Goodman à la King

When The Glenn Miller story played to packed movie houses not long ago, I felt that Hollywood — or at least a few perceptive gentlemen in Hollywood — had at last solved the riddle of how to present popular-music-with-a-plot on the screen. The wild public acclaim for the picture certainly proved that the approach was the right one, and, beside that, the film turned out to be a husky money-maker. When the same company, writer and producer contacted me later and suggested they film The Benny Goodman Story, I gave my permission in one minute flat.

Man, what memories were recreated for me during some of the scene shootings that followed! The big jam session at the Paramount Theatre in New York had to be filmed inside the United Artists Theatre in Los Angeles, but that didn't make any difference. Hundreds of teen-agers in short skirts, long hair and saddle shoes were hired to fill the seats. Though most of these kids hadn't even been born when swing first became the rage, once our band started blowing they got so crazily enthusiastic that Donna Reed, who plays my wife, Alice, in the picture, wound up on the casualty list. Whacked on the nose, jabbed in the ribs and kicked in the thigh, Donna came out of it swinging right along with the rest of them.

This same group of teen-agers gave us another jolt when we brought the whole bunch out to the Universal lot and sent them into the Palomar Ballroom scene with strict orders to "dance (continued on page 61) Goodman (continued from page 21) it up." That's exactly what they did, all right, and everything seemed to go fine until director Valentine Davies took his first horrified look at the rushes. The kids were sure "dancing it up" but most of their dance steps were completely unknown in the late Thirties. Next day, when the big scene was re-shot, Davies dispatched a squad of "policemen" on the dance floor to weed out the cool ones and keep the dancing hot and swingy, in the proper 1938 style.

Jazz will always be danced to, I guess. But more surprising is the way it is now listened to. There are jazz concerts in New York's Carnegie Hall, Chicago's Civic Opera House and countless other auditoriums all over America and Europe. Jazz festivals and traveling jazz groups continually expand the audience for a type of music that at one time was considered special and highly unorthodox. Hundreds of nightclubs in 1956 no longer have any dance floors of any kind, but still, thousands of people of all ages gather to listen to music — to listen critically and intelligently. Certainly jazz is no longer the boisterous, raw, brash upstart of the Twenties. It has come of age right before our eyes (and ears). The change can be attributed to no single factor, I suppose. Maybe the kids who danced the Lindy Hop, the Shag, the Big Apple and the Charleston are approaching middle age. Now, perhaps, they are content to sit around and listen.

During the early days, our audiences consisted almost entirely of other swing musicians and kids under twenty-five. The kids' reactions were direct, sensual and emotional. They found the music stimulating, exciting and wonderful to dance to. They didn't criticize it, analyze it or write books about it; they simply responded to it and enjoyed it. Over the years, the people who liked this new free and rollicking kind of music grew in number and we played to larger and larger crowds.

Now, I look around and see many to whom swing is largely a matter of nostalgia. It takes them back to their own youth which they relive through swing music. But there is also a new generation of kids whose reactions are as direct as their parents' reactions before them. Jazz is again alive to them, in a healthier condition than ever before. In fact, we can easily say that jazz is one of the original and lasting contributions to culture which America has made in the whole Twentieth Century. In my opinion, it may well go down in history as the folk music of this country.

One of the features of jazz which I find most gratifying is the fact that from its very beginning it has been completely democratic. A difference of race, creed or color has never been of the slightest importance in the best of bands. Musicianship was the only consideration when, with Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa, I formed the Benny Goodman Trio and started what has since been called "Chamber Music Jazz." It was the only consideration also when I added Lionel Hampton's vibes to turn the small combo into the Benny Goodman Quartet. Many years before the Major League baseball teams used Negro players, Negro and white musicians were playing together all over the country. This is hardly surprising when you remember that most jazz originated with the Negroes and, naturally, they are still among its most creative exponents and undoubtedly always will be.

During the past twenty years, there have been musicians and band leaders of every kind and quality. There have been "greats," like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, to mention only two, whose names have never lost their bright lustre. There have been some who have been just good and who have held the public favor for a while, then vanished from view to drift into other occupations. There also have been a couple — who obviously shall have to be nameless — who, with no apparent talent or personality, have managed through some goofy gimmick to hold the public's fancy. They are paid fantastic sums by the recording companies as well as radio and television networks. There are also big bands, like Guy Lombardo's, who continue from decade to decade, year in, year out, never varying their styles, never deviating from the straight path of conventionality. They have managed to hold a certain definite following of their own, thus maintaining a steady and solid popularity. To these fascinating few, I doff my hat!

