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Benny Goodman music biography continued...

music at the Hull House as a child. He learned to play the clarinet by ten and began appearing with the local Benny Meroff Orchestra in 1922. In 1926 he joined Ben Pollack's band. After three years with Pollack, Goodman left the band in New York City in 1929 to make it on his own. In 1934 he led his first band on a radio series called "Let's Dance" (which became the title of Goodman's theme song). In 1935, armed with songs developed by some of the great African American arrangers, Goodman's band traveled the country to play their music. Not especially successful in most of its performances, the band arrived at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles in a downbeat mood. The evening of August 21, 1935, began with a cool reception. Then, desperate to excite the unimpressed audience, Goodman called for the band to launch into a couple of fast-paced crowd pleasers, and the reaction reverberated through the entire popular music world. Hundreds of people stopped dancing and gathered around the bandstand, responding with enthusiasm. That performance turned out to be not only a personal triumph for the band, but for swing music in general. Goodman's popularity soared; the band topped almost all the magazine and theater polls, their record sales were huge, they were given a weekly radio show, and they were featured in two big-budget movies.


After 1945 the clarinet was pushed into a minor role in bebop music, the new style of jazz that was becoming popular. Goodman struggled for a while to accept the new music, but in 1950 he decided to dissolve his band. From that time forward his public appearances were rare. They were mostly with small groups and almost always for television specials, recordings, or European tours. In 1985 he made a surprise and, by all accounts, spectacular appearance at the Kool Jazz Festival in New York. He died the following year of an apparent heart attack. Goodman's place in jazz history has been the subject of much debate, but no matter what, no one can deny his mastery of the jazz clarinet and his contributions to the Swing era.