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Benny Goodman and the Swing Era
The Swing Era was that magic moment in America when the popular music of the nation became virtually identical with the great new music of the period--jazz. The man most responsible for bringing this memorable music to popularity was the so-called "King of Swing"--Benny Goodman. In this
controversial and widely acclaimed book, James Lincoln Collier tells the story of Goodman's life as seen through the music and social world of the years of the Great Depression in the 1930s and beyond.
Born of poor Jewish immigrant parents in Chicago in 1910, Benny Goodman's career was a rags-to-riches story brought to life. When he was ten years old he joined the local synagogue band with two of his brothers, and because he was the smallest of the three was given a clarinet. Proving to be a
natural clarinetist, Goodman left home at fifteen to join the famous Ben Pollack orchestra. His clarinet playing became legendary before he was twenty, and he was one of the most sought-after jazzmen for radio shows and orchestras that needed a talented player on short notice.
Collier brilliantly recreates the colorful 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 that had emerged out of the growth of jazz in the 1920s were first finding national audiences.
He chronicles the rise and success of Goodman and his band against the social milieu and popular music of the time. Goodman's success was built largely on the arrangements of the brilliant black musician, Fletcher Henderson. He was the first leader to hire black musicians for a white band--Teddy
Wilson and Lionel Hampton--and a number of major musical figures got their start in the band, among them Gene Krupa, Harry Janes, and Peggy lee. Collier also deals in detail with Goodman's simultaneous career as a classical musician.
Benny Goodman was a brilliant musician but an enigmatic man. Collier's biography captures this elusive personality with great insight and understanding. Collier perceptively analyzes dozens of Goodman's significant recordings and makes the reader hear them afresh. Benny Goodman and the Swing
Era is a major work about jazz and one of its most significant figures.
controversial and widely acclaimed book, James Lincoln Collier tells the story of Goodman's life as seen through the music and social world of the years of the Great Depression in the 1930s and beyond.
Born of poor Jewish immigrant parents in Chicago in 1910, Benny Goodman's career was a rags-to-riches story brought to life. When he was ten years old he joined the local synagogue band with two of his brothers, and because he was the smallest of the three was given a clarinet. Proving to be a
natural clarinetist, Goodman left home at fifteen to join the famous Ben Pollack orchestra. His clarinet playing became legendary before he was twenty, and he was one of the most sought-after jazzmen for radio shows and orchestras that needed a talented player on short notice.
Collier brilliantly recreates the colorful 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 that had emerged out of the growth of jazz in the 1920s were first finding national audiences.
He chronicles the rise and success of Goodman and his band against the social milieu and popular music of the time. Goodman's success was built largely on the arrangements of the brilliant black musician, Fletcher Henderson. He was the first leader to hire black musicians for a white band--Teddy
Wilson and Lionel Hampton--and a number of major musical figures got their start in the band, among them Gene Krupa, Harry Janes, and Peggy lee. Collier also deals in detail with Goodman's simultaneous career as a classical musician.
Benny Goodman was a brilliant musician but an enigmatic man. Collier's biography captures this elusive personality with great insight and understanding. Collier perceptively analyzes dozens of Goodman's significant recordings and makes the reader hear them afresh. Benny Goodman and the Swing
Era is a major work about jazz and one of its most significant figures.
- GenresMusicBiographyNonfiction
432 pages, Paperback
First published October 26, 1989
About the author
James Lincoln Collier
130 books70 followersJames Lincoln Collier (born June 27, 1928) is a journalist, author, and professional musician.
Collier's notable literary works include My Brother Sam Is Dead (1974), a Newbery Honor book that was also named a Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association and nominated for a National Book Award in 1975. He also wrote a children's book titled The Empty Mirror (2004), The Teddy Bear Habit (1967), about an insecure boy whose beatnik guitar teacher turns out to be a crook, and Rich and Famous (1975), sequel to The Teddy Bear Habit. His list of children's books also includes Chipper (2001), about a young boy in a gang. His writings for adults include numerous books on jazz, including biographies of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. He has also contributed entries on jazz-related subjects to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
In addition to his writing, Collier is an accomplished jazz musician who plays the trombone professionally.
