On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- For Sax Man Johnny Hodge's 112th Birthday-Blowing The High White Note-The Giants of Jazz- Studs Terkel-Style

Click on the title to link to a "Sunday Boston Globe", December 13, 2009, review of a new biography of Louis Armstrong.

BOOK REVIEW

Giants of Jazz, Revised edition, Studs Terkel, Thomas Crowell Company, New York, 1975

Recently I have been on a tear reviewing the works of the now departed Studs Terkel. As is the case, usually, when I get “hot” on an author I grab everything I can get my hands on and read it in no particular order. That is the case here. Terkel, widely known and deservedly so, as the author of oral histories concerning the pressing social issues of class, race and gender of working people (in the main)in America was also in his earlier career a popular Chicago disc jockey concentrating on jazz (and a little blues and folk as they intersected jazz). I had not previously known of that part of Studs’ life and only became aware of it through reading his last work, a memoir of sorts but really a series of connected vignettes, “Touch and Go” (well worth reading by the way as background to his interest in the jazz figures highlighted here). Previously my knowledge of jazz was formed by the likes of Nat Hentoff and John Hammond. Apparently I have to revise this list to include Studs. Why?

As a member of the "Generation of ’68" my tastes were formed by blues, folk and early rock & roll and only incidentally by jazz. However, once one delves into the roots of all of these forms one can only understand their attractions when one sees the influences all those forms had on each other. Without going into a dissertation on the subject (useless in any case) jazz is a core beat that expressed one form of music that had its roots in the South , among blacks and was a reflection of the rural life that was being left behind as America became more industrialized. Jazz is the music of the city, as blues is (before World War II) the music of the southern countryside. But enough. Read Studs and you can see how the music developed (and was retarded as well by the rules of racial separation as it spread to whites looking for real music, other than the likes of the Paul Whitman Orchestra or Tin Pan Alley, after World War I).

Many of the names of the performers highlighted here have are the classic expressions of the jazz idiom. King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, "The Empress" Bessie Smith. "The Duke" (Ellington), "The Count" (Basie), "Lady Day" (Billie Holiday). Yes this is the royalty of jazz. For those who follow this space you already know of my devotion to Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. Less well know is my devotion to the “King of Swing” Benny Goodman of the Peggy Lee days in the 1940’s, Dizzy Gillespie of be-bop in the early 1950’s and Duke Ellington of the early 1940’s. Well, if you want to know more about them read on. By the way, this little book’s formatting is an early example of Studs Terkel’s easy style that he would work into an art form when he went full bore at his oral history interviews later. The only fault I would find here is that Studs is a little light on female singers. No Peggy Lee of the Benny Goodman days, no Margaret Whiting, no Helen Morgan, No Ivy Anderson. Oh well, I have always been a 'sucker' for a "torch singer". Maybe, Studs, except for Billie, wasn’t.

On The Sixtieth Anniversary Of Her Death-Lady Day-Billie Holiday- She Took Our Pain Away Despite Her Own Pains- *It Don't Mean A Thing If You Ain't Got That Swing- The Birthday Centenary Of Swing's Artie Shaw

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for jazz man and mad clarinetist Artie Shaw.


Markin comment:

There is a question of who was the better clarinetist, Artie Shaw or Benny Goodman, among classical jazz aficionados (although one should not exclude Duke Ellington's sideman, Barney Bigard, in that mix). There is, however, no dispute over who had the better swing band in the 1930s- Artie hands down (including with Billie Holiday as vocalist, for a short time). For those, by the way, unfamiliar with swing that was the "bad" teenage-driven music that your grandparents, or parents, listened to away from their parents. You know, the music of the youth tribe like rock and roll for my generation or, maybe, hip-hop for this generation.

It Do Not Mean A Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing-With Swing-master Benny Goodman In Mind

It Do Not Mean A Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing-With Swing-master Benny Goodman In Mind

CD Review

By Zack James

“Jesus, now that you mentioned Mr. Lawrence, our seventh grade music teacher, I am starting to remember some other stuff about the guy, about what a creep he was trying to break us from our unbreakable bond with rock and roll,” Seth Garth said to Jack Callahan as they both hoisted their three, or was it fourth, double scotch with water chaser, an old habit for both of them since the chaser made the drink last longer in the old days when they were short of dough and were sipping their drinks to stretch out the evening. The gist of what Seth had told Jack was in response to Jack’s remembering the very first time that they had heard Woody Guthrie and what song they had learned first. That gist of talk was based on Seth, an old time folk music critic, mainly for The Eyeout on the West Coast having recently seen in a folk magazine the announcement that the Smitstonian/Folkway operation was finally putting out a treasure trove in four CDs of some Woody Guthrie songs recorded by Moses Asch during World War II. Seth for the life of him could not remember what song he had heard and when of Guthrie’s and so he had called upon Jack to meet him at their favorite watering hole the Erie Grille in Riverdale where they both were now residing (and after varying absences had grown up in the town). Jack had answered that it had been in Mr. Lawrence’s seventh grade music class and the song had been the alternative national anthem-This Land Is Your Land. 

