Things I Like - Chicago

The Chicago Jazz Festival is going on this weekend – it’s the 30 year anniversary of this free outdoor music event, the longest running of the Chicago festivals. There are a couple of special sessions lined up this year – an 80th Birthday Party jam with Fred Anderson (long time Chicago tenor sax musician with a swing background), a tribute to Art Tatum (one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time) and a tribute to Benny Goodman. See the full schedule for today and tomorrow here.

Benny Goodman. Did you know he was born (1909) and grew up in Chicago? His family lived in the Maxwell Street neighborhood in the 1920’s when the immigrant population was mostly Eastern European Jews (Goodman’s parents were from what are now Poland and Lithuania). He started music lessons at 10 and was playing in bands soon after – he joined the Ben Pollack Orchestra (a California band led by another Chicagoan) at 16 and recorded his first album under his own name three years later.

In 1929, Goodman moved to New York where he spent five years as a freelance studio musician and orchestra pit leader. His career took off when he landed a job on the national radio program, Let’s Dance where he was responsible for the ‘hot’ dance segment every Saturday night. It was during this period that Goodman hooked up with the musicians and music that would eventually bring him the title the King of Swing.

I’m not going to take you through the life of Benny Goodman (see below for some useful bio links), it’s enough to say that he was a major force in jazz beyond his musical talent.

His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall…is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music." Goodman's bands launched the careers of many major names in jazz, and during an era of segregation, he also led one of the first racially-integrated musical groups.
~ Wikipedia

In honor of the centennial celebration of Goodman’s birth, here’s a video posted by cdbpdx of Sing, Sing, Sing. It’s a 1937 recording but the 1938 recording from Carnegie Hall is apparently too long for YouTube. Notes from the YouTube posting are below.



cdbpdx: This is a special recording of the swing classic Sing, Sing, Sing in 2 parts by Benny Goodman on a 12" 78 rpm record. This number usually closed concerts and was their signature tune. Most recordings of Sing, Sing, Sing are 3 minutes or so to fit on a regular record, but this is a real jam session with almost 9 minutes of music, much like their concert performances, showcasing Benny Goodman, Harry James, and especially Gene Krupa. Enjoy!

Commenter: A milestone in recorded jazz history (and one of the few to be issued on a 12-inch 78, where the "standard" was the 10-inch release), arranged by Jimmy Mundy, and recorded in Hollywood on July 6, 1937. The equally famous rendition recorded live at Goodman's January 16, 1938 Carnegie Hall concert featured more improvised solos...incidentally, this is the "post-war" RCA Victor "Swing Classic" reissue [original releases had a "Victor" label].

Btw, the movie Swing Kids (young jazz fans coming of age in Berlin at the beginning of WWII) has some amazing music – and it’s a great movie.

Chicago Jazz Festival
Benny Goodman sources:
Benny Goodman official site
Red Hot Jazz
Solid!