An amazing breed which has risen with the growth of music is the record collector. I must admit to knowing very little about them, although I am constantly awed by them and certainly am indebted to a lot of them. For many years, I was so busy playing music and making records that somehow I never got around to buying many discs, and never my own. The result was, when I got married and my wife Alice wanted a set of my old records, I found that they were mostly unobtainable from the usual sources. Finally, though, thanks to an ardent, wild-haired collector, I was able to buy a good many of them.

Some of these record collectors are astonishing. Last year, I met the 17-year-old son of the last Count Bernadotte, whose name is Bertil. In some ways the meeting verged on the embarrassing. He asked me innumerable questions about various records, recording sessions, who played such-and-such a chorus, etc., and almost invariably he knew the answers better than I! The amount of information about discs and jazz he carried in his head was nothing less than startling, and yet, although his mother is American, he had been brought up almost entirely in Sweden.

I had a similar experience with a Greek boy, educated in Athens, who came to America for the first time at the age of 21. He, too, knew more about me than I could remember myself! I am told that record collectors correspond in all parts of the world, exchanging views and information on all kinds of discs. This interest is wonderful, of course, because records are the very blood-stream of the whole music industry.

Looking back, it seems to me that the release of the first Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert LP helped to establish a new trend in the record business. Thirteen years after the concert, which took place on January 16, 1938, the Columbia long-playing records of the concert were placed on the market, made possible because an undiscovered transcription of the music had come to light.

Many people thought that the story of finding the acetate tapes tucked away in a closet was a publicity gag, but it wasn't. The only inaccuracy in the report was that it was not my daughter Rachel who found them, but my sister-in-law, Rachel Speiden, and I'm happy to have the chance to present the correct facts now.

This album was released exactly as it was taped over one single microphone at Carnegie Hall. I had no idea that we were being recorded at the time. Since, so far as I know, no album recorded at a jazz concert with a live audience had ever been offered to the public, no one knew what the response would be. Well, the darn thing sold more than 300,000 albums, and has grossed over $1,500,000. Four years after its relesase, it is still a hot seller in the record shops. Since that time, a lot of bands and jazz groups have followed the same procedure in preparing albums. It is fairly commonplace today, and, wherever the music has been good, the record-buying public has responded favorably.

I had a special interest in the success of my first album of this kind because I thought it might possibly be bought only by those of my generation. I was dead wrong. Apparently, all over the country, high school and college kids "discovered" this "new" music for themselves. I heard of many instances, even, where youngsters were astonished and chagrined when they found their parents also knew of Benny Goodman and his band of the late Thirties!

Today there are many gentlemen of the press in this country writing competently about music (my brother-in-law, John Hammond, is one of them). But there are also a raft of critics who seem to be trying to make the subject into an occult science. I can think of one in particular who seems incapable of writing about jazz except in words of four syllables or more. The word, "contrapointal" (or does he mean "contrapuntal?"), which is not even in Webster's Unabridged, is one of his favorites. I sometimes wonder what impression he manages to get across to his readers. To this reader, the invariable reaction is one of total bewilderment spiced with a dash of horror — for in this critic's outpourings there is no emotion whatever, expressed or implicit. The approach is entirely intellectual. Many European critics, too, have written monumental (concluded on page 72) Goodman (continued from page 61) volumes expressing the most didactic opinions, and they have done almost everything except create the actual music itself, which, with rare exceptions, continues for various reasons to emanate from this country. There is also, of course, an enormous and appreciative public in Europe which responds brightly and enthusiastically to all the good American bands which go on European tours. I knew I was amazed at the wonderful reception the boys and I received on our two tours of the Continent.

There have been many, many changes in music, both musicians and audiences, since the days when I used to play with such jazzmen as Kid Ory, Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Teschmaker. Whether the style was New Orleans or Chicago, the key qualities of that music were syncopation, improvisation, freedom and enjoyment. If that's a definition of jazz music, then I can go one better by quoting the late, great "Fats" Waller. Many years ago he was asked just what jazz was, and he smiled back, "Man, if you have to ask questions about it . . . don't mess with it!"