The method to Mr. Lawrence’s madness, to ween the kids off of rock and roll, had gone beyond trying to foist silly folk music off on them but to drown them in any other kind of music he could think to distract, or attempt to distract them with, especially during lunch when they played their transistor radios and drove him crazy with their rock and roll. A few times, if you could believe this he tried to get them interested in jazz, in swing music, what each and every one of them considered the music that their parents listen to and which had driven them to the transistors in the first place. Worse, worse of all he had tried to get his charges interested in the music of Benny Goodman, the so-called “king of swing.” That was all Seth needed to hear as he blurted out in front of the class “My mother and father dance to that pokey stuff on Saturday nights and they are barely moving when they dance. I am not going to listen to that here.” Needless to say Seth stayed after school a number of afternoons for his transgression. But he felt vindicated in what he had uttered and took the punishment like a soldier.

Still it did no good as Mr. Lawrence played something called Blue Skies which was his parents’ “their song.” Something else by a guy named Cole Porter that Benny Goodman made famous. It got no better when Mr. Lawrence played stuff with Peggy Lee because to his mother’s chagrin his father had “crush” on old Peggy and Seth had to secretly admit that she was kind of sexy looking at that.  

But that was then. A few nights after Seth and Jack were cutting up old touches, after drinking themselves to melancholia, Seth went to the library and picked up an old Benny Goodman CD with plenty of American Songbook stuff on it. Guess what old Seth, old rock and roll devotee Seth with an overhang of folk, blues, and a little mountain music started to pop his fingers to the beat, started laughing to himself that he know knew what they meant when they said “it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing.” And they were right. Just ask Benny.       

Songs To While The Class Struggle By (Kind Of)- Buddha Swings- Benny Goodman On The Air-1937-38- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Benny Goodman his band performing, well, performing swing music, what else.

CD Review

Benny Goodman On The Air-1937-38, Benny Goodman and the 1937-38 version of his band, Columbia Records, Sony Music, 1993

Delores LaBlanc had had just enough of Elizabeth (Betty) LaCroix and her tangled love life with her brother, Jean. Every other week it seemed that she was breaking up with him over one question. Let me give you a hint. Betty and Delores are seniors at Olde Saco High School in this year of our lord 1937. Let me add that they are both dark-haired French-Canadian American beauties dewy like only those from the north up in Quebec can be. So sex is naturally in the equation, especially since in a few months they will be having their senior prom, always a highlight in the Olde Saco calendar year, for those who graduate and those who, for one reason or another don’t. And graduation or not the next step is marriage. That is just ethos of the town, the culture and the times. Right this minute though this Delores fed-up moment the sex question revolves around Betty and Jean.

Seems that Betty had had her fifteenth, no sixteenth, fight and never make-up with dear Jean. And whether the year is 1039, 1539, or like now 1939 the issue, to put it delicately, was sex, or rather “doing it.” Or the real rather why she wanted to wait until marriage, and not before, to give in to one Jean LeBlanc. Needless to say All-American boy, really all All-American French-Canadian boy and former star of the Olde Saco High football team, the one that beat Auburn for the state title a couple of years back, Jean, was all for doing the do right now as a test run for marriage, or so that is how he presented it to Betty last Saturday (and many a previous Saturday night) down in the dunes of Olde Saco Beach as they watch old Neptune do his ocean magic. And Jean almost made the sale, except by the time Betty decided yes, she wasn’t in the mood any longer. Jesus.

And what does all this have to do with Benny Goodman, king of swingness, and the possibilities of seeing said king in person. Well where have you been? How do you think our boy Jean, champion football mover but a little bashful in the sex department when he came right down to it tried to get one Betty LaCroix in the mood. Take one guess. No I will give a hint-think clarinet, a heavenly deep beat-pacing clarinet that sets those drums a rolling, those trumpets blowing to Gabriel’s heaven, and sets those sexy saxes on fire to blow the wall of Jericho down. A Little Body And Soul or Swing Time In The Mountains. Maybe Blue Skies. Get it.

So one can see Delores point, a little. But here is the funny part. Delores is having her own sexual dilemmas with one Jean Jacques LaCroix (yes, Betty’s brother, it’s that kind of town and that kind of clannishness). See, one night she let sweet boy Jean Jacque go a little farther than she should have while they were down the dunes of Olde Saco Beach in his father’s Hudson while the Benny Goodman Hour was on the radio. Get it.

Out In The Be-Bop 1930s Night-It Don’t Mean A Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing- Benny Goodman At Carnegie Hall-1938- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Benny Goodman his band performing, well, performing swing music, what else.

