Benny Goodman is a painting by JL Vaden which was uploaded on February 9th, 2014.
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David Benny Goodman, (born May 30, 1909 to June 13, 1986) was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as the... more
by JL Vaden
Title
Benny Goodman
Artist
JL Vaden
Medium
Painting - Watercolor
Description
Benjamin David "Benny" Goodman, (born May 30, 1909 to June 13, 1986) was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as the "King of Swing". In the mid-1930's, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City 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. During an era of segregation he also led one of the first well-known integrated jazz groups. Goodman continued to perform to nearly the end of his life, while exploring an interest in classical music. Goodman was born in Chicago, the ninth of twelve children of poor Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who lived in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. His father was David Goodman (1873 to1926), a tailor from Warsaw, Poland. His mother Dora Grisinsky (1873 to1964) from Kaunas, Lithuania. His parents met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before Benny was born. When Benny was 10 his father enrolled him and two of his older brothers in music lessons at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue. The next year he joined the boys club band at Jane Addams' Hull House, where he received lessons from director James Sylvester. He also received two years of instruction from the classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp. His early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists working in Chicago, notably Johnny Dodds, Leon Roppolo, and Jimmy Noone. Goodman learned quickly, becoming a strong player at an early age and soon playing professionally in various bands. Goodman made his professional debut in 1921 at Central Park Theater in Chicago and entered Harrison High School in 1922. He joined the musicians union in 1923 and by 14 was in a band that featured the legendary Bix Beiderbecke. He attended Lewis Institute (now Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1924 as a high school sophomore, while also playing the clarinet in a dance hall band. (He was awarded an honorary LL.D. from IIT in 1968.) When Goodman was 16, he joined one of Chicago's top bands, the Ben Pollack Orchestra, with which he made his first recordings in 1926. He made his first record on Vocalion under his own name two years later. Goodman recorded with the regular Pollack band and smaller groups drawn from the orchestra through 1929. The side sessions produced scores of sides recorded for the various dime store record labels under an array of group names, including Mills' Musical Clowns, Goody's Good Timers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, Jimmy Backen's Toe Ticklers, Dixie Daisies, and Kentucky Grasshoppers. Goodman's father, David, was a working-class immigrant about whom Benny said (interview, Downbeat, February 8, 1956); "...Pop worked in the stockyards, shoveling lard in its unrefined state. He had those boots, and he'd come home at the end of the day exhausted, stinking to high heaven, and when he walked in it made me sick. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand the idea of Pop every day standing in that stuff, shoveling it around". On December 9, 1926, David Goodman was killed in a traffic accident. Benny had recently joined the Pollack band and was urging his father to retire, since he and his brother (Harry) were now doing well as professional musicians. According to James Lincoln Collier, "Pop looked Benny in the eye and said, 'Benny, you take care of yourself, I'll take care of myself.'" Collier continues: "It was an unhappy choice. Not long afterwards, as he was stepping down from a streetcar according to one story he was struck by a car. He never regained consciousness and died in the hospital the next day. It was a bitter blow to the family, and it haunted Benny to the end that his father had not lived to see the success he, and some of the others, made of themselves." "Benny described his father's death as 'the saddest thing that ever happened in our family.'"
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February 9th, 2014
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