Noted jazz critic Collier adds to his impressive production of
biographies (Louis Armstrong: An American Genius; Duke Ellington)
with this study of legendary clarinetist Benny Goodman, which
includes as well a portrait of the swing era. While this is as
complete a bio of Goodman as we are likely to see, the author often
punctuates his story with mini portraits of various musical
influences (Dixieland, the big band, be-bop) and personal
influences on Goodman (Ted Lewis, Doc Berendsohn, Jimmie Noone,
Jimmy Dorsey, Pee Wee Russell, Fud Livingston, Jimmy Lytell, Volly
DeFault, Don Murray), as well as of important fugures in the
creation of the modern dance orchestra (Art Hickman, Ferder Grofe,
Paul Whiteman). Collier takes the story back to Goodman's origins
as the son of a poor Jewish immigrant family in Chicago, seeing a
major influence in Goodman's observing his admired father laboring
hard at debilitating and demeaning work. He thus grew up determined
to rescue himself and his father (who, nevertheless, died young).
Goodman's parents made the propitious choice of clarinet for young
Benny, and by the time he was 15, he had so taken to the instrument
that he was outearning his father and all of his older brothers.
Collier also chronicles and provides critiques of most of Goodman's
recordings and concerts (including the famous January 1938 Carnegie
Hall concert that brought modern jazz to that hallowed hall for the
first time: Goodman's initial reaction to the idea was, "Are you
out of your mind? What the hell would we do there?"). Meanwhile,
Collier makes no bones about the fact that he considers big-band
swing music to be "the finest kind of popular music we have seen in
centuries," a contention that, in itself, elevates Goodman to the
highest ranks of popular icons in America. A fine addition to
musical autobiography, more studied than Stanley Baron's Benny:
King of Swing (1979) and obviously more complete than Goodman's
half-century-old The Kingdom of Swing. (Kirkus Reviews)
Born of poor Jewish immigrant parents in Chicago in 1909, Beny
Goodman joined the local synagogue band at the age of ten with two
of his brothers. As he was the smallest of the three he was given a
clarinet. Within a decade he was a musical legend, constantly in
demand for radio shows and guest appearances with America's leading
jazz orchestras. In 1934 he formed his own band, and by the
mid-1930s, Benny Goodman was hailed as the undisputed `King of
Swing'. James Lincoln Collier brilliantly recreates the colourful
popular music world of the 1920s and 1930s, when the music industry
was just expanding, radio was the great source of musical
entertainment, and swing bands were first finding national
audiences. He also offers perceptive insights into the character
and music of a man whose magic transformed the Depression years
into the Swing Era.
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