Benny Goodman - King Of Swing

One of the finest clarinet players in the world, Goodman practised his art at the highest levels in both jazz and classical music. He was a bandleader who strove for, and achieved, perfection through tireless rehearsals of the jazz ensembles he created over the decades. He was also a complex man, prone to unpredictability, who overcame an impoverished upbringing and the early death of his father to become 'The King Of Swing.

Benny's story begins in Chicago, 100 years ago on 30 May 1909, where the Goodman family lived in the Maxwell Street ghetto. There wasn't enough work to sustain Benny's father in his original trade as a tailor but he saw an opportunity for his children and, at the age of 10, Benny was enrolled for music lessons at the local synagogue. What happened then was remarkable. Benny practised all the time and, in a matter of 8 or 9 years, he progressed to being one of the best clarinettists anywhere.

He was hired by the drummer and bandleader Ben Pollack and his first official recording, When I First Met Mary, was made with Pollack's band on 9th December 1926. Tragically, that same evening, Benny's father was struck by an automobile when alighting from a Chicago streetcar. His skull was fractured, and he died the next day.

Benny became the family's chief breadwinner at the age of 17 but through this emotional crisis, he carried on building a local reputation. When he was still in his teens, before anybody knew him outside of Chicago, the Melrose company published a collection of Goodman exercises. The only instrumentalist they'd ever published that way before was Louis Armstrong.

Episode one takes us up to 1928, as Benny is about to leave for New York, and is interspersed with his music. This includes a seldom-heard recording of Five Foot Two, the first opportunity to hear Benny himself, which was made privately in the kitchen of his friend Earl Baker.

The series features brand new interviews with jazz critic Gary Giddins; Prof. Dan Morgenstern (of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University); clarinettist and saxophonist Ken Peplowski; Loren Schoenberg (of the Jazz Museum in Harlem); singer Louise Tobin; Sir John Dankworth and writer John Hancock.

There are also rare archive contributions from Benny Goodman himself; Peggy Lee; Buddy Greco; his daughter Rachel Goodman; boyhood friend Jim Maher; biographer Ross Firestone; record executives John Hammond; bandleaders Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton; and the musicians Bob Wilber, Jerry Jerome, Louis Bellson, Nick Fatool, Jimmy Maxwell; Milt Bernhart and singer Helen Forrest.

This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2009, to mark Benny's centenary year.

Curtis Stigers remembers clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman in his centenary year.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

One of the finest clarinet players in the world, Goodman practised his art at the highest levels in both jazz and classical music. He was a bandleader who strove for, and achieved, perfection through tireless rehearsals of the jazz ensembles he created over the decades. He was also a complex man, prone to unpredictability, who overcame an impoverished upbringing and the early death of his father to become 'The King Of Swing.

Benny's story begins in Chicago, 100 years ago on 30 May 1909, where the Goodman family lived in the Maxwell Street ghetto. There wasn't enough work to sustain Benny's father in his original trade as a tailor but he saw an opportunity for his children and, at the age of 10, Benny was enrolled for music lessons at the local synagogue. What happened then was remarkable. Benny practised all the time and, in a matter of 8 or 9 years, he progressed to being one of the best clarinettists anywhere.

He was hired by the drummer and bandleader Ben Pollack and his first official recording, When I First Met Mary, was made with Pollack's band on 9th December 1926. Tragically, that same evening, Benny's father was struck by an automobile when alighting from a Chicago streetcar. His skull was fractured, and he died the next day.

Benny became the family's chief breadwinner at the age of 17 but through this emotional crisis, he carried on building a local reputation. When he was still in his teens, before anybody knew him outside of Chicago, the Melrose company published a collection of Goodman exercises. The only instrumentalist they'd ever published that way before was Louis Armstrong.

Episode one takes us up to 1928, as Benny is about to leave for New York, and is interspersed with his music. This includes a seldom-heard recording of Five Foot Two, the first opportunity to hear Benny himself, which was made privately in the kitchen of his friend Earl Baker.

The series features brand new interviews with jazz critic Gary Giddins; Prof. Dan Morgenstern (of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University); clarinettist and saxophonist Ken Peplowski; Loren Schoenberg (of the Jazz Museum in Harlem); singer Louise Tobin; Sir John Dankworth and writer John Hancock.