CD Review

Benny Goodman At Carnegie Hall-1938, Benny Goodman and his 1938 version band, Columbia Records, Sony Music, 1999

“Did you hear it, did you hear? Benny Goodman and his band, the king of swing himself, is coming to the Olde Saco Ballroom next month for two nights only,” shouted Delores LeBlanc to Betty La Croix over the hum of the separating machine that she was tending at the MacAdams Textile Mill. The central building over on Main Street (really U.S. Route One but everybody calls it Main Street and calls it that even to strangers looking for directions to Kennebunkport or going north up Portland way) not the smaller complex by the Olde Saco River which is slated to be closed soon for lack of work.

Betty, too proud, too female acting like a female quiet proud, too proper French-Canadian Catholic female to act like some “wrong side of the tracks” girl proud, to yell back over the drone of her own tended machine, just gave a gleeful nod. Delores continues over the drumbeat, “Let’s get tickets right away for both shows because after his concert last year down in New York at that Carnegie Hall the place will be packed and we don’t want to miss the event of 1939 and maybe the whole century here in old musty, fussy nothing ever happens except the river flows by Olde Saco. Once again Betty nodded, although not gleefully this time. Not gleefully at all.

The cause of that non-glee is, well, not to leave you all mixed-up and guessing, boy trouble, really man trouble. It seems that Betty (although she is just too proper and too female, well you know the drill already so I won’t go on) had the previous night had her fifteenth, no sixteenth, fight and never make-up with Delores’ brother Jean. And whether the year was 1039, 1539, or like now, 1939, the issue, to put it delicately, was sex. Or rather why Betty wanted to wait all the way until marriage, and not before, no way not before, to give in to one Jean Claude LeBlanc. Yes, Betty was a mother-can-be-proud proper French-Canadian Catholic, although in the heat of the moment a couple of times down at the Squaw Rock “parking “ end of Olde Saco Beach, a spot chosen by the local younger set for its position far from parental and police eyes she almost succumbed to Jean’s urgings.

Needless to say All-American boy, really all All-American French-Canadian boy and former star of the Olde Saco High football team, the one that beat Auburn for the state title a couple of years back, Jean Claude LeBlanc, was all for “doing the do” right now as a test run for marriage, or so that is how he presented it to Betty last Saturday (and many a previous Saturday night) down in those dunes of Olde Saco Beach as they watched old Neptune do his ocean magic. And Jean almost made the sale that night, except by the time Betty decided yes, she wasn’t in the mood any longer. At least she didn’t use the headache excuse. Jesus.

And what does all this eternal young love squabbling, good-looking sexed-up guy charging forth, nice girl holding back for dear life, post-drugstore soda for two listening to the latest tunes or old Bijou movie date, ending the night down at some forlorn beach and endless possibilities have to do with Benny Goodman. Benny Goodman, king of swing-ness, the be-bop night, and the possibilities of seeing said king in person. Well where have you been? How do you thing our boy Jean, champion football mover and persona non grata for life within ten miles of Auburn but a little bashful in the sex department when he came right down to it, tried to get one Betty La Croix in the mood. Take one guess. No, I will give you a hint-think clarinet, a heavenly deep beat-pacing, fingers snapping, clarinet that sets those drums a rolling, those trumpets blowing to Gabriel’s heaven, and sets those sexy saxes on fire to blow the walls of Jericho down. A little Body And Soul or Swing Time In The Mountains. Maybe Blue Skies. Get it.

But back to Betty and Jean, and Betty’s dilemma. Back right away because after Delores and Betty finish their conversation, or rather Delores finishes here monologue, here comes Jean down the aisle to Betty’s machine. He nods to Delores, the appropriate publicly polite brotherly greeting, although at home in the LeBlanc household over on Fourteenth Street in the “Little Quebec " section of town there is a daily war going on, and has been since, well, since Delores found out that she, with just a few hours work in the family’s sole bathroom, could set the guys stirring. Maybe since about fourteen. And did so, did spend those girlish work hours, to Jean’s intense displeasure when he needed to attend to his own toilet for some hot date, or the last couple of years, for Betty.

Standing, a little sheepishly, but also with just that certain touch of fox that attracted Betty to him in the first place, Jean lays his great scheme on one Betty La Croix. He will spring for the tickets to both of Benny Goodman’s shows if she will just make up with him. She hesitates, thinking back to that last Saturday and how Benny and the gang, via Jean’s car radio, the ocean swells, and Buddha Swings, got her almost in the mood to “do the do.” Finally, Betty looked over at Delores and gave her that kind of “sorry I can’t go with you” look that Delores had learned to expect when Jean came anywhere with five feet of her. Delores, also thought, in her own publicly proper French-Canadian Catholic girl devilish thought, that Betty was not going to be able to withstand two nights of Benny swing, Jean ardor and Olde Saco ocean swell. But, damn, that’s her problem. Delores, never a social glum (at least since that fourteen and set guys stirring revelation) wondered to herself if that dreamy Jean Jacques La Croix (yes, Betty’s brother) was going? For him (with promise of be-bop Benny in the background) she might check those ocean swells out too.

