After Reading Ch. 5 -The Swing Era — Sections: Beginning up to the beginning of The Big Band and answer the following questions:
- The Decade of Great Depression
Q: Which years saw a drop in the number of musicians joining?
Q: When Prohibition ended in 1933, many speakeasies became legal nightclubs. Did this have Q: an impact on musicians, and if so, how?
Q: Was there a general benefit for musicians from radio? Why not, and why not?
Q: Which job path become available as a result of performers popularizing radio?
- Benny Goodman
Q: Which instrument did Benny Goodman, who is regarded as the swing king, play?
Q: What other genre did Goodman dabble in besides jazz music? Give the name of one composer and the work that Gioia refers to.
Q: From what country did Goodman’s parents immigrate? Why is this important from a cultural perspective on jazz music?
Q: What sort of surroundings did Benny Goodman grow up in? How did this affect his decision to pursue a career in music?
Q: Who developed into a significant figure in Goodman’s musical career?
Q: What year and where was Goodman’s breakthrough performance? What is the current term used to refer to that date?
Q: Who did Goodman hire for his musical arranging during his NBC stint? What impact did that person have on the band sound?
Q: What was the name of Goodman’s drummer?
PT 2:
Q: It is true that Goodman brought large bands to a whole new level of popularity, but was this the first time a big band was organized specifically for jazz performance?
Q: When Orange Blossoms Band reunited in 1929, what intriguing aspect of their style of band leadership stood out to you? Who took the lead for them, and what role did he play?
Q: When the band began recording in October 1929, what was their new name?
Q: What kind of fan base did this band appeal to? How does this compare or differ from earlier generations, and why is it important?
“With its fast tempos, extroverted solos, and unrelenting syncopations, the Casa Loma Orchestra was forging a music distinctly not for the fainthearted. Do we err in describing this as music of rebellion—in particular, the rebellion of white youngsters in middle America? Swing music was taken up by the new generation, searching for its own identity, developing its own way of life.”
Q: Is there anything you recognize about the quote above? Will the history of music witness such a thing once more? If yes, what musical genre or genres?
Q: Who was the principal opponent of Goodman on the clarinet?
Q: Do you think this rivalry is comparable to that of Johnson, Art Tatum, and Willie “The Lion Smith”? Or do you think it has some distinctions?
“And, like Goodman, Shaw played a key role in breaking down the racial barriers that stultified the jazz world. His hiring of Billie Holiday in 1938, Hot Lips Page in 1941, and Roy Eldridge in 1944 gave broader visibility to some of the most deserving African American jazz artists of the day.”
– Goodman (white) and Shaw (white)both had integrated bands (black and white artists) which was big in breaking racial barriers. Q: What purpose could this serve in terms of social and racial issues, does this help or hinder the cultural roots of jazz and its origins?
Q: What instrument did Benny Goodman employ Lionel Hampton to play? What made it noteworthy?
Q: Why was Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall performance so important to jazz and America at large?
HERE IS THE READING TO ANSWER QUESTIONS
ANSWER WITH SIMPLE answers but make sure they are complete sentences that answers the question:
Jazz Music History CH 5 by ted Gioia
The King of Swing The onset of the Great Depression had a chilling effect on the jazz world, as it did on the whole entertainment industry. Record sales in the United States had surpassed one hundred million in 1927, but by 1932 only six million were sold- a staggering decline of over 90 percent. Record labels that had focused on black musicthe “race records” of the day- were especially hard hit, but no sector of the music business proved immune to the economic malaise. During the same period, the growing popularity of talking movies led many theaters to halt the elaborate live shows that had previously been a staple of popular entertainment in most cities, further reducing paying jobs for musicians. Thousands of them changed careers -membership in the musicians union declined by almost one-third between 1928 and 1934- or else remained chronically underemployed. Greater and lesser talents suffered alike. Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Bessie Smith, Bix Beiderbecke their individual stories are all different, but share at least this one similarity: their careers spiraled downward in tandem with the nation’s industrial output . The end of Prohibition in 1933 transformed many speakeasies into legitimate nightclubs, but the change was hardly a positive one for most jazz players. Not only alcohol but the whole ethos and ambiance of jazz culture were demystified in the process. Both could now be easily consumed at home: alcohol legally purchased at the liquor store, jazz carried into the household over the airwaves. This was progress of sorts. Yet the harsh math of this new equation did not bode well for musicians: a single band could now entertain countless listeners through the magic of radioBy implication, a few instrumentalists were doing the work that previously required hundreds, maybe thousands, of bands. Thus, the same technology that brought unparalleled fame to a small cadre did irreparable damage to most players , as supply and demand were brought further out of alignment . Perhaps the growth of big bands during this era was as much a result of these economic forces as it was a sign of changing tastes. As wages declined and musician unemployment rose, a dozen players could be hired for relatively little . The big band, formerly a luxury was now a standard format, as excess workers made labor- intensive activities -in music just as much as in production Although the developments of the 1930s affected most musicians adversely, a handful of performers benefited considerably from the more stratified structure of the entertainment world. The creation of a truly nationwide mass medium in the form of radio catapulted a few jazz players to a level of celebrity that would have been inconceivable only a few years before. True, artists had long been accorded fame and favor in the context of modern Western society, but now the concepts of stardom and superstardom began to emerge in their contemporary sense. Such a step change depended, first and foremost , on a technological shift. In 1920 the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA in Pittsburgh, began broadcasting . But , in its early days, this new medium lacked a wide audience. At the beginning of the 1920s, only one out of every ten thousand homes in the United States owned a radio; but sales skyrocketed over the next decade and by the early 1930s most American households owned this new centerpiece of family entertainment. The nature of the music business would never be the same . From now on, the twin industries, recording and broadcasting, would exert unprecedented influence over the careers of singers and instrumentalists , arrangers and composers. And as finance, technology , and artistic production grew even more intertwined , a new class of entrepreneur grew in importance: the talent agent. Hence, our history is marked by a number of symbiotic relationshipsbetween Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser, Duke Ellington and Irving Mills, Benny Goodman and John Hammond-in which the creative impulse requires the mediation of a powerful manager