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Show Jys! Ampersand 10 1979 Benny Goodman: Last of the Med wfWl Mot Poppas by Harvey Geller In a moment of extravagance the late jazz ren. By the age of twelve he was critic George Frazier announced that he had playing professionally. There's an offered his right arm on a number of apocryphal tale concerning a riverboat date in 1923 when Bix occasions but never for keeps. He was savBeiderbecke supposedly dising it for a night when he might return to the in Garden Club covered a kid in short pants fool to hear Chicago Midway X Louis Armstrong, Frank Teschemacher, Bix ing around with instruments just Beiderbecke and Muggsy Spanier. "For before the first set. Bix chased him .1.1tne youngster, that," George allowed, "I would give my away, unout sir, protested right arm." "my name is Benjamin Goodman and I'm booked to play vvith you tonight." Frazier's ofTer was eloquent but guarded Teschemacher and Beiderbecke had By the time he arrived in New York Goodalready passed on. Now Spanier and man was considered the best pop clarinetist Armstrong and most of the immortals w ho around. His first engagement fronting a big band was at New York's Roosevelt Grill with began on Rampart Street with Buddy Bol-dethen blossomed with the Five Pennies Gene Krupa pounding on drums. It was a room and the glass rattled and flourished with the big bands, are gone. mirror-panelle- d A few are still around but most of them are and nearly shattered in a space designed for the likes of Guy Lombardo and Sammy rusted, wrinkled, sad old men imprisoned in their vintage '32 solos the Kaye. The hotel's president came close to a recalling codas of long aw ay and far ago. Some still massive coronary. "You've got two weeks loiter in bistros or are occasionally resurnotice, right now!" he roared at Goodman rected for jazz festivals, impersonating their and his agent. "A bonehead booking," wrote former selves. But seldom, if ever, does their critic George Simon in Metronome, "(but) the a n, music match the pow er and majesty of those lost years. But there is one ancient pancratist still flailing away with just about the same proficiency he had 44 years ago w hen Joe Louis was the heavyweight champ and he was "The King of Swing." In that golden age he was also known as "the Man," "the Rav," "B.G." and "Poppa." He was the Beatles of 1937, the reason thousands lined the streets surrounding New York's Paramount Theater, danced in its aisles, took to Selmer d clarinets, glasses, Victor and Columbia records. His Saturday and Sunday performances at the Paramount in the spring of '37 drew 29,000 fans, shattering all records. No other "pop" weekend so profoundly affected a generation until Monterey's "Music, Love and Flowers" festival 30 years and three months after. His January 16, 1938 date at Carnegie, the first jazz concert ever in that hallowed hall, was almost equally historic, for in those halcyon years Benjamin David Goodman fronted the most eloquent big band the world has ever knovn. When the Carnegie program was being planned someone asked Goodman about the intermission. "How long should it be?" "I dunno," he responded absent-mindedlhorn-rimme- y, "how much does Toscauini have?" By '38 Benny was an international pas- sion. Thousands of beardless, crew-cu- t youths all over this planet tried to imitate those scorching legatos, that inventive phrasing, even the optical "ray" that pierced his sidemen when they didn't perform to expectations. Tykes, sprouting to tycoons, would arange to arrive hours early at the Hotel Pennsylvania's Madhattan Room or New Jersey's Meadowbrook Casino, standing in k devotion while Goodman tested his clarinet reeds puffing scales which, to celestial were concertos. them, Benny was born on May 30, 1909 in Chicago, Illinois, the eighth of eleven child awe-struc- outfit is the closest to perfection this reviewer has heard in many moons." The weeks following the Roosevelt disaster didn't improve Goodman's morale. "We headed west," he remembers, "Columbus, Milwaukee and then Denver. We laid an egg in Denver and then played a few one in San Francisco that wasn't one-nighter- s, bad." On August 21, 1935 the band opened at L.A.'s Palomar Ballroom. 