Out In The Be-Bop 1930s Night-Buddha Swings- Benny Goodman On The Air-1937-38- A CD Review

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Benny Goodman his band performing, well, performing swing music, what else.

CD Review

Benny Goodman On The Air-1937-38, Benny Goodman and the 1937-38 version of his band, Columbia Records, Sony Music, 1993

Delores LeBlanc had had just enough of Elizabeth (Betty) La Croix and her tangled love life with Delores’ brother, Jean. Every other week, it seemed, Betty was breaking up with him over one question. Let me give you a hint. Betty and Delores are seniors at Olde Saco (Maine) High School in this year of our lord 1937. Let me add that they are both dark-haired French-Canadian American beauties, dewy roses like only those with forbears from the north up in Quebec can be. So sex is naturally in the equation, in the eternal boy-girl, Betty-Jean, equation. And for Delores too, since about fourteen when she learned that she could, with just a little effort, get the guys stirring, stirring over thoughts about dewy roses and other material matters. But this is strictly, well almost strictly, a Betty-Jean story so we will leave the Delores-smitten guys to stew.

The friction between Delores and Betty, or rather Delores’ momentary wrath at Betty, is centered on the hard fact that in a few months the girls will be having their senior prom, always a highlight in the Olde Saco calendar year, for those who graduate and those who, for one reason or another don’t. And, graduation or not, the next step is marriage. That is just the established working class and religious ethos of the town, the Gallic-inspired culture, and the times. Get out of the parents’ overburdened house and into your own small flat, maybe over on Fourteenth Street by the river, and dream of your own small white picket fence future house, maybe on Atlantic Avenue toward the ocean. And that cycle has been established for a long while. Right this minute though, this Delores fed-up moment, the sex and marriage, or really marriage and sex, question revolves around Betty and Jean.

It seems that although Betty and Jean have been an “item” for only a few months that Betty had Saturday night had her fifteenth, no sixteenth, and never make-up with dear Jean fight. And whether the year is 1037, 1537, or like now, 1937 the issue, to put it delicately, was sex, or rather to use the latest craze saying “doing it.” Or, the real crux of the matter, why she wanted to wait until that cold- water flat marriage, and not before, no way before, to give in to one Jean Claude LeBlanc. Needless to say All-American boy, really all All-American French-Canadian boy and former star of the Olde Saco High football team, the one that beat Auburn for the state title a couple of years back, Jean, was all for “doing the do” right now as a test run for marriage, or so that is how he presented it to Betty Saturday (and many a previous Saturday night) down in the dunes of Olde Saco Beach as they watch old Neptune do his ocean magic. And Jean had almost made the sale, except by the time Betty decided yes, she was so anxious and the hour was so late that she wasn’t in the mood any longer. Jesus.

And what does all this young love in podunk among the hard-working mill-hand classes, French-Canadian American variation, have to do with Benny Goodman, king of swing-ness, sultan of the be-bop 1930s radio listening nights, complete with wicked finger-snapping clarinets, sexy saxes, Gabriel blow your horn trumpets and sassy drums? Well where have you been? Okay, let me go by the numbers. Boy (really man since Jean has already graduated from Olde Saco and been working as a high-grade machine mechanic at the MacAdams Textile Mill over on Main Street for a while now. That defines man in these parts) meets girl. Boy (man) takes girl here and there in his new, well fairly new, Studebaker and they cap the night off watching the fishes swim down at the close-by beach (at the secluded far end, the Squaw Rock end, known by one and all as, well just known for being secluded, okay). Girl successfully holds off boy (man). Got it.

But how do you thing our boy Jean, champion football mover but a little bashful in the sex department when he came right down to it, tried to get one Betty La Croix in the mood. Take one guess. Backing up the ocean swells and moonlight in the mood department is one Benny and his gang on that car radio, providing that heavenly deep beat-pacing clarinet that sets those drums a rolling, those trumpets blowing to Gabriel’s heaven, and sets those sexy saxes on fire to blow the walls of Jericho down that I mentioned before. A little Buddha Swings at the right moment will go a long way.

So one can see Delores point, a little, when Monday morning at school a crying Betty is yet again looking for some sympathy. Delores was almost ready to just tell her to just surrender. See here is the funny part. Delores was having her own sexual dilemmas with one Jean Jacques La Croix (yes, Betty’s brother, it’s that kind of town and that kind of clannishness). See, one night she let sweet boy Jean Jacques go a little farther than she should have while they were down at those dunes of Olde Saco Beach in his father’s Hudson while the Benny Goodman Hour was on the radio. But don’t tell Betty that.

