Early career His early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists who worked in Chicago, such as
Jimmie Noone,
Johnny Dodds, and
Leon Roppolo. He learned quickly, becoming a strong player at an early age, and was soon playing in bands. He made his professional debut in 1921 at the Central Park Theater on the West Side of Chicago. He entered
Harrison Technical High School in Chicago in 1922. At fourteen he became a member of the musicians' union and worked in a band featuring Bix Beiderbecke. Two years later, in 1926, he joined the
Ben Pollack Orchestra and made his first recordings. In addition to clarinet, he sometimes played alto saxophone and baritone saxophone. In a
Victor recording session on March 21, 1928, he played alongside Miller,
Tommy Dorsey, and
Joe Venuti in the All-Star Orchestra directed by
Nathaniel Shilkret. He played with the bands of
Red Nichols,
Ben Selvin,
Ted Lewis, and
Isham Jones and recorded for
Brunswick under the name Benny Goodman's Boys, a band that featured Glenn Miller. In 1928, Goodman and Miller wrote "
Room 1411", Miller's first known composition, which was released as a Brunswick 78. He reached the charts for the first time in January 1931 with "He's Not Worth Your Tears", featuring a vocal by
Scrappy Lambert for
Melotone. After signing with
Columbia in 1934, he had top ten hits with "Ain't Cha Glad?" and "I Ain't Lazy, I'm Just Dreamin sung by
Jack Teagarden, "Ol' Pappy" sung by
Mildred Bailey, and "Riffin' the Scotch" sung by
Billie Holiday. An invitation to play at the Billy Rose Music Hall led to his creation of an orchestra for the four-month engagement. The orchestra recorded "
Moonglow", which became a number one hit and was followed by the Top Ten hits "Take My Word" and "
Bugle Call Rag". Goodman hired Henderson's band members to teach his musicians how to play the music. Goodman's band was one of three to perform on ''Let's Dance'', playing arrangements by Henderson along with hits such as "
Get Happy" and "
Limehouse Blues" by
Spud Murphy. Goodman's portion of the program was broadcast too late at night to attract a large audience on the east coast. He and his band remained on ''Let's Dance'' until May of that year when a strike by employees of the series' sponsor,
Nabisco, forced the cancellation of the radio show. An engagement was booked at Manhattan's Roosevelt Grill filling in for
Guy Lombardo, but the audience expected "
sweet" music and Goodman's band was unsuccessful. On July 31, 1935, "
King Porter Stomp" was released with "
Sometimes I'm Happy" on the B-side, both arranged by Henderson and recorded on July 1. But these arrangements had little impact on the tour until August 19 at McFadden's Ballroom in
Oakland,
California. Goodman and his band, which included trumpeter
Bunny Berigan, drummer
Gene Krupa, and singer
Helen Ward were met by a large crowd of young dancers who cheered the music they had heard on ''Let's Dance''. Newspaper columnist
Herb Caen wrote, "from the first note, the place was in an uproar." One night later, at
Pismo Beach, the show was a flop, and the band thought the overwhelming reception in Oakland had been a fluke. The next night, August 21, 1935, at the
Palomar Ballroom in
Los Angeles, Goodman and his band began a three-week engagement. On top of the ''Let's Dance'' airplay,
Al Jarvis had been playing Goodman's records on
KFWB radio. Goodman started the evening with stock arrangements, but after an indifferent response, he began the second set with arrangements by
Fletcher Henderson and
Spud Murphy. According to Willard Alexander, the band's booking agent, Krupa said, "If we're gonna die, Benny, let's die playing our own thing." The crowd broke into cheers and applause. News reports spread word of the exciting music and enthusiastic dancing. In his 1935–1936 radio broadcasts from Chicago, Goodman was introduced as the "
Rajah of Rhythm". Recordings of the concert were made, but even by the technology of the day the equipment used was not of the finest quality. These recordings were made on
acetate, and aluminum studio masters were cut. The idea of recording the concert came from Albert Marx, a friend of Goodman's, for the purposes of a gift for his wife Helen Ward, as well as gifting a second set to Goodman. Sometime in or before 1950, Goodman recovered the acetates from his sister-in-law's closet, who had informed him about them, and took them to the audio engineer
William Savory. The pair took them to Columbia, with Goodman realising the recordings could be used as leverage to make a recording contract with Columbia (having been eager to end his contract with Capitol). A selection was then released as an LP entitled
The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert. Unbeknownst to Goodman, at an August 16 concert at the Victor Hugo Restaurant in
Beverly Hills, Hammond inserted Christian onto the stage. Goodman started playing "
Rose Room" on the assumption that Christian didn't know it, but his performance impressed the audience immensely. According to Hammond, "before long the crowd was screaming with amazement. 'Rose Room' continued for more than three quarters of an hour and Goodman received an ovation unlike any even he had before. No one present will ever forget it, least of all Benny." Christian was a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet from 1939 to 1941, and during these two years he turned the electric guitar into a popular jazz instrument.