'T decided to too shoot the works actually, though, we were scared to death. From the moment I kicked off, the boys dug in with some of the best playing since we left New York. I don't know what it was but the crowd went wild . . that was the beginning." On a hot August night in 193 5 an era w as born and. for those of us w ho were in the delivery room, the music world has never been quite the same. During the next dozen years the giants who joined him became as household as Sal Hepatica. There were Bunny Bengali. Mildred Bailey, Teddy Wilson, Jack leagar-den- , Lionel Hampton, Johnny Guarnicri, Mel Powell, Count Basie, Cootie Williams, Peggy Lee, Ziggy Klman, Harry James, Billy Butterfield, Bud Freeman, Flla Fitzgerald, Bobby Hackctt, Helen Forrest, Miff Mole, Georgic Auld, Lester Young, Freddie Green, Dave Tough, Vido Musso, Jess Stacy, Patti Page, Dick Haymes, Buck Clayton, Johnny Mercer, Fletcher Henderson, Stan Getz. . . Those early 78 RPM shellac sides are suddenly available on albums, and it's like findclover. RCA has reing a field of four-lea- f issued them on the Bluebird label in double-recor- d sets. The series is titled The Complete . . (ioodman and includes about 160 signature songs in five miraculous albums. I first heard him at a little club in the east Bronx, backing singer Russ Columbo, circa 1933. When he played the Rainbow Grill in Manhattan recently I sampled him again, probably for the hundredth time, I phoned r V A L J ,l'Y 11.1 spiencna man in y. too much importance cannot be placed on GoodI v Y1 thrilling instrumentalist in jazz." In '79 he is no less man's position as a writes jazzman," I Downbeat former editor Dave Dexter, Jr. "Without a doubt he's the greatest jazz clarinetist in historv but, in addition, he has done more for jazz than Louis Joe Oliver, Armstrong and all the others together. His work in making jazz acceptable even popular is enough to qualify him as the outstanding figure in all jazz history." Before Goodman's band arrived in '35, Dexter recalls, "sweet" was America's favorite sound and jazz made little headway in its struggle to surv ive. " The early Thirties were dark days for jazz," he writes. "UnemployScores of ballrooms ment was nation-widclosed their doors. Guy Lombardo was The Band along with Wayne King, Isham Jones. Fred Olsen Waring, George unimaginative and unexciting commercial son that afternoon. "How'd orchestras Goodman blazed a path whic h my like followed see Goodman to others to success." you Benny tonight?" 'Who's he, a new comic?" That innocent age when the Big Band Last year I escorted my daughter to a Cleo began its rise to glory at the Palomar ended Laine concert and Goodman strolled by dur- sometime between World War II and Korea. ing the intermission. We chatted for a few The 20 per cent amusement tax, extended moments and I introduced my musicians' strike, popularity of television ingenue. "Benny Goodman," she repeated as and an inexcusable foolishness called "bewe walked to our seats, "I've seen him on bop" coupled with pretentious, undanceable television, doing an American Lxpress comarrangemenls contributed to its demise. But mercial." primarily it was the public's new passion, the For those, like my kin, who weren't around solo singer, that sirened its swan song. By to witness the grace of'Ied Williams rounding 1918, while orchestras played second fiddle, third, Jolson on his knees at the Palace or nearly every major recording artist Frank Larle Sande atop Man O'War, take heart. Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Dick Benny still rides. Like Santa and the first Havmes. Doris Day, Peggy Fee. Kay St, hi. cue kw of spring, a legend with a licorice stic k etc.) was a former band vocalist. is coming to town. In April he'll be performGoodman was the symbol, the pied pip i. ing in Youngstown and Cincinnati, Ohio, the Golden Boy of those Big Band ye ars. We and New York City. And in May he'll be didn't go just to dance or listen to his music. celebrating his 70th birthday. A lot of men We stood in wonder to watch and worship. are still active at 70 but Goodman is beyond He'd swing into a set of Stonipin' at the the boundaries of senesc ence. His uniquely Savoy," "Big John Spec ial," "Bugle Call gorgeous tone, fluent imagination and un- Rag" and, angels would limited technique remain fresh, beautiful and sing. Goodman was the on the earth of giant childhood exciting. If his sidemen are less than specand his music was the clays and my tacular, Benny compensates with delicacy nights of my youth. and passion. A few detractors, reviewing The indisputable fact is that Benny and his recent recordings, contend that Goodman is band were the treasure-trov- e of an art form no longer in his prime. Still they'll have to called jazz. And for this reason, quite apart concede that his current cuts are, at the from mere nostalgia, the enchantment of his USDA choice. accomplishments will be savored for "I've been playing for 60 years," he says, "since I was nine years old. You just can't turn off a switch and say you're finished. I love to play. I've got nothing to prove anymore but Harvey Celler has written songs, a column Jnr Cash I'll know when I can't play." Won, features for numerous publuattons, and now works e. . . . ld i " , very-least- George Simon once labeled him "the most for Billboard Magazine. |
