|
 Benny
Goodman. August 21, 1935: the story associated with this date is
so well known in the swing dance community that it has almost
reached mythic proportions. In 1935, bandleader Benny
Goodman's band was signed to provide music for a NBC Saturday night
radio program, Let's Dance, playing the last hour of the
three hour program. The program's budget included funds
for new arrangements, which were provided by bandleader Fletcher
Henderson.
After the conclusion of the Let's Dance series in May 1935,
Goodman's band embarked on a national tour. It was not
particularly successful, and their
was serious consideration given to dissolving the band. The
band finally
reached the West Coast, where
Goodman's
segment of Let's Dance had
been heard three hours earlier than on the East Coast, during West
Coast "prime time". The band's performance at the Palomar
Ballroom near Los Angeles on August 21, 1935, was a spectacular
success, broadcast nationwide to critical and popular acclaim.
Thus the Palomar Ballroom event and the August 21, 1935 date are
often noted as the beginning of the swing era.
Of course, Benny Goodman was a very celebrated and popular bandleader
during the swing era. He was an accomplished clarinetist whose
distinctive playing gave an identity both to his big band and to the smaller
units he led. Goodman was born in 1909, the son of Russian immigrants and
began taking clarinet lessons at age 10 at a local synagogue. He quickly
developed his musical skills and dropped out of school at age 14 to become a
professional musician. In 1929, he moved to New York, working as a free
lance musician, made several recordings under his own name and with pickup
bands, and organized his first professional orchestra in 1934.
As noted above, he was
signed for the Saturday night Let's Dance program on NBC radio in 1935.
The new arrangements provided by Fletcher Henderson for the program
included traditional jazz instrumental numbers, for example,
Jelly Roll Morton's King Porter Stomp and such popular songs as
Sometimes I'm Happy, helping establish 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.
On January
16, 1938, Goodman brought a new level of recognition to Big Band swing with a
concert in Carnegie Hall, presenting Harry James, Ziggy Elman, Jess Stacy,
Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, and Teddy Wilson from his own entourage, as well as guest
soloists from the bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie.
Goodman enjoyed a productive career until his death in 1986.
Some of his great tunes include "Swingtime
in the Rockies";
"Let's Dance"; "Madhouse"; "Sing, Sing,
Sing"; "Ridin' High"; and
"King Porter Stomp",
among many others. |