*On Artie Shaw's Centenary- Swingman Shaw On Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust"

Click on headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Artie Shaw blowing a mean clarinet on Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust." Wow!


Markin comment:

This is the kind of music that was on the radio in my house when I was a kid, the music of my parents' generation. At least that was the music on the radio that I heard and is etched from the memory bank of ancient childhood before I "expropriated" the radio for Elvis, Chuck, Jerry Lee and the rock and rollers of the 1950s.

***Buddha Swings- The Jazz Music Of Benny Goodman

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Benny Goodman And His Band Performing "Sing, Sing, Sing".

CD Review

This Is Benny Goodman: Volume Two, Benny Goodman and various side men, RCA, 1972

Musically, I am a blues man. I am informed, malformed, deformed, reformed by the blues. Then I am a rock man. And a folk man, in all its variants. So where doe that lead me into an exposition of jazz that I have recently started to write more about in this space. Well, let’s just call it an extension of the blues (not hard to do by the way). I mentioned in a recent review of the work of jazz singer Mildred Bailey that the clearest example of that is Lady Day, Billie Holiday. I noted there, that, yes, I know that she was a jazz singer extraordinaire. But, the way she swept my blues away when I was down in the dumps sure makes me think she was the queen of the blues (Bessie Smith being, of course, outlandishly the “Empress” ). I would further note in the category of male bandleaders (that is, after all, what jazz was about back in the days, bands) Duke Ellington’s work has a similar status.

Taking this idea once more as my theme all of this is by a very round about way of bringing the jazz band leader under review, Benny Goodman into the picture. Duke Ellington set the standard in the 1940’s for the phrasing of a jazz piece, for the mix of instruments, for the hush that signaled a new direction to the piece, for the … well, underlying sense of what was going on. As I expressed elsewhere, for that something unsayable but certainly knowable when the music is done right. Benny Goodman, although I believe more into the commercial showmanship of the music than Ellington and others like Chick Correa (who will be highlighted here later) had that in spots. But Benny had that something different, consciously so. He made his work jump to the swing that would get even a tongue-tied, doubled-jointed clod like this review up and dancing. That, my friends, is no mean trick.

I believe that Benny Goodman had two good stretches. One when he had the singer Peggy Lee fronting for his big band. And as highlighted here when he worked (and according to the memories of those who worked under him, worked them hard) small groups that demonstrated that swing could be done in that small combo, if you just had the right personnel. Proof here? “King Porter Stomp". “Avalon" (Christ, even the name gives the swing sense of the piece). “One O’Clock Jump”. "When Buddha Smiles" How’s that. If you need more, believe me there are more here and on other Goodman CD’s. No wonder Hitler, according to some memoirs of Hamburg youth that were made into a movie, wanted his work banned. Swing On...

*The King Of Swing- The Jazz Music Of Benny Goodman- Miss Peggy Lee Is In The House

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Peggy Lee Singing "Why Don't You Do Right?" Backed By Benny Goodman's Band.

CD Review

Benny Goodman And Peggy Lee, Peggy Lee, Benny Goodman and various side men, Columbia Records, 1989

Musically, I am a blues man. I am informed, malformed, deformed, reformed by the blues. Then I am a rock man. And a folk man, in all its variants. So where doe that lead me into an exposition of jazz that I have recently started to write more about in this space. Well, let’s just call it an extension of the blues (not hard to do by the way). I mentioned in a recent review of the work of jazz singer Mildred Bailey that the clearest example of that is Lady Day, Billie Holiday. I noted there, that, yes, I know that she was a jazz singer extraordinaire. But, the way she swept my blues away when I was down in the dumps sure makes me think she was the queen of the blues (Bessie Smith being, of course, outlandishly the “Empress” ). I would further note in the category of male bandleaders (that is, after all, what jazz was about back in the days, bands) Duke Ellington’s work has a similar status.

Taking this idea once more as my theme all of this is by a very round about way of bringing the jazz band leader under review, Benny Goodman into the picture. Duke Ellington set the standard in the 1940’s for the phrasing of a jazz piece, for the mix of instruments, for the hush that signaled a new direction to the piece, for the … well, underlying sense of what was going on. As I expressed elsewhere, for that something unsayable but certainly knowable when the music is done right. Benny Goodman, although I believe more into the commercial showmanship of the music than Ellington and others like Chick Correa (who will be highlighted here later) had that in spots. But Benny had that something different, consciously so. He made his work jump to the swing that would get even a tongue-tied, doubled-jointed clod like this review up and dancing. That, my friends, is no mean trick.