Decline of swing '' (1943) Goodman continued his success throughout the late 1930s with his
big band, his trio and quartet, and the sextet formed in August 1939, the same month Goodman returned to Columbia Records after four years with
RCA Victor. At Columbia, John Hammond, his future brother-in-law, produced most of his sessions. By the mid-1940s, however, big bands had lost much of their popularity. In 1941,
ASCAP had a licensing war with music publishers. From 1942 to 1944, and again in 1948, the musicians' union went on strike against the major record labels in the United States, and singers acquired the popularity that the big bands had once enjoyed. During the 1942–44 strike, the War Department approached the union and requested the production of
V-Discs, a set of records containing new recordings for soldiers, thereby boosting the rise of new artists. Also, by the late 1940s, swing was no longer the dominant style of jazz musicians.
Exploring bebop , Clint Neagley, Ziggy Elman, Israel Crosby and
Teddy Wilson (at piano); 1952 By the 1940s, some jazz musicians were borrowing from classical music, while others, such as
Charlie Parker, were broadening the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic vocabulary of swing to create
bebop (or bop). The bebop recordings Goodman made for
Capitol were praised by critics. For his bebop band he hired
Buddy Greco,
Zoot Sims, and
Wardell Gray. He consulted his friend Mary Lou Williams for advice on how to approach the music of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Pianist
Mel Powell was also an adviser in 1945. In 1953, he said, "Maybe bop has done more to set music back for years than anything ... Basically it's all wrong. It's not even knowing the scales ... Bop was mostly publicity and people figuring angles." Goodman commissioned compositions for clarinet and chamber ensembles or orchestra that have become standard pieces of classical repertoire. He premiered works by composers, such as
Contrasts by
Béla Bartók;
Clarinet Concerto No. 2, Op. 115 by
Malcolm Arnold;
Derivations for Clarinet and Band by
Morton Gould;
Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by
Francis Poulenc, and
Clarinet Concerto by
Aaron Copland.
Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs by
Leonard Bernstein was commissioned for
Woody Herman's big band, but it was premiered by Goodman. Herman was the dedicatee (1945) and first performer (1946) of
Igor Stravinsky's
Ebony Concerto; many years later, Stravinsky made another recording with Goodman as the soloist. He made a recording of Mozart's
Clarinet Quintet in July 1956 with the
Boston Symphony String Quartet at the
Berkshire Festival; on the same occasion he recorded Mozart's
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Charles Munch. He also recorded the clarinet concertos of
Weber. After forays outside swing, Goodman started a new band in 1953. According to Donald Clarke, this was not a happy time for Goodman. He reunited the band to tour with Louis Armstrong. But he insulted Armstrong and "was appalled at the vaudeville aspects of Louis's act...a contradiction of everything Goodman stood for". and
A Song Is Born (1948). == Later years ==