to reach a mass audience . As the stakes grew higher and higher, music became more deeply embedded in “the music business,” and the business became more and more consolidated in a few hands . This transformation did not -and could not-take place overnight. Regional bands continued to flourish in many locales, oblivious to the mass marketing of national figures that would soon deprive them of much of their audience. The vast majority of musicians continued to look after their own finances, or lack thereof, without the aid of agents, publicists, and other intermediaries . The “listening public developed only gradually, as radio evolved from a novelty to a necessity for most American households. But, more than anything, the continuing poor state of the nation’s economy was the single most important factor in preventing mass media entertainment from realizing its full potential in the early days of the 1930s. Even so, the American music industry during these years was a tinderbox waiting for the spark that would set it off. The rise of network radio, much more than the earlier spread of record players, transformed the general public into passive receptors of entertainment chosen by a few arbiters of taste. The results were now all but inevitable. The mechanisms of stardom were set in place in the music world. All that was needed was the right star. Benny Goodman sent this apparatus into motion with a vengeance. In the process, he ignited not only his own amazing career, but set off a craze for ” swing music” that would last over a decade. Popular music had never seen the like before. Not with Al Jolson or Russ Columbo. Not with Bing Crosby or Rudy Vallee. Certainly not with the early pioneers of jazz. In a very real way, the phenomenon of Goodmanas distinct from his music-set the blueprint for stardom, with its celebration of an almost religious fervor in “fans” (again, a new concept), one that would repeat cyclically with Frank Sinatra and the bobby-soxers, the cult of Elvis, Beatlemania, and on and on. It is meant as no criticism of Benny Goodman to point out the benefits he extracted from these economic and technological factors. Unlike so many other targets of mass adulation, Goodman’s impeccable musicianship and consummate artistry made him a deserving candidate for such acclaim . Few figures in the history of popular culture have demonstrated such an expansive view of the musical arts. Even a cursory list of Goodman’s achievements makes one sit up and take notice: as a soloist he defined the essence of the jazz clarinet as no other performer before or since; as a bandleader , he established standards of technical perfection that were the envy of his peers , while his influence in gaining widespread popularity for swing music was unsurpassed ; a decade later he reformed his ensemble to tackle the nascent sounds of bop music a move that few of his generation would have dared make ; in the world of classical music , Goodman not only excelled as a performer , but also commissioned a host of major works-Béla Bartók’s Contrasts, Aaron Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet, Paul Hindemith’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, and Morton Gould’s Derivations for Clarinet and Band, among others. At a time when jazz players were often treated as a musical underclass, Goodman used his preeminence to break through the many barriersof racial prejudice , of class distinctions, of snobbery and close-mindedness that served only to stultify and compartmentalize the creative spirit . Goodman’s parents had emigrated from Eastern Europe- his father , David Goodman , from Poland, his mother, Dora Rezinsky , from Lithuania -as part of the great wave of Jewish settlement in the United States that took place during the closing years of the nineteenth century . The couple met in Baltimore but moved to Chicago in 1902, where David could ply his trade as a tailor in the local garment industry In this great melting pot of cultures -some 80 percent of Chicago’s population were either first- or second – generation immigrants during those years Benny Goodman was born, the ninth of twelve children , on May 30, 1909. He was raised in the impoverished and often dangerous Maxwell Street neighborhood , commonly called Bloody Maxwell , where a variety of ethnic gangs held sway over a bleak urban landscape. In such an environment , music was a godsend, not only as a creative outlet or a sign of middle-class refinement , but simply as a way out of the ghetto . David Goodman, sensing the opportunities for even youngsters to earn a livelihood as instrumentalists, prodded his children into musical studies. Along with his brothers Freddy and Harry, Benny was enlisted by his father in a band that rehearsed at the neighborhood synagogue . Only ten years old and the youngest of the three boys, Benny was deemed too small to handle one of the larger horns and was instead assigned a clarinet . In addition to regular rehearsals , Goodman undertook private lessons, first from a local bandleader but later from Franz Schoepp , a former faculty member of the Chicago Musical College whose other students included Jimmie Noone and Buster Bailey, two of the finest jazz clarinetists of their day . Noone’s work, in particular , would come to exert a powerful influence over Goodman’s conception of the clarinet. Motivated as much by his own perfectionist tendencies as by his father’s ambitions , Benny practiced with diligence . Under different circumstances , a symphonic career might have beckoned. But, coming of age during the great period of Chicago jazz, Goodman found himself drawn into the maelstrom of musical activity taking place in the nightclubs, speakeasies, and dance halls of his hometown. During his freshman year in high school, Benny became acquainted with the various members of the Austin High Gang, and some part of their devotion to the jazz art may have rubbed off on him. In the summer of 1923, Goodman met and played with Bix Beiderbecke , and though the cornetist was only nineteen years old, his playing was already distinctive enough to make an impression on the young clarinetist One hears Bix’s influence very clearly on the early Goodman recording of ” Blue and Broken- Hearted.” Indeed, Goodman’s mature style-with its surprising intervallic leaps, its supple yet relaxed swing, on-the- beat phrasing , and sweet tone- would retain a set of musical values similar to Beiderbecke’s . Goodman’s professional career, which had started in his early teens, took a major step forward when he joined the Ben Pollack band in 1925, initiating a four-year association that gave him chances to tour and record , as well as to build his reputation in the context of one of the finest Chicago- style dance bands of the day. Goodman’s work from this period is marked by his assured command of the clarinet, while the influence of various Chicago clarinetists Noone and Teschemacher , in particular-lurks only slightly below the surface. After leaving Pollack in 1929, Goodman began freelancing as a member of various bands and occasional leader. “After Awhile ” and ” Muskrat Ramble ” recorded under his own name in August of that year , are still very much in the Chicago /New Orleans vein. But Goodman was also listening carefully to the more progressive black dance bands of the day . His stint with Pollack in New York had allowed him to hear Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom and Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club . The society dance bands , led by Whiteman and others , no doubt also caught his attention during this period . Certainly Goodman needed to draw on