Collier's notable literary works include My Brother Sam Is Dead (1974), a Newbery Honor book that was also named a Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association and nominated for a National Book Award in 1975. He also wrote a children's book titled The Empty Mirror (2004), The Teddy Bear Habit (1967), about an insecure boy whose beatnik guitar teacher turns out to be a crook, and Rich and Famous (1975), sequel to The Teddy Bear Habit. His list of children's books also includes Chipper (2001), about a young boy in a gang. His writings for adults include numerous books on jazz, including biographies of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. He has also contributed entries on jazz-related subjects to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
In addition to his writing, Collier is an accomplished jazz musician who plays the trombone professionally.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 10, 2021
Benny came from a very impoverished background where, in cramped spaces with “non-existent privacy”, you had to create “privacy in your head”. The Boehm clarinet system wasn’t created by Boehm, but by Klose and Buffet. “Goodman came to believe in endless practice, of the daily playing of scales and exercises.” Benny actually practiced the day he died. Louis Armstrong didn’t have the technique and had lip problems “for the rest of his life.” Between 1919 and 1925, 100,000 saxophones were sold in the US. By the mid-20’s, Paul Whiteman was earning more than $400,000 per year. Big orchestras like his, killed the small dixieland band. Dixieland’s basic format was three horns blowing contrapuntally over the rhythm section. The cornet plays lead, the Trombone plays connecting lines and the clarinet would harmonize with the cornet, or run long lines. The first jazz soloists were more embellishers than improvisors. All the top white names of swing orchestra leaders got their start in these early jazz orchestras. “Between 1926 and 1934 or so, Jimmy Dorsey was far better known to the general public than Goodman was.” Chicago lost a lot of players during the violent Capone years to New York City. Early band leader Ben Pollack hanged himself in 1971. Benny took from Pollack the idea of a small band coming out of the big band to play some “hot music.” Other bands soon copied the small band breakout: Tommy Dorsey’s Clambake Seven, Woody Herman’s Woodchoppers, and Bob Crosby’s Bobcats. Pollack would make Benny double on alto and sometimes baritone sax.
Duke Ellington became famous not for his records but for his broadcasts from the Cotton Club. In the mid-30’s Coleman Hawkins was the biggest name on sax. Records sales crashed during the depression. This led to Benny wanting to start his own band since regular gigs had dried up and he didn’t take orders well. Hiring Helen Ward helped Benny to his first solo success. The core audience was high school and college males, and they sure loved a cute “girl singer”. At the Palomar they were boring the audience so Benny “If we are going to sink, we might as well go down swinging” and they kicked off the King Porter Stomp and “the audience went crazy” and Benny’s band became famous for being the first to “hit the formula”. On page 154, the author says there is no device to tell you about your musical timing: this book clearly came out before the Jeanius Electronic’s Russian Dragon device. Billie Holiday’s rubato was so extreme Teddy Wilson said, “I’ve got to count when I play with Billie.” “The Artie Shaw and Woody Herman bands were formed in 1936.” “By 1940, there existed in the United States at least fifty celebrated dance bands.” Swing was anti-establishment. Soloing in the lowest register on trumpet is considered risky even by pros. Teddy Wilson learned piano by slowing down Hines and Waller on his turntable. Benny was always aware that he led first a dance band, not a swing band.
The Henderson and Ellington bands hired a third trombonist to get a trombone choir sound. Chords in the 40’s often required five notes. The more players, the harder to get the ensemble tight. Basie’s One O’Clock Jump was intentionally written as a simple vehicle for blowing over. Yale University houses 1,200 Goodman arrangements. “In 1938, Goodman was broadcasting to two million fans three times a week.” Swing music at this time comprised 85% of all records sold. Charlie Christian always wanted to play sax like Lester Young and would sing his solos from memory “on the band bus and learned to play them all on his guitar.” First seeing Charlie Christian on his stage, Benny called “Rose Room” hoping Charlie didn’t know it. Charlie played so well the song lasted 45 minutes and he was immediately hired by Bennie. Benny played so many shows a day they’d often be playing 10am to 2am. Pretty brutal. Playing big ballrooms brought the most cash. Liquor and pot kept the band going. Trumpeter Cootie Williams learned by going through the entire Arban book, so he had chops. Benny accepted sixths and ninths but didn’t like his arrangers going further into dissonance like Eddie Sauter did. Goodman had five saxophones (A A T T B) to include the more advanced harmonies. Duke Ellington was the master of “symphonic” arrangements for dance bands. Try passing the melody through the band. In 1934, the jukebox arrives and starts putting musicians in cafes out of business. Being busted for pot pretty much destroyed Gene Krupa’s career and his minor comeback was long.
