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 Don’t Mean A Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing-Out In The Be-Bop 1930s Swing Night

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

“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 LaCroix over the hum of the machine that she was tending at the MacAdams Textile Mill over on Main Street (really U.S. Route One but everybody called it Main Street and called it that even to strangers looking for directions to Kennebunkport or going north up Portland way). Betty, too proud, too female acting like a female quiet proud, to yell back over the drone of her own tended machine, just gave a gleeful nod. “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 Olde Saco. Once again Betty nodded, although not gleefully this time. Not gleefully at all.

The cause of that non-glee was, well, boy trouble, really man trouble. Seems that Betty had had her fifteenth, no sixteenth, fight and never make-up with Delores’ brother Jean. And whether the year is 1039, 1539, or like now 1939 the issue, to put it delicately, was sex. Or 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 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 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.

But back to Betty and Jean. Back right away because here he comes 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 war going n, 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. And did so, did spend those hours of work to Jean’s intense displeasure when he needed to attend to his own toilet. There he lays this great scheme on one Betty LaCroix. 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 got her almost in the mood to “do the do.” She 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 here. Delores also though Betty was not going to be able to withstand two nights of Benny swing and Jean ardor. But, damn, that’s her problem. I wonder if Jean Jacques LaCroix (yes, Betty’s brother) is going?

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.

*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

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.