all these sources of inspiration as he struggled to make a name for himself during the Great Depression . Studio work , pit-band gigs , and other freelance projects required him to prove his versatility in a wide variety of contexts . The sheer quantity of Goodman’s output during these years is staggering : during the early 1930s he recorded hundreds of sides in dozens of ensembles . Sometimes these settings were jazz of the highest orderas in a remarkable 1930 date under Hoagy Carmichael’s leadership that also featured Bix Beiderbecke, Bubber Miley, Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, Bud Freeman, Gene Krupa, and Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey (this all-star lineup reportedly received $20 per head for the session)—but more often the music at hand in these freelance gigs was too tepid for a soloist with Goodman’s natural instincts for the hot The most fruitful collaboration of these years may have been one that Goodman pursued off the bandstand . John Hammond, a Yale dropout and member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family who would come to make a career out of his advocacy for jazz music and civil rights, introduced himself to the clarinetist one evening in the fall of 1933. Hammond announced that he had just returned from England , where he had contracted to produce recordings by Goodman and others for the Columbia and Parlophone labels . This unexpected intervention on his behalf would represent a major turning point in Goodman’s career . Under Hammond’s guidance , he would record with many of the foremost musicians in the jazz world . Sessions conducted under Goodman’s leadership during October found Jack Teagarden contributing some of his finest recorded work , Contrary to conventional accounts, Goodman’s eventual triumphsignaled by his breakthrough performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935 , a date now conventionally cited as the birth of the Swing Era- was anything but an overnight success. The groundwork for this event had been slowly put in place over the preceding months, with many setbacks along the way. Exactly fourteen months prior to the Palomar date, the opening of Billy Rose’s Music Hall, at Fifty-Second and Broadway, allowed Goodman to leave behind studio work for the more glamorous activity of leading a band in one of New York’s most elegant nightspots. But this apparent big break turned into a blind alley. Rose’s venue closed its doors within weeks. The next promising opportunity for Goodman also fell through when a proposed overseas tour failed to materialize . But if high- profile engagements on the bandstand were hit -and-miss in the midst of the Great Depression, the growing radio industry presented an appealing- and possibly even more career- enhancing- alternative. Goodman embraced the new medium wholeheartedly when NBC offered his band the chance to be featured on the new Let’s Dance program, which showcased ballroom music every Saturday night on over fifty affiliate stations across the country. More than anything, this move paved the way for the following year’s rags-to-riches tour to the West Coast. Because of the time difference, California audiences heard Let’s Dance during peak listening hours. The result: a large, enthusiastic audience was waiting for his band when it arrived for the momentous Palomar gig. Goodman’s prickly personality and autocratic approach to bandleading have been the subject of much criticism . But few could doubt his commitment to the highest – quality standards in musicianship , in charts, in rehearsals , and in performance. And almost from the start of the Let’s Dance period, these efforts began to pay off. The addition of Bunny Berigan , the finest of the white disciples of Armstrong among the New York trumpeters, provided Goodman with a world -class brass soloist to match his reed stylings . Berigan’s tone conveyed a majestic assurance , at times an audacity , but never lost its emotional pungency . His career would peak with his 1937 recording of “I Can’t Get Started ,” a jazz masterpiece and popular success made with his own band . But, by 1940 , this Olympian talent was bankrupt , drinking heavily , and in a precarious state of physical and mental health. Two years later, Berigan, only thirty-three years old, would succumb to cirrhosis and internal bleeding-a tragic ending for an impetuous soloist who, during his stint with the band that set off the Swing Era, seemed destined for greatness. Singer Helen Ward, who joined the band in 1934, may have lacked the deep jazz roots of Goodman and Berigan, but her captivating stage presence and forthright style of singing, with its light swing and supple phrasing contributed greatly to the ensemble’s wide appeal. But just as important as the performers-perhaps even more critical in this instance-were the arrangers. NBC’s budget allowed for eight new charts each week, an extraordinary luxury for a bandleader, and Goodman was determined to make the most of this munificence. Goodman’s hiring of Fletcher Henderson as an arranger has typically been cited as the major turning point in the evolution of the band’s sound. Certainly Henderson’s impact was greatperhaps even decisivein the band’s success, but he was only one of a number of outstanding arrangers who contributed to the group’s repertoire during the prewar years. Spud Murphy, Jimmy Mundy, Horace Henderson, Eddie Sauter, Mel Powell, Benny Carter, Mary Lou Williams, Joe Lippman , Deane Kincaide , Gordon Jenkins , Fud Livingston , and Edgar Sampson , among others , also made greater or lesser contributions . In aggregate they constituted an impressive roster of composing and arranging talent that no other dance orchestra of the period could match , let alone surpass. The special nature of Henderson’s contribution lay in his access to a gold mine of material compiled during his own lengthy stint as a bandleader, as well as in his deep sensitivity to the swing style that was about to dominate American airwaves. And though Henderson was responsible for somewhat less than half of the band’s book, he was the source for many of the most memorable Goodman charts: “King Porter Stomp,” “Sometimes I’m Happy,” “Blue Skies,” and “Christopher Columbus,” among others. In the racially charged atmosphere of the day, the symbolic importance of Henderson’s role with the Goodman band loomed almost as large as the music itself. Many jazz enthusiasts rejoiced in Goodman’s conscious decision emulate the hotter music of the Henderson orchestra -a direction that few white bands of the day were then taking-and bring this swinging style to the attention of the mass market. Others were less pleased at this state of affairs, castigating Goodman as one more white musician who managed to build his personal success by exploiting the achievements of black innovators . Yet our concern with the social ramifications of the Goodman -Henderson relationship should not blind us to the influence of personal factors on this important nexus in the history of jazz. Goodman, driven to achieve success no matter what obstacles lay in his course , was prepared to champion swing music to a far greater extent than the more introverted Henderson who, at best , was ambivalent about the commercial aspects of bandleading . In the final analysis, these two jazz pioneers needed each other and together could achieve results that neither , on his own , would reach . Even so, it is important to acknowledge the advantages enjoyed by Goodman and other white jazz artists during the era. Unlike the black bandleaders , they were more readily accepted by mainstream America . They typically encountered