Section from chapter 1935: Kings of Swing   [ return to introduction ]

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By Mervyn Cooke • 325 illustrations,
82 in full color • 256 pages • 8-1/2 x 8-1/2"
Cloth • ISBN 0-7892-0399-5 • U.S. $45.00
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Benny Goodman in the mid-1930s: the first performer to forge a dual career in jazz and the classics. [ view larger image ] (The Goodman Papers, Yale University Music Library, New Haven, used by permission)
Populist and Classicist: Benny Goodman

A sudden decline in the fortunes of Fletcher Henderson's dance orchestra (• p. 71), when his tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins left to work for Jack Hylton in Britain, coincided with the meteoric rise to prominence of the twenty-five-year-old Jewish clarinetist Benny Goodman in 1934. Initially based in Chicago, Goodman moved to New York in 1928--a year in which many notable musicians gravitated eastward to the Big Apple. He successfully auditioned for an NBC radio show in November 1934 with a newly formed big band and, at the suggestion of record producer John Hammond (• p. 209), Goodman bought a number of band arrangements from Henderson to augment his then meagre repertoire. The combination of Henderson's exciting and intricate orchestrations with the professionalism and commercial potential of Goodman's new band propelled big-band jazz into the limelight, and initiated a rage for swing music that lasted well into the 1940s.

All this happened virtually overnight. In August 1935, after a dispiriting season in New York, Goodman took his band to California and played to a packed Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles where the crowd went wild with excitement (as did those listening in to the live radio broadcast from the venue). Goodman instantly became a household name. He was dubbed the "King of Swing," and gained such nationwide prestige that he appeared at New York's Carnegie Hall (• p. 91) three years later. His band included flamboyant drummer Gene Krupa and agile trumpeter Harry James, both of whom left in 1938 to lead their own bands after personality clashes with the often intractable Goodman. Henderson joined the band as full-time staff arranger in 1939, and in the following year Goodman formed a new group that included guitarist Charlie Christian (• p. 98). He continued to produce big-band jazz of impeccable quality, and shrewdly hired be-bop soloists in the later 1940s when it seemed evident that jazz was moving in a new direction.

Alongside his cultivation of a polished big-band sound, Goodman worked with smaller groups that were prophetic of developments in jazz after World War II. In 1935 he set up a trio with Krupa on drums and the dexterous Teddy Wilson at the keyboard. Since Wilson was black and the other two members white, this was a bold statement in a period when mixed-race groups were still severely frowned upon in America. In the following year, the black vibraphonist Lionel Hampton (• p. 70) was added to the group to create a quartet.

Goodman was also the first jazz musician to pursue a parallel career in classical music, recording the Clarinet Quintet by Mozart in 1938 (• p. 91) and commissioning concert works from internationally distinguished composers such as Béla Bartók, Benjamin Britten, Paul Hindemith and Aaron Copland. That he was able to achieve all this remains an eloquent testament to his faultless technique, which has been the envy of every jazz clarinetist since.

Never easy to work with, Goodman had an absentminded and sometimes irritable personality, and his inveterate musical perfectionism did not endear him to all his players. Pianist Jess Stacy recalled the leader's obsession with the accurate tuning of instruments, and even Goodman's own daughter declared that she was terrified of playing classical music for her father. He could also be devious: one of Goodman's star vocalists remained convinced that he had asked her to marry him just to ensure her continued commitment to the band at the height of her popular success.