In 1944, nightclubs that allowed dancing had to add a 30% tax which started to kill off audience for the large swing band. In addition, new swing bands would have to spend around $10,000 before they would start to earn a profit. Priced out of performing, swing bands start to die in 1946. They were replaced by vocalist bands were the singers were the stars. Part of the reason was after WWII, many ex-soldiers wanted love and marriage songs. Funny how Swing, branded in the late 40’s as old-fashioned, corny and commercial, was replaced by music (doo-wop, Doris Day, Connie Francis, Dinah Shore) that sounds today far more old-fashioned, corny and commercial. With bebop, you had to navigate “a long train of chords flying by at a high speed.” “Benny played from the 1930s.” His specialty was major, minor, augmented, diminished and seventh chords and not beyond. “Lush voicings” would leave him cold. He would be bothered by an unusual voicing. Benny rarely played the b5 or b9 on solos. When bebop hit, only Buddy DeFranco could technically play it, so the clarinet dropped out of jazz. Bop is a soloist’s music, not an arranger’s music and so smaller groups play it. At the apex of swing, arrangers were drawing 20th century harmonies from Mahler, Stravinsky, and the like. After Bop hit, Benny (according to the author) stopped evolving and ended up “for the remainder of his life simply repeating what he had done a thousand times already.”
Few personally liked Benny, as he rarely praised anyone, and was famously curt, critical and abusive. Rarely is a Goodman story favorable. “He didn’t spare anybody’s feelings.” During WWII, finding reeds was very hard and Jerry Jerome was lucky enough to get a full box of Vandoren’s from France. Benny saw the box and went through the entire box trying each reed without Jerry’s permission. When Benny didn’t like a reed, he’d break it, and that day he broke every reed in the box. Every reed would have been good enough for Jerry and now they were all gone. That’s who Benny was, unable to think of others.
Benny quotes: “if you can’t play without the rhythm section, you can’t play.” “It doesn’t matter what instrument it is. You have to make them listen.” (“He was always trying to play as well as he could.”). Benny is still the most influential clarinetist in history. Not bad an achievement. Good book.
Duke Ellington became famous not for his records but for his broadcasts from the Cotton Club. In the mid-30’s Coleman Hawkins was the biggest name on sax. Records sales crashed during the depression. This led to Benny wanting to start his own band since regular gigs had dried up and he didn’t take orders well. Hiring Helen Ward helped Benny to his first solo success. The core audience was high school and college males, and they sure loved a cute “girl singer”. At the Palomar they were boring the audience so Benny “If we are going to sink, we might as well go down swinging” and they kicked off the King Porter Stomp and “the audience went crazy” and Benny’s band became famous for being the first to “hit the formula”. On page 154, the author says there is no device to tell you about your musical timing: this book clearly came out before the Jeanius Electronic’s Russian Dragon device. Billie Holiday’s rubato was so extreme Teddy Wilson said, “I’ve got to count when I play with Billie.” “The Artie Shaw and Woody Herman bands were formed in 1936.” “By 1940, there existed in the United States at least fifty celebrated dance bands.” Swing was anti-establishment. Soloing in the lowest register on trumpet is considered risky even by pros. Teddy Wilson learned piano by slowing down Hines and Waller on his turntable. Benny was always aware that he led first a dance band, not a swing band.
The Henderson and Ellington bands hired a third trombonist to get a trombone choir sound. Chords in the 40’s often required five notes. The more players, the harder to get the ensemble tight. Basie’s One O’Clock Jump was intentionally written as a simple vehicle for blowing over. Yale University houses 1,200 Goodman arrangements. “In 1938, Goodman was broadcasting to two million fans three times a week.” Swing music at this time comprised 85% of all records sold. Charlie Christian always wanted to play sax like Lester Young and would sing his solos from memory “on the band bus and learned to play them all on his guitar.” First seeing Charlie Christian on his stage, Benny called “Rose Room” hoping Charlie didn’t know it. Charlie played so well the song lasted 45 minutes and he was immediately hired by Bennie. Benny played so many shows a day they’d often be playing 10am to 2am. Pretty brutal. Playing big ballrooms brought the most cash. Liquor and pot kept the band going. Trumpeter Cootie Williams learned by going through the entire Arban book, so he had chops. Benny accepted sixths and ninths but didn’t like his arrangers going further into dissonance like Eddie Sauter did. Goodman had five saxophones (A A T T B) to include the more advanced harmonies. Duke Ellington was the master of “symphonic” arrangements for dance bands. Try passing the melody through the band. In 1934, the jukebox arrives and starts putting musicians in cafes out of business. Being busted for pot pretty much destroyed Gene Krupa’s career and his minor comeback was long.