easier working conditions , stayed at better accommodations when on the road , received higher pay , and had more secure careers . They were not forced to suffer the indignities of racism that even the finest black jazz musicians faced on a regular basis . Nor were they quite so likely to find their music borrowed-or sometimes stolen outright by other performers, a process all too familiar to Henderson and many other African American jazz artists . In aggregate, these were tremendous advantages for an up-and- coming musician trying to build a career in jazz during this period. Henderson, even if he had been far more ambitious and focused on gaining popular acclaim , could hardly have matched the heights to which Goodman brought swing music , if only for these reasons . The final building block in Goodman’s creation of a premier jazz orchestra lay in his reconfiguration of the band’s rhythm section . Jess Stacy , an exciting pianist in the Hines mold , had an immediately positive impact on the ensemble as both an improviser and an accompanist . Guitarist George Van Eps may have lacked Stacy’s skill as a soloist , but as a rhythm player he was a world -class talent . His tenure with the Goodman band was all too brief , but when he departed in 1935 , he left behind a student , Alan Reuss , who was Van Eps’s equal in providing inventive chordal support in a big band setting But the most celebrated addition to the Goodman band during this period was drummer Gene Krupa . Within a matter of months , Krupa would become the ambiance that Goodman was refining with his small bands. Boasting a clear, singing piano tone-one as appropriate for a Mozart piano concerto as for a swing combo-and a subtle sense of dynamics, Wilson offered a more delicate variant of jazz piano than that practiced by a Hines or a Waller. The influence of other pianists can be traced in his playing , but Wilson stood above most of his contemporaries in his ability to adapt these influences into something new and distinctive. For example, Wilson had studied Hines carefully, but after an early period of emulation, found a way of assimilating this predecessor’s percussive melodicism into a smoother, more legato style -executed with a sense of relaxed control that became a Wilson trademark. This same ability to digest and recast the jazz piano tradition was evident in Wilson’s harmonic and rhythmic conception Here one could detect Wilson’s allegiance to the model set by the Harlem stride players , but with one important difference: excess notes were now pruned away, leaving a sparser musical landscape in which much of the swing is felt by implication . In this regard, Wilson represented a halfway point between the florid virtuosity of a Tatum and the minimalistic stylings of a Basie. Wilson’s work on the trio The association with Wilson and Henderson pleased jazz fans , but the general public did not embrace Goodman’s big band work until the group’s nationwide tour during the summer of 1935. Even then , the Swing Era almost never took wing . Setting out in mid – July , the band played mostly one -nighters , sometimes for as little as $ 250 per night by comparison , Goodman’s rates would jump to $2,000 after his rise to fame-until the ensemble arrived in Denver for a much-anticipated engagement at a local dance hall. The audience reacted negatively , almost with hostility, to Goodman’s swing musicso much so that the ballroom’s manager tried to cancel his contract with the band after only one night. To placate the tastes of the local public, Goodman switched to playing tepid stock arrangements and even considered abandoning the hotter approach. After Denver, the group continued to struggle along from gig to gig until a surprisingly enthusiastic response to the band’s swing numbers in northern California gave Goodman renewed hope. But this reaction was mild compared to the fan response at the Palomar in Los Angeles a few days later. Swarming the bandstand in their excitement , the audience sent a signal, one soon heard all over the nation, that Goodman had tapped into something real. Within weeks, Goodman’s records dominated the charts on the West Coast, with the clamor gradually spreading eastward . For a follow- up engagement in Chicago , Goodman had the band promoted , for the first time, as a ” swing band” a new term, but one quickly picked up by others. The same day the Goodman band opened in Chicago, Variety launched a new weekly column titled “Swing Stuff,” indicating that the industry power brokers were also paying notice. The Chicago booking, initially slated for one month, was extended to a half- year. By the time of Goodman’s triumphant return to New York in the spring of 1936, his band was, without a doubt , the biggest draw in the music industry . The Swing Era was underway in full force. For over a decade , swing music would remain the paradigm for popular music in America . If jazz ever enjoyed a golden age , this would be it. And through especially fortuitous circumstances , this was equally the golden age of the American popular song . In tandem , these two forces would create a musical revolution unparalleled in modern times , one in which the highest rung in artistry could be achieved without compromising commerciality . Never again would music be so jazzy , or jazz music so popular .
The BIG BANDS CH 5 reading pt2.
popular music, with the new style replacing the old, hot supplanting sweet, in a sudden tectonic shift of sensibility. But long before Goodman’s success, a handful of white bandleaders had experimented with a hotter , more jazz- oriented style of dance music, and their efforts helped develop both an audience and the personnel for the later swing bands. Among others, the Whiteman, Goldkette, and Pollack ensembles , as we have seen , attempted and to a great extent managed-to find a halfway point in which both styles, hot and sweet , could play a role. And though these bandleaders never embraced jazz with the fervor of an Ellington or Henderson, they created a body of ambitious recordings and spawned the next generation of white swing bandssuch as the Casa Loma Orchestra and the Dorsey Brothersthat would delve even more deeply into hotter currents. The Casa Loma band, in particular, cultivated a small but devoted following on college campuses that would help pave the way for Goodman’s later success. One of Jean Goldkette’s ensembles known as the Orange Blossoms , launched in Detroit in 1927, served as the immediate predecessor of this band. The group re-formed in 1929 as a cooperative, a rare approach to organizing a band, then as now. Taking the democratic structure of the band to heart, the members also set about electing a leader, deciding on Glen Gray, a statuesque and charismatic alto saxophonist, to preside over the group. Gray inherited a band that had already focused on hot jazz , largely under the inspiration of banjoist Gene Gifford’s arrangements. In October 1929, this group undertook its first recording session newly christened as the Casa Loma Orchestra . The band explored a wide range of styles, but its up -tempo charts generated the most enthusiasm . Galloping along at around 250 beats per minute , numbers such as ” Casa Loma Stomp ” “Black Jazz, and ” Maniac’s Ball” tested the stamina and footwork of the ballroom regulars as few white bands dared to do. But this forward -looking orchestra pushed at more than just the tempos of the tunes . At a time when soloists on recordings were routinely restricted to eight- or sixteen -bar statements , the Casa Loma was willing , for example , to let Clarence Hutchenrider punch out a stirring sixty – eight – bar baritone solo