*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.

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.