an engagement that was extended by popular demand for six months. The band was featured in a motion picture entitled The Big Broadcast of 1937 (1936), signed a new radio contract, and produced a steady flow of new recordings. In addition to recording the full band, Goodman also experimented with small jazz groups. As early as 1935, he began to feature a trio, using Krupa and black pianist Teddy Wilson. In 1936, Goodman also recorded with a quartet, adding black vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. In doing so, Goodman helped promote racial integration in the music business.

From the beginning, Goodman’s bands experienced a high rate of turnover. The dance-band business was full of stress. Bands were often on the road for extended periods, and hours were late and irregular. Furthermore, Goodman was not easy to work for because he was a perfectionist. In addition, his musicians complained that he would develop an animosity toward someone for no apparent reason. Musicians also quit on their own initiative as other job opportunities became abundant. At any rate, Goodman was eager to hire the best talent available, and much of that talent had high respect for Goodman’s playing and for his band’s musicianship. After Berigan left the band, Goodman added Ziggy Elman and Harry James to his trumpet section in early 1937.

One day in March, 1937, the band was booked into the Paramount Theater in New York. By 7:00 a.m. the following morning, hundreds of fans were lined up for tickets. The crowds overflowed onto the stage. The swing era was in full bloom. Rival big bands were being organized, following many elements of Goodman’s style, particularly the mixing of fast and slow, hot and sweet, all with a strong, danceable beat. Artie Shaw and Woody Herman started bands in 1936; Shaw’s lush-toned clarinet solos soon established him as a rival to Goodman. In 1937, bands headed by Glenn Miller, Bunny Berigan, and Larry Clinton appeared. Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey divided forces to create separate bands. The sales of dance-band records increased. Coin-operated jukeboxes turned many eating and drinking establishments into dance parlors.

Excitement over Goodman and his band continued through 1937. They were featured in major magazines such as Life, The New Yorker, and The Saturday Evening Post. Goodman was reported to be earning $100,000 per year, a huge sum at that time. On January 16, 1938, Goodman’s band presented a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City, which was normally a citadel of classical music. The music generated wild excitement for a packed house. The high spot was the extended performance of “Sing, Sing, Sing,” featuring Krupa, James, and pianist Jess Stacy. The concert was recorded live (a rare event in 1938) but was not released until 1950, when it could be presented on long-playing vinyl. The recording itself caused a sensation and became one of the best-selling jazz records of all time.

Soon after the performance, Krupa left to start his own band, followed by James, and Goodman began recording with Columbia Records. Despite the loss of exciting soloists, he soon released new recordings such as “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Scarecrow,” and “Stealin’ Apples,” all distinguished by their driving rhythms and top-notch solos by Goodman and trumpeter Elman. An exciting and very innovative soloist named Charlie Christian became a member of a rejuvenated sextet. Christian, who was African American, was a pioneer on electric guitar.

In the middle of 1940, Goodman was afflicted with a very painful spine disorder. He suspended operations and laid off all but seven of his musicians. Hampton left to start his own band. After resting for a couple of months, Goodman was ready to rebuild. He was able to engage Cootie Williams, whose growling trumpet solos had been a feature with Duke Ellington. Other new soloists were tenor saxophonist George Auld, pianist Mel Powell, and trombonist Lou McGarity. Sophisticated arranger Eddie Sauter produced several distinctive numbers such as “Superman,” which became a showpiece for Williams. One of the band’s biggest hits was “Why Don’t You Do Right?” sung by Peggy Lee.

World War II disrupted the music business after the draft was initiated in 1940. Goodman’s medical condition kept him out of military service, but he lost many musicians to the draft. In August, 1942, the musicians’ union imposed a ban on new recordings to pressure the recording companies to pay royalties to musicians. The ban lasted until 1944.

Goodman’s reign as king of swing probably ended early in the war, eclipsed as much as anything by the sentimental sounds of Miller, James, and Tommy Dorsey, which seemed more soothing to the wartime audience. However, Goodman continued to produce good swing, aided in part by his willingness to rehire some of his stalwarts of the past such as Krupa, Wilson, Arthur Rollini, and Vernon Brown. In March, 1944, he dismissed the band, rested, played a few pickup dates, and waited.

Early in 1945 Goodman organized a new band that included many fresh, young musicians such as Sonny Berman, Kai Winding, and Stan Getz. Unfortunately, the material they were playing was not innovative or interesting. By then leadership in big-band creativity had passed to people like Stan Kenton, Boyd Raeburn, and Woody Herman. Furthermore, the big-band era itself was coming to an end, partly because consumer demand was not sufficient to employ so many live musicians. The most creative jazz was being played by bebop innovators such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Goodman dismissed his band late in 1946, moved to the West Coast early in 1947, and signed a recording contract with Capitol Records. He assembled a recording band that included many of his old sidemen but also quite a few with some bebop inclinations. This was especially true for his small groups that, in 1948, included tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray and trumpeter Red Rodney. A reorganized big band played for President Harry S. Truman’s inauguration in January, 1949. In October of 1949, however, Goodman dismissed this group. Thereafter Goodman periodically assembled bands for special purposes, such as a trip to the Soviet Union in 1962.

A motion picture entitled The Benny Goodman Story was released in 1955, with Steve Allen playing the title role. Goodman again assembled a band for the sound track. He continued to perform frequently, including occasional classical concerts. Although his days as an effective big-band organizer were over, he continued to play until his death in June, 1986.

Significance

Goodman was one of the best jazz clarinet players of all time. He could play at breakneck speed, invent new melodies, and perform in a wide variety of styles. Goodman’s genius was also expressed in his groups, both the big bands and the smaller ensembles. He chose the musicians and the material, set the tempos, and drove the music. His legacy of recorded swing is now recognized as an exceptional contribution to American culture.

Bibliography

Bindas, Kenneth J. Swing, That Modern Sound. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001. Traces the historical and cultural significance of swing music and discusses the place of Goodman and his band in the history of swing.

Collier, James Lincoln. Benny Goodman and the Kingdom of Swing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Collier puts Goodman’s life and work into a full musical and historic context. Includes detailed analysis of many recordings and capsule biographies of many of the important people in Goodman’s career.

Connor, D. Russell. Benny Goodman: Listen to His Legacy. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988. An encyclopedic discography of Goodman’s recordings with comments on many of the sessions and participants.

Goodman, Benny, and Irving Kolodin. The Kingdom of Swing. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1939. Goodman’s autobiography, issued at the height of his popularity, conveys his attitudes and many anecdotes about his early career.

Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Chapter 1, devoted to Goodman, stresses his technical virtuosity and commercial instincts but is skeptical about his jazz solos. Schuller, a composer and arranger, writes technically in spots.

Simon, George T. The Big Bands. New York: Macmillan, 1974. Simon reviewed big bands for a magazine and writes from much personal exposure and interviews. Goodman is featured on pages 204-222 and 524-528.

Singer, Barnett. “How Did Benny Goodman Get to Carnegie Hall.” American History 36, no. 1 (April, 2001): 22. Focuses on Goodman and his band’s concert at Carnegie Hall on January 16, 1938, and how the concert helped popularize swing and jazz music. Chronicles Goodman’s career before the concert and the people who influenced his career and music.

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