on Got Rhythm . ” Above all , the tight ensemble work of the Casa Loma Orchestra stood out. Even at the fastest tempos , the sections never faltered , never fell out of sync .All of these elements would come to influence Goodman: the swinging charts, the focus on hot solo work, the emphasis on perfectly executed ensemble passages. Less heralded than the Fletcher Henderson connection , the Casa Loma Orchestra’s impact on Goodman- and, through him, on countless other swing bands may have been just as important. But even more telling, the Casa Loma’s ability to build an audience among college students and younger fans also foreshadowed the demographics of the Goodman phenomenon. Setting a pattern that has lasted until the present day, the teenagers and young adults of the late 1930s and early 1940s not only dictated the musical tastes of the nation, but did so in a manner that their parents often could not understand . With its fast tempos , extroverted solos , and unrelenting syncopations , the Casa Loma Orchestra was forging a music distinctly not for the fainthearted . Do we err in describing this as music of rebellion -in particular , the rebellion of white youngsters in middle America ? Swing music was taken up by the new generation , searching for its own identity , developing its own way of life. In the new era of mass media and mass marketing of entertainment , the potential for music to symbolize , establish, and communicate one’s lifestyle ( soon to become an important concept) emerged as one of the defining attributes of popular recordings. Favorite songs, performers and bands, radio stations: all increasingly played an emblematic role in defining each new generation in contrast to the previous one. This supra-musical aspect of jazz, which we first glimpsed in the attitudes of the white Chicago jazz players of the 1920s, now became a broader cultural phenomenon with the epidemic of swing fever afflicting America’s youth, circa 1935. Perhaps one goes too far to describe this shift as the Woodstock of the 1930s, but a cultural change was set in motion during this period that set the pattern for many later developments an initial rupture between the musical tastes of the young and old that would repeat and widen to an enormous chasm some twenty years later with the advent of rock and roll. The more traditional styles of New Orleans and Chicago also continued to hold sway with a number of white bands during the Swing Era . Bob Crosby’s orchestra , formed from the remnants of Ben Pollack’s ensemble , offered audiences an appealing big band variant of older styles . Crosby never found much favor with the critics – nor would he ever match Born and reared in a Pennsylvania coal mining town, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey were cut off from the main currents of popular music sweeping through the more urbanized areas of America . Music for the Dorseys (much like the Teagardens and Goodmans ) was a matter of hearth and home , with the family unit serving as a surrogate center of activity . The elder Mr. Dorsey led a local marching and concert band as well as taught music. Both boys learned multiple instruments, but in time Jimmy gravitated to saxophone and clarinet, while Tommy focused on trombone. The youngsters ‘ isolation from the broader streams of the jazz world left a lasting mark on the one hand , neither of the Dorseys developed deep jazz roots as soloists ; on the other, the focus on solitary practice and the peculiarly pedagogical atmosphere of their home life no doubt contributed to the accomplished technique they both boasted. First recording together under their own name in 1928 , the Dorsey Brothers soon became regulars of the studios , where their skills and versatility held them in good stead. The quality of these early sides is mixed , but the best of them are first-rate jazz performances for example , the Dorseys ‘ 1933 resurrection of Bill Challis’s stirring chart of ” Blue Room ,” written for Goldkette in the 1920s ( but never recorded at the time ), which still sounded fresh years later . In 1934 , the Dorsey Brothers began performing together in a working band , but tensions between the two exploded onstage the following spring , when a disagreement -ostensibly over the tempo of a song led the mercurial Tommy to walk off the bandstand . They would remain at odds for many years , with Jimmy taking over leadership of the existing band, while Tommy set up his own competing ensemble. Opportunities for both blossomed during the remainder of the decade and into the 1940s, with the Tommy Dorsey band achieving particular success in a series of big-selling records: “Marie” (1937), with its novelty vocal-and-chant exchanges and a strong solo contribution from Bunny Berigan; “Song of India” (1937), a Rimsky-Korsakov adaptation, also featuring Berigan, which was an influential excursion into the realm of jazz exotica; “Boogie Woogie” (1938), with its clever transfer of the faddish piano style to the big band idiom; ” Hawaiian War Chant ” (1938), echoing Goodman’s “Sing , Sing, Sing” (which had caused a sensation at the Carnegie Hall concert a few months earlier) with its assertion of simple riffs over a throbbing drum foundation ; and “I’ll Never Smile Again” (1940) with a young Frank Sinatra providing a dreamy vocal . The last tune spent twelve weeks on top of the Billboard chart one of seventeen number- one singles enjoyed by this immensely popular bandleader . Brother Jimmy offered stiff competition , however , with eleven number -one hits of his own . These included the Latin-tinged tunes “Amapola “-which topped the chart for ten weeks in 1941-The Breeze and I” and “Besame Mucho,” but also appealing jazz-pop fare such as “Tangerine” and “Pennies from Heaven” the latter a collaboration with Bing Crosby that was the biggest -selling record of 1936. In 1939, at the height of the Swing Era, the jazz credentials of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra were reinforced with the addition of Sy Oliver, whose arrangements had been so influential in shaping the Lunceford sound. As with Henderson’s infusion of swing into the Goodman band , Oliver helped make this unit into a hotter, harder- swinging ensemble. Over the next few years, Oliver charts such as ” Stomp It Off,” “Yes, Indeed !,” “Swing High ” “Well , Get It!,” and ” Opus One ” established a more flamboyant and insistent musical personality for Dorsey and made the contrast between his ensemble and that of his more pop -oriented brother all the more noticeable . The move to this hotter style also helped Dorsey secure the services of drummer Buddy Rich, one of the flashiest and most technically accomplished percussionists of the era, and later a prominent bandleader in his own right . Despite a tendency toward bombast , this drummer born as Bernard Rich in 1917 – could fire up the band or, barring that , at least the audience , with a series of celebrated moves: one-hand rolls with either hand, criss-crossing arms-and-drums patterns, whispery passages played at lightning-fast speed, dazzling stick tricks, and other crowd-pleasing trademarks of his craft. Rich had just left Artie Shaw’s band and was reluctant to join Dorsey, but when he encountered Oliver’s swinging scores during a rehearsal, he changed his mind and signed on with the group. Oliver later penned a feature for Rich, the chart ” Quiet Please,” a driving piece taken at a breakneck tempo that displays the drummer in top form. The Dorsey brothers, who had patched up their differences in 1942, increasingly worked in tandem after the end of the big band era. While other jazz stars of the prewar years struggled