Benny Goodman earned the nickname “The King of Swing” by becoming the first widely acclaimed orchestra leader of the Swing Era. An expert clarinetist, his singular style supplied a recognizable character to both his large ensemble and the smaller groups he directed at the same time. Emerging as the dominant personality during the Swing Era’s opening years in the 1930s, he remained active on stage until his death half a century afterward.
Born to Russian immigrants David Goodman, a tailor, and Dora Rezinsky Goodman, the future bandleader began clarinet instruction at age ten inside a synagogue before entering the ensemble at Hull House settlement. He turned professional at twelve, left high school at fourteen to pursue music full time, and at sixteen joined Ben Pollack’s orchestra in August 1925. With that group he cut his initial commercial recordings in December 1926; his debut sides issued under his own name followed in January 1928. Departing Pollack in September 1929 at age twenty, he relocated to New York and supported himself through studio dates, radio broadcasts, and Broadway pit work while also leading occasional pickup bands. His first chart entry arrived in January 1931 with “He’s Not Worth Your Tears,” sung by Scrappy Lambert, on Melotone.
Signing with Columbia Records in late 1933, Goodman placed three titles in the Top Ten by early 1934—“Ain’t Cha Glad?” featuring Jack Teagarden, “Riffin’ the Scotch” with Billie Holiday, and “Ol’ Pappy” spotlighting Mildred Bailey—then added “I Ain’t Lazy, I’m Just Dreamin’” again with Teagarden in the spring. These successes, together with an engagement at Billy Rose’s Music Hall, prompted him to form a permanent orchestra that debuted on 1 June 1934. The instrumental “Moon Glow” reached number one that July; two further Top Ten instrumentals, “Take My Word” and “Bugle Call Rag,” followed in the autumn. After a four-and-a-half-month Music Hall run he joined NBC’s Saturday-night Let’s Dance program for its final hour. During the six months he remained on the show he tallied six additional Columbia Top Ten hits before moving to RCA Victor, where five more reached the upper tier before year’s end.
Leaving the radio series, Goodman launched a national tour in mid-1935 that gained momentum only after reaching the West Coast, where listeners had heard his broadcasts three hours earlier than Eastern audiences. His 21 August appearance at the Palomar Ballroom outside Los Angeles proved a triumph and is widely cited as the evening the Swing Era commenced. He next began a six-month stay at Chicago’s Congress Hotel in November. Fifteen Top Ten hits arrived in 1936, among them the number-one vocal records “It’s Been So Long,” “Goody-Goody,” “The Glory of Love,” “These Foolish Things Remind Me of You,” and “You Turned the Tables on Me,” all sung by Helen Ward. Goodman simultaneously hosted The Camel Caravan, which continued until December 1939, and the band made its screen debut in October 1936 with The Big Broadcast of 1937. That same month he opened an engagement at New York’s Pennsylvania Hotel.
His next chart-topper, featuring Ella Fitzgerald and new trumpeter Harry James, appeared in February 1937; five additional Top Ten entries followed that year, including the number-one “This Year’s Kisses” sung by Margaret McCrae. The orchestra returned to the screen in December with Hollywood Hotel. Goodman’s greatest 1930s milestone occurred on 16 January 1938 with a landmark Carnegie Hall concert, yet he still collected fourteen more Top Ten sides that year, among them the instrumentals “Don’t Be That Way” and the Grammy Hall of Fame inductee “Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing),” plus the vocal “I Let a Song Go out of My Heart” by Martha Tilton.
By 1939 several key soloists, including Gene Krupa and Harry James, had departed to lead their own bands, and Goodman confronted rising competition from Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller. Nevertheless he secured eight additional Top Ten placements, among them the chart-topping “And the Angels Sing” with Martha Tilton, later enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame. He rejoined Columbia that autumn and, in November, led a sextet in the brief Broadway production Swingin’ the Dream. The engagement yielded “Darn That Dream,” sung by Mildred Bailey, which reached number one in March 1940. Illness curtailed further activity; after two more Top Ten records he disbanded temporarily in July for slipped-disk surgery and reorganized only in October. Two Top Ten hits appeared in 1941, one of them the chart-topping “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” featuring Louise Tobin, and Goodman resumed radio work. Three more Top Ten entries arrived in 1942, including the number ones “Somebody Else Is Taking My Place” with Peggy Lee and the instrumental “Jersey Bounce,” plus a screen appearance in Syncopation.
U.S. entry into World War II and the American Federation of Musicians recording ban of August 1942 complicated matters for every performer. Goodman nevertheless placed a pair of Top Ten sides from pre-ban material, among them the number-one “Taking a Chance on Love” with Helen Forrest, in 1943 while also filming The Powers Girl, Stage Door Canteen, and The Gang’s All Here. He dissolved the orchestra in March 1944, appeared in Sweet and Low-Down that September, and performed with a quintet in the Broadway revue Seven Lively Arts, which ran 182 performances after its 7 December opening. Once the musicians’ strike ended he returned to the studio; the compilation Hot Jazz reached the Top Ten on the new album charts in April 1945. Re-forming the big band, he scored three further Top Ten singles that year, among them the near-number-one “Gotta Be This or That” sung by Goodman himself. “Symphony,” featuring Liza Morrow, nearly topped the charts early in 1946, and the Benny Goodman Sextet Session album hit number one in May. Goodman hosted a radio series with Victor Borge during 1946–47, switched to Capitol Records, and appeared in the 1948 film A Song Is Born while briefly exploring bebop. The big band disbanded once more in December 1949, although he continued assembling ensembles for tours and sessions.
Even as mainstream tastes shifted after 1950, audiences remained devoted to Goodman’s classic repertoire. Columbia released a 1938 Carnegie Hall concert recording in November 1950 as Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert, Vols. 1 & 2; the set spent a year on the charts, became the best-selling jazz album to date, and later entered the Grammy Hall of Fame. Its 1952 follow-up, Benny Goodman 1937–1938: Jazz Concert No. 2, reached number one in December. The advent of the 12-inch LP prompted Goodman to re-record signature pieces for the Capitol album B.G. in Hi-Fi, a Top Ten entry in March 1955. A year later the soundtrack to his film biography The Benny Goodman Story, in which Steve Allen portrayed him while he supplied the clarinet tracks, also reached the Top Ten.
Following Far East tours in 1956–57, Goodman increasingly performed abroad. His 1962 Soviet visit produced the charting album Benny Goodman in Moscow. In 1963 RCA Victor reunited the original 1930s Benny Goodman Quartet—Goodman, Krupa, Teddy Wilson, and Lionel Hampton—resulting in the 1964 chart album Together Again! Recording slowed in later decades, yet Benny Goodman Today, captured live in Stockholm, charted in 1971. His final release before dying of a heart attack at seventy-seven was the Grammy-nominated television soundtrack Let’s Dance.
Goodman’s long career and especially his 1930s and 1940s successes generated a vast discography. Core material resides on Columbia and RCA Victor, while Music Masters has issued archival selections from his personal holdings and numerous smaller labels have released broadcast recordings. These performances continue to showcase his exceptional gifts both as soloist and as director.