I believe that Benny Goodman had two good stretches. One was with small combos. The other is when he had the singer Peggy Lee fronting for his big band. No question, I am a sucker for a torch singer. Billy Holiday, Helen Whiting, Ivy Andersen, you name it. And naturally included on that list is Ms. Peggy Lee. No, not the Peggy Lee of the 1950's when I was growing up and she had changed her performing persona into a femme fatale with such hits as "Fever" but back in the days before I was born with Benny Goodman and the Swing era. I can still remember as a kid seeing a film clip of her in, I think, "Stage Door Canteen" doing her classic "Why Don't You Do Right Like Some Other Men Do". Wow. And this album is filled with such material from that 'innocent' era. Plenty of torch songs like "My Old Flame" and including Cole Porter standards like "Let's Do It". Naturally, Goodman is at his perfectionist best with a singer like Ms. Lee in front with just enough clarinet solos to keep things interesting. If you want to go back to the mists of time in the career of one Peggy Lee this one is for you.

*The King Of Swing- The Jazz Music Of Benny Goodman

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip OF Benny Goodman And His Band Performing "Sing, Sing, Sing".

CD Review

Benny Goodman: Gold Collection, Benny Goodman and various side men, Dejavu, 1992

Musically, I am a blues man. I am informed, malformed, deformed, reformed by the blues. Then I am a rock man. And a folk man, in all its variants. So where doe that lead me into an exposition of jazz that I have recently started to write more about in this space. Well, let’s just call it an extension of the blues (not hard to do by the way). I mentioned in a recent review of the work of jazz singer Mildred Bailey that the clearest example of that is Lady Day, Billie Holiday. I noted there, that, yes, I know that she was a jazz singer extraordinaire. But, the way she swept my blues away when I was down in the dumps sure makes me think she was the queen of the blues (Bessie Smith being, of course, outlandishly the “Empress” ). I would further note in the category of male bandleaders (that is, after all, what jazz was about back in the days, bands) Duke Ellington’s work has a similar status.

Taking this idea once more as my theme all of this is by a very round about way of bringing the jazz band leader under review, Benny Goodman into the picture. Duke Ellington set the standard in the 1940’s for the phrasing of a jazz piece, for the mix of instruments, for the hush that signaled a new direction to the piece, for the … well, underlying sense of what was going on. As I expressed elsewhere, for that something unsayable but certainly knowable when the music is done right. Benny Goodman, although I believe more into the commercial showmanship of the music than Ellington and others like Chick Correa (who will be highlighted here later) had that in spots. But Benny had that something different, consciously so. He made his work jump to the swing that would get even a tongue-tied, doubled-jointed clod like this review up and dancing. That, my friends, is no mean trick.

I believe that Benny Goodman had two good stretches. One when he had the singer Peggy Lee fronting for his big band. And as highlighted here when he worked (and according to the memories of those who worked under him, worked them hard) small groups that demonstrated that swing could be done in that small combo, if you just had the right personnel. Proof here? “St. Louis Blues”. “Chloe” (Christ, even the name gives the swing sound sense of it). “One O’Clock Jump”. How’s that. If you need more, believe me there are more here and on other Goodman CD’s. No wonder Hitler, according to some memoirs of Hamburg youth that were made into a movie, wanted his work banned. Swing On...

*The King Of Swing- The Small Group Jazz Music Of Benny Goodman

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Benny Goodman's Band Performing A Swing Medley.

CD Review

Benny Goodman: Small Groups: 1941-1945, Benny Goodman and various side men, Columbia Records, 1989

Musically, I am a blues man. I am informed, malformed, deformed, reformed by the blues. Then I am a rock man. And a folk man, in all its variants. So where doe that lead me into an exposition of jazz that I have recently started to write more about in this space. Well, let’s just call it an extension of the blues (not hard to do by the way). I mentioned in a recent review of the work of jazz singer Mildred Bailey that the clearest example of that is Lady Day, Billie Holiday. I noted there, that, yes, I know that she was a jazz singer extraordinaire. But, the way she swept my blues away when I was down in the dumps sure makes me think she was the queen of the blues (Bessie Smith being, of course, outlandishly the “Empress” ). I would further note in the category of male bandleaders (that is, after all, what jazz was about back in the days, bands) Duke Ellington’s work has a similar status.

Taking this idea once more as my theme all of this is by a very round about way of bringing the jazz band leader under review, Benny Goodman into the picture. Duke Ellington set the standard in the 1940’s for the phrasing of a jazz piece, for the mix of instruments, for the hush that signaled a new direction to the piece, for the … well, underlying sense of what was going on. As I expressed elsewhere, for that something unsayable but certainly knowable when the music is done right. Benny Goodman, although I believe more into the commercial showmanship of the music than Ellington and others like Chick Correa (who will be highlighted here later) had that in spots. But Benny had that something different, consciously so. He made his work jump to the swing that would get even a tongue-tied, doubled-jointed clod like this review up and dancing. That, my friends, is no mean trick.

I believe that Benny Goodman had two good stretches. One when he had the singer Peggy Lee fronting for his big band. And as highlighted here when he worked (and according to the memories of those who worked under him, worked them hard) small groups that demonstrated that swing could be done in that small combo, if you just had the right personnel. Proof here? "If I Had You", a hot "Blues In The Night", always the "St. Louis Blues" and two versions of "Body And Soul" Case closed, except.. Swing On.

*That Other Musician From The Hills Of Oklahoma-The Music Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys- “Fiddlin’ Man”

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys performing "Sitting On Top Of The World"

DVD Review

Fiddlin’ Man: The Life And Times OF Bob Wills, Bob Wills and various artists who played with him under the name Texas Playboys, VIEW Video, 1996

I have spent an inordinate amount of time in this space reviewing the work of that quintessential product of the hills of Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie. And that has been appropriate in my long time search for the roots of American music, if for no other reason than, his decisive influence on such later folk revivalists as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan (to speak nothing of son, Arlo Guthrie). But those Oklahoma hills (and Texas) also produced in an almost contemporary time frame a very different kind of roots music, western swing, that will always be associated with the name Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. I may, personally be more at home with the 1930s city-driven swing music of Mr. Benny Goodman but only a complete fool would deny Bob Wills his place as a seminal influence in American roots music. This hour long musical documentary gives a rough biographic sketch of that career, and along the way some toe-tapping footage of Bob Wills and his various Texas Playboy configurations doing their swing music.

To set the tone for the DVD I post a paragraph from an entry that reviewed one of Bob Wills CD compilations:

“Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.”

Bob Wills was, like Woody, a product of the dirt poor Greta Depression-era who latched onto the idea of mixing up a whole bunch of genres of music including what today is called Tex-Mex (or Tejan) , a whole bunch of instruments, and an uncanny sense of which way the rhythm trends were heading. Some country, some jazz, some city swing, a little mountain and, as always in early American recorded music, some kind of blues those are the influences heard in this film from cowboys movie songs to square dance type tunes to love ballads. And all, as the interviewees here, including various ex-band members, make clear led by the charismatic and demanding Wills.


If you are not interested in the Wills story though you must watch this film for the vintage footage of Wills and the boys (women are, as far as I could tell, used only for backup singing) on locale in Hollywood as background to the ubiquitous cowboy movies that many of us older devotees cut our teeth on watching (or watching the television re-runs). As well, here you will see and hear the Western swing treatment of the classic “San Antone Rose”, “Sitting On Top Of The World” , “Milk Cow Blues”, and the signature “Take Me Back To Tulsa”. See, even I know it was not only about Woody back in the days.

Note: I would point out that while Bob Wills, over a long career spanning almost half a century, is truly identified as the originator of western swing he was not the only “hot” swing man of the period. An argument can be made and has, by folk singer Geoff Muldaur, that the work of Wills contemporary Milton Brown whose career was cut short by his death in an automobile accident, was perhaps better than Wills’ during that period. I have heard some of Brown’s work. I would say the jury is still out on this question.


Bob Wills, San Antonio Rose Tabs/Chords

F7 F+ Bb
A song of old San An - tone.
Bb7 Eb C7
Where in dreams I live with a memory,
F7 Bb
Beneath the stars all alone.
Bb7Eb C7
It was there I found beside the Alamo
F7 Bb
Enchantment strange as the blue up above.
Bb7 Eb C7
A moonlit pass only she would know,
F7 Bb
Still hears my broken song of love.
F Fdim C7 F C7 Abm C9
Moon in all your splendor, know only my heart
C Abm C9 F
Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone.
Fdim F C7 F C C9
Lips so sweet and tender, like petals falling apart.
C Abm C9 F F7
Speak once a - gain of my love, my own.
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 F+ Bb
Broken song, empty words I know still live in my heart all a - lone
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 Bb
For that moonlit pass by the Alamo, and Rose, my Rose of San Antone.

*That Other Musician From The Hills Of Oklahoma-The Music Of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys-“Still Swingin’”

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys performing "Take Me Back To Tulsa".

DVD Review

Still Swingin’: 100th Anniversary Special Edition: Bob Wills, , hosted by Red Steagall with various artists, VCI, 1994

The first two paragraphs of this review have been used in reviews of other Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys material.

I have spent an inordinate amount of time in this space reviewing the work of that quintessential product of the hills of Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie. And that has been appropriate in my long time search for the roots of American music, if for no other reason than, his decisive influence on such later folk revivalists as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan (to speak nothing of son, Arlo Guthrie). But those Oklahoma hills (and Texas) also produced in an almost contemporary time frame a very different kind of roots music, western swing, that will always be associated with the name Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. I may, personally be more at home with the 1930s city-driven swing music of Mr. Benny Goodman but only a complete fool would deny Bob Wills his place as a seminal influence in American roots music. This hour long musical documentary gives a rough biographic sketch of that career, some toe-tapping footage of Bob Wills and his various Texas Playboy configurations doing their swing music, and unlike another Wills documentary, “Fiddlin’ Man”, that I have reviewed in this space spends some time on his influence on later artists and later covers by the likes of Tracy Bird and Asleep At The Wheel who carry on the tradition as best they can.

To set the tone for the DVD I post a paragraph from an entry that reviewed one of Bob Wills CD compilations:

“Every once in a while I like a little change of pace from my main folk/rock/mountain music interest. Usually, that entails getting out the old jazz classics like Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman. However, every so often it also includes getting up a little dust with old Bob Wills. His countrified swing from the heyday of that genre is a pleasant surprise taken in small doses. Remember not everyone who needed to swing in order to drive away those Great Depression and World War II blues was in the city. Wills played around with and adapted the swing idea to that rural Saturday night barn dance milieu. From ballads like "Right or Wrong" to stompers like "Sugar Blues" to the haunting "Lone Star Rag" you get a good beginner mix with this album. That is as far as I am willing to take you. If you need more then you are on your own.”


Bob Wills was, like Woody, a product of the dirt poor Great Depression-era who latched onto the idea of mixing up a whole bunch of genres of music including what today is called Tex-Mex (or Tejan) , a whole bunch of instruments, and an uncanny sense of which way the rhythm trends were heading. Some country, some jazz, some city swing, a little mountain and, as always in early American recorded music, some kind of blues those are the influences heard in this film from cowboys movie songs to square dance type tunes to love ballads. And all, as the interviewees here, including various ex-band members, make clear led by the charismatic and demanding Wills.

If you are not interested in the Wills story though you must watch this film for the vintage footage of Wills and the boys (women are, as far as I could tell, used only for backup singing) on locale in Hollywood as background to the ubiquitous cowboy movies that many of us older devotees cut our teeth on watching (or watching the television re-runs). As well, here you will see and hear the Western swing treatment of the classic “San Antonio Rose”, “Sitting On Top Of The World” , “Milk Cow Blues”, and the signature “Take Me Back To Tulsa”. See, even I know it was not only about Woody back in the days.

Note: I would point out that while Bob Wills, over a long career spanning almost half a century, is truly identified as the originator of western swing although he was not the only “hot” swing man of the period. An argument can be made and has, by folk singer Geoff Muldaur, that the work of Wills contemporary Milton Brown whose career was cut short by his death in an automobile accident, was perhaps better than Wills’ during that period. I have heard some of Brown’s work. I would say the jury is still out on this question.


Bob Wills, San Antonio Rose Tabs/Chords


F7 F+ Bb
A song of old San An - tone.
Bb7 Eb C7
Where in dreams I live with a memory,
F7 Bb
Beneath the stars all alone.
Bb7Eb C7
It was there I found beside the Alamo
F7 Bb
Enchantment strange as the blue up above.
Bb7 Eb C7
A moonlit pass only she would know,
F7 Bb
Still hears my broken song of love.
F Fdim C7 F C7 Abm C9
Moon in all your splendor, know only my heart
C Abm C9 F
Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone.
Fdim F C7 F C C9
Lips so sweet and tender, like petals falling apart.
C Abm C9 F F7
Speak once a - gain of my love, my own.
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 F+ Bb
Broken song, empty words I know still live in my heart all a - lone
Bb Bb7 Eb C7 F7 Bb
For that moonlit pass by the Alamo, and Rose, my Rose of San Antone.

Tidings From The "Good" War

DVD REVIEW

Stage Door Canteen, All-star cast, black and white,1943

War propaganda comes in all forms, from harsh gung-ho chauvinist to the melodramatic. This film is in the melodramatic form of a patriotic homage to what is now called in the mass media, at least, the "greatest generation", my parents generation during World War II. Here we have a thin story line about three GI's landing at New York's famous Stage Door Canteen to be feted, wined and dined by the toast of the international entertainment world, including Benny Goodman, Peggy Lee, Ray Bolger (doing a great dance routine), Gypsy Rose Lee, etc. Plus there is a little off-hand romance between the boys and the off-limits hostesses. But love will out in the end.

The dialogue, is to say the least to the modern ear, stilted. I assume, however, that it got its job done by boosting morale on the home front letting one shed a little tear for the boys going off to fight the enemies of the day. If you wanted to know what moved you in your youth or that of your parents or grandparents- what made you or them laugh, cry, sing and dance- then here is a slice of that for you.

Note:I do not usually comment on technical quality of films but, given war rationing, the film seems, well filmy, and somewhat out of focus.