to hold on to their audience in the 1950s, the Dorseys reinvented themselves as television stars. They even helped usher in the age of rock and roll by featuring Elvis Presley in his first TV appearancesome eight months before the singer’s celebrated performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. But Tommy’s death at age fifty-one in 1956 from suffocation in his sleep, and Jimmy’s death from throat cancer the following year at age fifty- three, put an end to the illustrious careers of these Swing Era stars.competitor to G during the closing years of the decade was Artie Shaw, a virtuoso clarinetist whose movie-star looks and flair (mixed with disdain) for publicity attracted attention and controversy in equal doses. In a shrewd public relations move, Shaw took on the title of “King of the Clarinet ,” an obvious challenge to Goodman’s ” King of Swing ” epithet . To this day, debate over the relative merits of Goodman and Shaw continues to bedevil swing aficionados , with advocates of one quick to denounce the achievements of the other. Pointless polemics . Both of these clarinetists achieved the highest rung- indeed has any later player on the instrument made such a mark or inspired such passion among listeners as either Shaw or Goodman ? The reserved Goodman was the master of hot phrasing , a swing stylist with a concert hall technique . Charismatic , a chameleon in both his music and personality , Shaw offered a fluid , less syncopated approach to melody , but leavened with a sweet tone that is still the envy of other clarinetists so many decades later . His improvised lines were varnished with a haughty elegance , submerging the emotional turbulence far below , which made even the most technically accomplished passages sound like child’s play- Compare the two figures, each a puzzling composite: one combined a frigid personality with a hot musical style, while the other evinced a warm -blooded temperament but a sweet and cool approach to the . Choosing between them is like discussing the relative merits of fire and ice. Both are forces to contemplate and, as the poet tells us, will suffice. The distinct odor of public relations permeated more than just Shaw’s music. The ups and downs of the bandleader’s eight marriages ( including conjugal stints with cinema leading ladies Ava Gardner and Lana Turner) and his erratic behavior made him a constant subject of gossip and speculation. Even when Shaw decided to bid adieu to the Swing Era and retire into seclusionas he did, in grand style, late in 1939-his demands for privacy only heightened public interest. Never one to miss a tearful encore, Shaw was back in the recording studio within weeks, having spent the interim in Mexico, jamming with the locals and garnering a new repertoire of Latin songs . This south-of- the-border sojourn led to Shaw’s recording of “Frenesi,” one of the clarinetist’s most memorable hits. Breaking up the band would become a Shaw trademark, just as much as the broken marriages, with precipitous dismissals curtailing both the 1941 and 1942 editions of the Shaw orchestra. Even a “final retirement” in 1954 proved temporary, when Shaw resurrected his orchestra some thirty years later , although now serving only as conductor and leader, with his clarinet permanently kept in its case. Burned out by the too-rapid ascendancy of his star , Shaw could not match the staying power of Goodman . But the best of his work ranks among the finest jazz of the era: the popular hits, such as ” Begin the Beguine “; ” Concerto for Clarinet ” and various other demonstrations of Shaw’s instinct for grandiloquent gestures ; ballad showpieces including Stardust ” and ” Deep Purple “; the clarinetist’s efforts with the Gramercy Five , such as ” Special Delivery Stomp ” and ” Summit Ridge Drive “; as well as the stellar late -vintage 1954 combo recordings , many of the tracks unreleased for decades , which serve as proof positive that Shaw laid down his horn while still at the top of his game . And , like Goodman , Shaw played a key role in breaking down the racial barriers that stultified the jazz world . His hiring of Billie Holiday in 1938 , Hot Lips Page in 1941 , and Roy Eldridge in 1944 gave broader visibility to some of the most deserving African American jazz artists of the day .Eldridge helped break down segregation in the jazz world. In particular, the trumpeter’s work with Krupa on “Rockin Chair” and “Let Me Off Uptown” were as close as Eldridge would come to a hit. After leaving Shaw, Eldridge again attempted to organize a big band of his own, but before long he returned to the small -combo format, where he continued to ply his craft either as leader or in collaboration with many of the marquee names in jazz for another four decades . The genealogists of jazz often cite Eldridge as a linking figure , whose work represents a halfway point between the styles of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie . This reputation as a transitional player in the music’s history may ultimately have proven to be more of a curse than a blessing for Eldridge , who soon found himself lost in the shuffle of shifting styles and changing tastes . In particular , the overt modernism of his playing tended to be obscured by the rising star of Gillespie . Although less than seven years older than Dizzy , Eldridge soon came to be seen as part of the older generation , the group of Swing Era veterans whom Gillespie and the other boppers were trying to supplant . In fact , Eldridge had taken part in some of the early bop sessions at Minton’s Playhouse and , had he. of Venice”) has distracted attention from this trumpeter’s exceptional jazz skills. James’s brash, energetic style , distinguished by his stamina and range , can be heard to good measure on “Peckin ” Roll Em,” and “Sugar Foot Stomp from September of that year, the last in particular revealing the Oliver -Armstrong roots of his trumpet style. Vido Musso , a robust tenor saxophonist in the Hawkins mold , joined the band that same year and contributed impassioned solos on performances such as ” Jam Session ” (which also includes one of Elman’s better solos from this period ) and “I Want to Be Happy ” during his tenure with the band . Such talent came at a price . Each of these players eventually went on to front his own band – as Berigan had already done and as Krupa would soon do as well – taking advantage of the tremendous exposure granted to them during their Goodman years . Unlike the Ellington orchestra , which could retain key players for decades , Goodman’s ensemble constantly needed to replenish its ranks ; and though the leader’s perfectionist tendencies may have contributed to the turnover – his angry glare at underperforming musicians became so famous , it even got a name : the Ray – it is to Goodman’s credit that he rarely faltered in finding fitting replacements for his departing stars. Goodman’s next major discovery, Lionel Hampton, was in the rare position of not replacing anyone. Not only was his principal instrument, the vibraphone, new to the Goodman band, but it was relatively unknown in the jazz world as a whole. Hampton stands out as the innovator who took what was a quasi-novelty sound-essentially a high- tech xylophone with added vibrato effect-and transformed it into a mainstream jazz instrument. Adrian Rollini had performed on the vibraphone in earlier years, and Red Norvo had experimented with it, albeit in private, as early as 1928, but Hampton’s work in the context of the Goodman combo gave the “vibes” (as it eventually came to be known) a new level of legitimacy . Of course, Hampton’s energy, inventiveness, enthusiasm, and