In 1944, nightclubs that allowed dancing had to add a 30% tax which started to kill off audience for the large swing band. In addition, new swing bands would have to spend around $10,000 before they would start to earn a profit. Priced out of performing, swing bands start to die in 1946. They were replaced by vocalist bands were the singers were the stars. Part of the reason was after WWII, many ex-soldiers wanted love and marriage songs. Funny how Swing, branded in the late 40’s as old-fashioned, corny and commercial, was replaced by music (doo-wop, Doris Day, Connie Francis, Dinah Shore) that sounds today far more old-fashioned, corny and commercial. With bebop, you had to navigate “a long train of chords flying by at a high speed.” “Benny played from the 1930s.” His specialty was major, minor, augmented, diminished and seventh chords and not beyond. “Lush voicings” would leave him cold. He would be bothered by an unusual voicing. Benny rarely played the b5 or b9 on solos. When bebop hit, only Buddy DeFranco could technically play it, so the clarinet dropped out of jazz. Bop is a soloist’s music, not an arranger’s music and so smaller groups play it. At the apex of swing, arrangers were drawing 20th century harmonies from Mahler, Stravinsky, and the like. After Bop hit, Benny (according to the author) stopped evolving and ended up “for the remainder of his life simply repeating what he had done a thousand times already.”
Few personally liked Benny, as he rarely praised anyone, and was famously curt, critical and abusive. Rarely is a Goodman story favorable. “He didn’t spare anybody’s feelings.” During WWII, finding reeds was very hard and Jerry Jerome was lucky enough to get a full box of Vandoren’s from France. Benny saw the box and went through the entire box trying each reed without Jerry’s permission. When Benny didn’t like a reed, he’d break it, and that day he broke every reed in the box. Every reed would have been good enough for Jerry and now they were all gone. That’s who Benny was, unable to think of others.
Benny quotes: “if you can’t play without the rhythm section, you can’t play.” “It doesn’t matter what instrument it is. You have to make them listen.” (“He was always trying to play as well as he could.”). Benny is still the most influential clarinetist in history. Not bad an achievement. Good book.
June 2, 2013
In the past month, I've read three biographies about musicians; one on Leonard Cohen, punk rocker Ricard Hell's autobiography, and now this excellent biography on Jazz musician Benny Goodman. I must say it is a pleasure to read a biography that is more about the actual music than who the musician slept with.
In fact, this rather scholarly work is more about the swing era of the thirties than the individual. While covering Goodman's life from birth to death, the author focuses mainly on his contribution to American music and the unique era of swing which was when Jazz was at its height of popularity. Collier doesn't forsake other musicians either, showing the early influences of Fletcher Henderson and others who led bands before Goodman and covering all of the major jazz musician that passed through the Goodman orchestra and small groups. I also liked how Collier explores the particular personality of his subject and explains how it affected both Goodman's music and career without descending into gossip. If you have any interest in the popular music of the 30s and 40s or in the history of Jazz, this is essential reading.
In fact, this rather scholarly work is more about the swing era of the thirties than the individual. While covering Goodman's life from birth to death, the author focuses mainly on his contribution to American music and the unique era of swing which was when Jazz was at its height of popularity. Collier doesn't forsake other musicians either, showing the early influences of Fletcher Henderson and others who led bands before Goodman and covering all of the major jazz musician that passed through the Goodman orchestra and small groups. I also liked how Collier explores the particular personality of his subject and explains how it affected both Goodman's music and career without descending into gossip. If you have any interest in the popular music of the 30s and 40s or in the history of Jazz, this is essential reading.
January 9, 2023
One for the experts, too much on the technicalities of the music for me. Only got to page 76.
February 16, 2013
One of my first serious books on jazz. Hell I read it twice! It opened my mind to the history of big bands and swing which is not always quite the same as jazz. Collier shows how big band's morphed to early jazz and tells about the early excitement of jazz on white America.You will learn about Goodman but also about the great bands that criss-crossed America at the time. Thin on biography but strong on the "times."
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews