GOODMAN, BENNY

born May 30, 1909, Chicago died June 13, 1986, New York City byname of Benjamin David Goodman American clarinetist and orchestra leader, called the "King of Swing," a variety of American jazz of the 1930s and early 1940s with fast insistent rhythm, improvisation riding over melody, and collective use of syncopated rhythm. Goodman's opening theme song was "Let's Dance," his closing signature "Goodbye." After early training with musicians in Chicago, he joined the Ben Pollack jazz band and made his first recording in 1926. He lived in New York City from 1929 and, in 1933-34, organized an orchestra that became one of the most popular of the swing bands. The band served as career springboards for trumpeter Harry James, drummer Gene Krupa, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, and pianist Teddy Wilson. Orchestrations by Fletcher Henderson and later (from 1940) by Eddie Sauter made a notable contribution. His band generated great enthusiasm for jazz among white listeners, and his small groups, particularly the trio (1935-36) and quartet (1936-39), returned jazz to its original emphasis on small performing groups and indirectly encouraged the development of modern jazz, which Goodman decried. For these small groups he hired the black musicians Wilson, Hampton, and Charlie Christian, guitarist, presenting for the first time a racially mixed popular jazz group. During the 1950s he intermittently led bands, and in 1955 he recorded the sound track for a film biography, The Benny Goodman Story. In 1962 he took a jazz band to the Soviet Union on a U.S. State Department tour. Thereafter he appeared sporadically with former players in special concerts and played clarinet with symphonic orchestras and smaller groups. Goodman's jazz solo playing, noted for its technical purity, was a highly refined version of the Chicago clarinet style. As a classical clarinetist he recorded with the Budapest String Quartet and commissioned works by the contemporary composers Bla Bartk, Paul Hindemith, and Aaron Copland. The Kingdom of Swing (1939), with Irving Kolodin, is his autobiography. A discography, B.G. on Record, by D. Russell Connor and Warren W. Hicks, was published in 1969.