sheer sense of swing also had much to do with this. His was a style built on abundance: long loping lines, blistering runs of sixteenth notes, baroque ornamentations, all accompanied by an undercurrent of grunting and humming from above. Few figures of the prebop era, with the obvious exception of Art Tatum (with whom the vibraphonist later jousted in a session of note- filled excesses), could squeeze more into a sixteen-bar solo than Hampton. In the battle of form versus content, the latter always won when this seminal figure was on stage . During his apprenticeship years in Los Angeles, Hampton adopted various bandstand personas before establishing himself as the vibraphonist par excellence : his first record date, from 1924 , finds him on drums , and over the next several years he tried his hand at piano ( “Jelly Roll Morton had given me a few lessons and I’d listened to every record Earl Hines ever made “) and singing (” imitate Louis Armstrong. I used to go out on a winter night with no coat on , hoping to get laryngitis so I could sound like Louis “) Armstrong himself stepped in to steer Hampton to the instrument that would bring him lasting fame . During a 1930 Armstrong session conducted at the NBC studio in Los Angeles , the trumpeter suggested that Hampton try his hand at an unusual mallet instrument sitting in the corner of the room . Invented only a few years earlier by the Deagan Company , the vibraphone was the result of an inspired decision to attach rotating fans , powered by an electric motor , in the resonator tubes placed below xylophone – like metal bars , thus creating a modernistic (at least in those halcyon days of acoustic sound) vibrato effect. “It hadn’t been used for anything except incidental chime notes- the intermission signals on radio programs ,” Hampton later explained. This casual encounter led to a new career for the twenty-two-year-old artist, but his big break came when Goodman stopped by, during a visit to Los Angeles in August 1936, to hear Hampton’s band at the Paradise Nightclub. Impressed by the proceedings, Goodman took out his clarinet and jammed with the band all night, finally breaking at dawn. The following evening, Goodman returned , this time bringing Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa. Soon this same foursome would be known as the Benny Goodman Quartet . In November , Hampton joined Goodman full time, initially participating as a member of the clarinetist’s combo , and later breaking the color barrier in the big band in March 1938, when Hampton filled in on drums after Krupa’s departure . The Goodman relationship would last until 1940 when Hampton, like so many other of the clarinetist’s protégés, left to lead his own band. Goodman’s Carnegie Hall concert from 1938 remains the crowning glory of this formative period in the clarinetist’s career. With most of his early ” discoveries ” on hand-Krupa, Wilson, Hampton, James, Stacy, Elman-Goodman was poised to make the most of this highly publicized performance. If that were not enough, many of the leading players from the Ellington and Basie bands were also featured during the marathon concert. The unlikely hero of the affair proved to be Stacy, who contributed a luminous piano solo at the close of “Sing, Sing, Sing” Yet the cultural significance of this concert outweighed any purely musical considerations . A watershed event, the Carnegie Hall concert represented a coming of age for jazz: not only accepted , it was all but venerated under the auspices of this symbolic home of American concert music . This was a new experience -for both jazz fans and the players themselves . ” How long do you want for intermission ? ” Goodman was asked before the performance . “I dunno ,” he replied . “How much does Toscanini have ?” But just as telling , the concert signaled a newfound fascination with jazz as a historical phenomenon . The program that evening consciously presented a chronology of the music’s evolution , reaching back to the ragtime era and offering tributes to Beiderbecke and Armstrong in addition to featuring a selection of swing favorites . Later that year, Hammond would amplify on this same approach in his first “Spirituals to Swing ” concert, also presented at Carnegie Hall. Over the next few years, this emerging sense of historical perspective would transform the jazz world, as witnessed by an outpouring of jazz writing and research, a revival of early New Orleans and Chicago styles, and, above all, a new attitude among fans and musicians, one that focused on discerning progressive and regressive trends- a quasi-Darwinian assessment of improvisational idioms- among the panoply of bands and soloists that made up the jazz world Given this fascination with the past , who would have expected the forward-looking moves Goodman would make in the months following the Carnegie Hall concert ? Then again, perhaps Goodman himself was caught up in the emerging view of jazz as a series of progressively more modern conceptions . In any event , Goodman was now at the start of his experimental phase , marked by a new type of talent drawn into the band- such as Charlie Christian , Mel Powell, and Eddie Sauter a phase that would culminate some years later in Goodman’s surprising, if short-lived, attempt to transform his group into a bebop ensemble . This same period saw Goodman make important excursions into contemporary classical music, set off by his decision to commission Béla Bartók’s Contrasts in 1940. One of the ironies of jazz history is that, for all these efforts to be at the cutting edge, Goodman ( like Eldridge ) remained stereotyped as a traditionalist , as the leader of the old regime in jazz, the order toppled by the ” real ” modernists led by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie . Yet the Goodman big band , during the Sauter – Powell years , defies such easy categorization . This was , if anything , a modern jazz ensemble , although brandishing a different type of modern jazz from what the beboppers were creating Influences from classical music predominate , intermingled with the swing ethos from the Henderson – Mundy – Murphy tradition . In a telling development , Mel Powell , Goodman’s premier pianist from this period , would come to abandon jazz for a career as an academic classical composer , studying under Paul Hindemith , teaching at Yale , and eventually earning a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for Duplicates , a concerto he wrote for two pianos and orchestra – a piece so far afield from Powell’s jazz work as to seem the product of a different person entirely . His charts for Goodman ( “The Earl , ” ” Mission Christian, the other forward-looking musician sponsored by Goodman during this period, would prove to be a leader and instigator of the defining modern style: namely bebop, as it soon would be called This was not a modernism resonant of Bartók and Hindemith , but one driven by hard-swinging monophonic lines , drenched in chromaticism and executed with lightning speed Christian’s credentials in this regard are all the more remarkable when one considers that his major recordings were made during just a two – year period -and at a point when modern jazz was still in embryo and most listeners had only the sketchiest context within which to grasp the genius of this soft – spoken pioneer of the electric guitar . To many of his contemporaries , Christian must have seemed more of a novelty act than a harbinger of jazz to come . To this pre – synthesizer generation , electricity was a practical matter , linked with street lamps and lightning rods , not musical performance . Like Hampton and his vibraphone , Christian may not have actually invented his instrument , but he stood out nonetheless as one of its most visionary pioneers , toying with amplified sound at notice, naming Christian as Downbeat poll winner on guitar for 1939, an honor that would be repeated in 1940 and 1941 But by then his career, though barely begun, was all but over In the spring of 1940, Christian was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Although advised to cut back on his activities, Christian found it difficult to turn down the growing number of performance opportunities now available to him In addition to his small-combo work with Goodman, he also began playing with the big band, while after hours he frequently joined the jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse , a Harlem nightclub where the bebop style was being refined by a group of forward -looking modernists . But the long hours ( the sessions would often last until 4 a.m.), combined with the excesses of Christian’s lifestyle, served to undermine his already compromised state of health. In July 1941, he was admitted to Seaview Sanitarium on Staten Island, but even there Christian’s situation remained precarious On March 2 , 1942, he died from pneumonia. In the Goodman band, Christian formed part of a powerhouse rhythm section. With pianist Mel Powell, bassist John Simmons , and either Dave Tough or Sid Catlett on drums , Goodman’s 1941 band was the most rhythmically compelling unit the clarinetist ever fronted. “There has never been a rhythm section like it in a white band,” John Hammond has asserted. “Without question, it was the best Benny ever had.” What Hammond doesn’t mention is that Simmons, Catlett, and Christian were African Americans, and their prominence in this setting testified both to Goodman’s good judgment in personnel and the more rapid pace of desegregation in jazz ensembles during the 1940s -to some extent dance music set the pattern that the rest of American society would follow in the 1950s and 1960s . Catlett’s influence on the band should not be underestimated , although his tenure lasted only a few months . Studio and live tracks (” Pound Ridge , ” ” The Count “) demonstrate the relaxed but propulsive swing he could impart to the whole ensemble . ” Big Sid ” as he was affectionately known , represented a striking contrast with the Krupa style that had defined the Goodman sound . Supportive , hard swinging without being overbearing , rock solid in keeping a tempo , rarely taking a feature solo but showing remarkable melodicism when he did – Catlett was a musician’s musician , avoiding the limelight and working in the trenches to kick the band into action . And with what versatility- his two-decade career included gigs with Louis Armstrong , Sidney Bechet, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker, a whole history of rhythm encompassed in those seven names. These were late vintages of the Swing Era. On August 1, 1942, recording of jazz music came to a grinding halt as the result of a standoff between James Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, and the music industry. Petrillo insisted that the union be reimbursed for the increasing substitution of recorded music-in the form of radios, jukeboxes , and phonographs for live performances. It wasn’t until September 1943 that Decca came to terms with Petrillo, with the Columbia and Victor labels waiting for over another year before capitulating . But even earlier the US government , in an effort to conserve raw materials for the war effort, had instituted a 30 percent reduction in the production of phonograph records . The war impacted the big bands in many other ways : musicians were conscripted ; new woodwind , brass, or percussion instruments became almost impossible to find; and the rationing of gasoline made band tours difficult, if not impossible . In their aggregate effects, these causes did more to put an end to the Swing Era than the often-cited onslaught of bebop music. But swing music also contributed to its own demise . The increasingly formulaic sound of the swing idiom , circa 1942- with only a few exceptional bands maintaining any degree of originality -indicated that this style was at the point of exhaustion as a dominant force in popular music . From this perspective , the rapid rise to prominence of Glenn Miller during these years served as a fitting close to the era . With Miller , the white big band came full circle , back to the ethos of the pre – Goodman period . Relying on catchy melodies , well – crafted if sometimes unambitious charts , and simple dance rhythms , Miller retained only a peripheral attachment to the jazz tradition . Hot solos and expressive soloists so important to Ellington , Goodman , and Basie never played a prominent role in the Miller style . Miller’s frequent reliance on syncopated riff songs , such as ” Tuxedo Junction ,” ” Pennsylvania 6-5000 ,” and ” In the Mood ,” marked his one major debt to the Swing Era And even here , the riffs employed were always the most facile , the syncopations the most stereotyped . Instead of looking backward , Miller mostly anticipated the popular music of the t t postwar years, with its sweeter, less frenetic ambiance and its growing separation from the African American roots that had inspired Goodman and so many of his contemporaries. A decade would pass before the advent of rock and roll would reenact the Palomar phenomenon, tapping the more impassioned energy of the black R&B idiom and bringing it to a mass audience. In the interim, the catchy, unthreatening sounds of Miller and his heirs would loom large over American popular culture. Between spring 1939 and September 1942, when Miller joined the US Army Air Corps, no band exerted a greater impact on the public’s imagination . ” Moonlight Serenade ,” a huge hit from 1939 , showed how close to the sweet bands Miller was willing to venture . But the singular virtue of Miller’s music was its sure instinct for memorable melodic lines. Harkening back to Beethoven’s “Moonlight ” Sonata and anticipating a host of pop instrumentals from later years ( such as “Ebb Tide ” and ” Theme from A Summer Place “), this trademark Miller effort epitomized his knack for paring down the excesses of swing jazz and returning to the basics of tunesmithing . Simple , optimistic , unpretentious , more concerned with novelty than originality : these were the traits Miller would bring to bear in a series of hit recordings, ” Chattanooga Choo Choo,” ” Pennsylvania 6-5000,”In the Mood,” ” I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo,” ” At Last” Tuxedo Junction” and “A String of Pearls,” among others. Underpinning Miller’s success were a variety of instrumental textures that he had refined over the years, especially a velvety brass sound relying heavily on the use of mutes in the large trumpet and trombone sections , and sonorous reed work with its particularly effective use of clarinet , frequently in the lead role . Although jazz fans often carp at the band’s popularity which to their dismay has proven to be remarkably long- lived as I write , the Glenn Miller Orchestra is still touring more than three -quarters of a century after its founder’s death – this body of work is not so easily dismissed when dealt with on its own terms . As a jazz artist , Miller was a negligible force , but as a maven of popular music , Miller reached the highest rung . And of all the big band leaders , Miller may have been best equipped , in terms of temperament and style , for meeting the musical tastes of postwar America . But this was not in store for him After the outbreak of World War II, Miller enlisted in the Army.