‹ Deck
Benny Goodman card front Flip the card ⟳

Swing-Era Dossier

Benny Goodman

1909 – 1986

Born

May 30, 1909, Chicago, IL. Given name Benjamin David Goodman. Ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire; got his first clarinet through a free-instrument program at Hull-House.

Died

June 13, 1986, New York City, age 77. Heart attack at his Manhattan apartment. Reportedly had been practicing the clarinet that day — found with sheet music nearby.

Instruments

Clarinet (Albert-system, then Boehm). Studied with Franz Schoepp of the Chicago Symphony alongside fellow students Buster Bailey and Jimmie Noone.

Nicknames

  • "The King of Swing" — bestowed after the August 21, 1935 Palomar Ballroom triumph; predated by Chick Webb's earlier claim to the title.
  • "The Ray" / "BG" — band-internal. "The Ray" came from his icy glare at any sideman who fluffed a note (a "clam"); he'd stare without speaking until the musician disintegrated.
  • "Patriarch" in his later years.

Bands / years

  • Early Chicago pickup work (1922–1925) — got his first union card at ~13; by 14 (1923) a full AFM member taking as much paid work as he could handle with dance/jazz pickup groups. Summer 1923 played Lake Michigan excursion boats, reportedly alongside a teenage Bix Beiderbecke; also gigged at Guyon's Paradise dance hall.
  • Ben Pollack Orchestra (1925–1929) — first major gig, at age 16.
  • NYC freelance / Pollack alumni recordings (1929–1934).
  • Benny Goodman Orchestra (1934–1944, intermittent thereafter) — Let's Dance NBC radio Dec 1934–May 1935, Palomar Aug 1935 launch.
  • Key residencies — never a permanent single-club house band like Webb (Savoy) or Lunceford (Cotton Club); his model was touring + national radio + records. But three multi-month engagements were the band's home base and broadcast origin:
    • Billy Rose's Music Hall, NYC (from June 21, 1934) — the newly formed band's first steady house job; the gig vocalist Helen Ward was hired for.
    • Joseph Urban Room, Congress Hotel, Chicago (Nov 6, 1935 – May 23, 1936) — booked short, extended to ~6 months; NBC broadcasts cemented national fame right after Palomar. The Trio (with Teddy Wilson) made its first public appearance here (Easter 1936); the "Rhythm Club" sets also had Goodman and Krupa sitting in with Fletcher Henderson's band — possibly the first racially integrated big band before a paying US audience.
    • Madhattan Room, Hotel Pennsylvania, NYC (~Oct 1936 – Apr 29, 1937, ~7 months; return engagement fall 1937) — the band's base of operations; dozens of sustaining CBS/Mutual broadcasts; the Carnegie Hall concert was planned mid-residency.
  • Benny Goodman Trio (formed 1935, recorded July 1935, with Teddy Wilson + Gene Krupa) — first racially integrated jazz group to perform publicly for white audiences; first public appearance at the Congress Hotel, Chicago, Easter 1936 (see residencies).
  • Quartet (1936, added Lionel Hampton).
  • Sextet (1939, added Charlie Christian on electric guitar + Cootie Williams 1940).
  • Endless reunion bands and classical engagements through 1986.

Active

c. 1921–1986 (made his pro debut at age 12 imitating Ted Lewis).

Signature tunes

"Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)" (Louis Prima, 1936; Goodman's ~8½-minute July 1937 Victor recording across both sides of a 78, later the 1938 Carnegie Hall showstopper), "Stompin' at the Savoy" (Edgar Sampson), "Don't Be That Way" (Edgar Sampson — opened Carnegie 1938), "King Porter Stomp" (Jelly Roll Morton, arr. Fletcher Henderson), "Moonglow," "Let's Dance" (theme — by Bonime/Stone/Baldridge, adapted from von Weber).

Famous compositions

Goodman's name is on a lot of credits, but actual writing was minimal and almost always co-credited:

  • "Stompin' at the Savoy" — written by Edgar Sampson alone (1933). Sampson, 1970: "The other names were put on for business reasons." Goodman's, Webb's, and Razaf's names were added for the standard bandleader-quid-pro-quo.
  • "Don't Be That Way" — Edgar Sampson. Goodman a beneficiary, not a writer.
  • "Flying Home" — co-credited Goodman / Lionel Hampton (Hampton drove the tune; lyrics by Sid Robin).
  • "Air Mail Special" — credited to Goodman / Jimmy Mundy / Charlie Christian; multiple sources say it was Christian's tune alone, with Mundy arranging and Goodman taking a slice.
  • "Seven Come Eleven" — Goodman / Charlie Christian, 1940.
  • Most "Goodman" big-band hits were arranged by Fletcher Henderson — over 70 charts. The arrangements are the sound of swing; Henderson got paid scale.

Interesting facts

  • The Swing Era essentially starts on August 21, 1935 at the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood. Goodman's tour had been bombing east of the Rockies; the West Coast had been hearing him three hours earlier on Let's Dance due to the time-zone offset and was waiting for him. He launched into Henderson's "King Porter Stomp" and the kids erupted.
  • "The Ray" is the most-cited bandleader stare in jazz history. Sidemen described him watching them play wrong notes silently, refusing to look away, until they got worse from nerves. He also famously absent-mindedly walked off with other musicians' clarinets.
  • Integrated his band on stage in 1935 (Teddy Wilson on piano), 1936 (Lionel Hampton on vibes), and 1939 (Charlie Christian on electric guitar) — nine years before Jackie Robinson. John Hammond, his eventual brother-in-law, pushed every hire.
  • Carnegie Hall, Jan 16, 1938 — the first major jazz concert at Carnegie, presented by classical impresario Sol Hurok and billed as "Benny Goodman and His Swing Orchestra." Not really a Goodman-band gig at all but a swing summit: Goodman shared his stage with guest stars borrowed from the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras (it was Count Basie's Carnegie debut too). His own integrated players (Teddy Wilson on piano, Lionel Hampton on vibes) were joined by Ellington's Johnny Hodges (alto/soprano), Cootie Williams (trumpet), and Harry Carney (baritone), plus Basie's Count Basie (piano), Lester Young (tenor), Buck Clayton (trumpet), Freddie Green (guitar), and Walter Page (bass). Opened with "Don't Be That Way" as a public tribute to Edgar Sampson and Chick Webb. When asked how long an intermission he wanted, Goodman replied: "I dunno — how much does Toscanini have?"
  • The Carnegie program's peaks. (1) A "Twenty Years of Jazz" segment in which Goodman's band recreated earlier styles rather than the original acts appearing (the program credits the composers, not the performers): an Original Dixieland Jazz Band-style Dixieland romp on Eddie Edwards's "Sensation Rag" (the ODJB cut jazz's first record, 1917); Bobby Hackett recreating Bix Beiderbecke's cornet solo on "I'm Coming Virginia"; Harry James saluting Louis Armstrong on "Shine"; a Ted Lewis nod ("When My Baby Smiles at Me" — Lewis was the player a 12-year-old Goodman first imitated); and the lone real-deal appearance, Ellington's men (Hodges + Carney) on "Blue Reverie." (2) A ~17-minute interracial all-star jam session on "Honeysuckle Rose" (Fats Waller's tune) — the night's most explicit cross-band mixing, with Lester Young opening the solos (one of his finest recorded statements) and Basie taking three choruses. (3) A "Sing, Sing, Sing" climax featuring Jess Stacy's famous unplanned piano solo — though the actual closer was an encore of Fletcher Henderson's "Big John Special," fitting given that Henderson's charts were the engine of the Goodman sound.
  • The recording's lost decade. The concert was cut to acetate only as a private souvenir (producer Albert Marx, reportedly a gift for singer Helen Ward), then lost for over a decade. The discs resurfaced ~1950 (found in a closet — accounts differ on by whom), were transferred, and Columbia released them as The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert — a landmark best-seller. The 12-year gap is partly tech: 78s held ~4 min/side, so a full concert couldn't be issued until Columbia's 33⅓ LP arrived in 1948. For that LP, Columbia's engineers truncated the 17-minute "Honeysuckle Rose" jam; the complete version only surfaced on later complete editions.
  • Lost the Battle of the Savoy to Chick Webb on May 11, 1937. Gene Krupa, Goodman's drummer, said Webb "cut me to ribbons." Goodman paid public tribute at Carnegie eight months later.
  • Married Alice Hammond Duckworth on March 20, 1942 — John Hammond's sister, a British politician's ex-wife, twelve years older, three stepdaughters plus two of their own. They stayed married until her death in 1978.
  • Serious classical career running parallel to swing: commissioned Bartók's Contrasts (1938, with Joseph Szigeti), Copland's Clarinet Concerto (1947), Hindemith's Clarinet Concerto (1947), and Morton Gould's Derivations (1955). Recorded the Mozart Clarinet Quintet with the Budapest String Quartet in 1938. His daughter Rachel became a classical pianist and toured with him.
  • First jazz musician to tour the USSR for the State Department, May–July 1962, at Khrushchev's invitation, between the Berlin and Cuban Missile crises. Reportedly played "Pop Goes the Weasel" on solo clarinet while watching the goose-stepping guard change at the Lenin Mausoleum. Several sidemen (incl. Phil Woods) hated the tour and Goodman — Woods titled his account "To Russia Without Love."
  • Stingy with money, stingy with praise. Anita O'Day and Helen Forrest both quit citing his coldness; Forrest: "The twenty or so months I spent with Benny felt like twenty years."
  • Played a Buffet R-13 most of his career. Studied with classical clarinetist Reginald Kell in 1949 and rebuilt his embouchure from scratch at age 40 — almost unheard of for a player at his level.
  • A family of working musicians. When the Goodman boys were sent for lessons, instruments came home by size — the biggest got a tuba, the next a trumpet, and Benny, the youngest, the clarinet. Two brothers turned pro alongside him: older brother Harry Goodman on bass — a Ben Pollack sideman in the 1920s alongside Benny, then a founding member of Benny's own orchestra in 1934 and younger brother Irving Goodman on trumpet — it was Irving who kept touting a young Harry James to Benny in the fall of 1936. Irving later played in Charlie Barnet's trumpet section (he's in Barnet's 1950 filmed Cherokee).

Sources