There are also rare archive contributions from Benny Goodman himself; Peggy Lee; Buddy Greco; his daughter Rachel Goodman; boyhood friend Jim Maher; biographer Ross Firestone; record executives John Hammond; bandleaders Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton; and the musicians Bob Wilber, Jerry Jerome, Louis Bellson, Nick Fatool, Jimmy Maxwell; Milt Bernhart and singer Helen Forrest.

This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2009, to mark Benny's centenary year.

Curtis Stigers remembers clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman in his centenary year.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

Curtis Stigers remembers the clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman.

One of the finest clarinet players in the world, Goodman practised his art at the highest levels in both jazz and classical music. He was a bandleader who strove for, and achieved, perfection through tireless rehearsals of the jazz ensembles he created over the decades. He was also a complex man, prone to unpredictability, who overcame an impoverished upbringing and the early death of his father to become 'The King Of Swing.

Benny's story begins in Chicago, 100 years ago on 30 May 1909, where the Goodman family lived in the Maxwell Street ghetto. There wasn't enough work to sustain Benny's father in his original trade as a tailor but he saw an opportunity for his children and, at the age of 10, Benny was enrolled for music lessons at the local synagogue. What happened then was remarkable. Benny practised all the time and, in a matter of 8 or 9 years, he progressed to being one of the best clarinettists anywhere.

He was hired by the drummer and bandleader Ben Pollack and his first official recording, When I First Met Mary, was made with Pollack's band on 9th December 1926. Tragically, that same evening, Benny's father was struck by an automobile when alighting from a Chicago streetcar. His skull was fractured, and he died the next day.

Benny became the family's chief breadwinner at the age of 17 but through this emotional crisis, he carried on building a local reputation. When he was still in his teens, before anybody knew him outside of Chicago, the Melrose company published a collection of Goodman exercises. The only instrumentalist they'd ever published that way before was Louis Armstrong.

Episode one takes us up to 1928, as Benny is about to leave for New York, and is interspersed with his music. This includes a seldom-heard recording of Five Foot Two, the first opportunity to hear Benny himself, which was made privately in the kitchen of his friend Earl Baker.

The series features brand new interviews with jazz critic Gary Giddins; Prof. Dan Morgenstern (of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University); clarinettist and saxophonist Ken Peplowski; Loren Schoenberg (of the Jazz Museum in Harlem); singer Louise Tobin; Sir John Dankworth and writer John Hancock.

There are also rare archive contributions from Benny Goodman himself; Peggy Lee; Buddy Greco; his daughter Rachel Goodman; boyhood friend Jim Maher; biographer Ross Firestone; record executives John Hammond; bandleaders Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton; and the musicians Bob Wilber, Jerry Jerome, Louis Bellson, Nick Fatool, Jimmy Maxwell; Milt Bernhart and singer Helen Forrest.

This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2009, to mark Benny's centenary year.

Curtis Stigers remembers clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman in his centenary year.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

The second episode begins in 1928, when Benny left for New York as a member of the Ben Pollack band. When the work dried up, Pollack and his band retreated to Chicago but Benny was soon back in New York. Constantly in demand for a whole variety of recording sessions, from jazz to vaudeville, Benny worked with Red Nichols, the great trombonist Jack Teagarden, and played in several Broadway shows including the Gershwin Brothers' Strike Up the Band.

His first regular band took up a residency at Billy Rose's Music Hall, before winning a spot on a new radio show called Let's Dance. The band now featured exciting soloists, such as trumpeter Bunny Berigan and drummer Gene Krupa. A weekly show also called for a lot of music so Benny hired the arranger Fletcher Henderson, who set the style for the band. They started recording for the Victor company and their breakthrough record was Henderson's arrangement of the Jelly Roll Morton composition, King Porter Stomp.

Benny was a ferocious rehearser and the band got better and better. But when the radio series came to an end, Benny took the band on a cross-country tour to California. The tour was not a success - even his booking agent suggested they give up - but Benny was determined to see the tour through. When they opened at LA's Palomar Ballroom on 21 August 1935, a transformation occurred, and the swing era was born!

This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2009 and marked Benny's centenary year.

In 1928, Benny left for New York and soon began to thrive in the Big Apple.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

The second episode begins in 1928, when Benny left for New York as a member of the Ben Pollack band. When the work dried up, Pollack and his band retreated to Chicago but Benny was soon back in New York. Constantly in demand for a whole variety of recording sessions, from jazz to vaudeville, Benny worked with Red Nichols, the great trombonist Jack Teagarden, and played in several Broadway shows including the Gershwin Brothers' Strike Up the Band.

His first regular band took up a residency at Billy Rose's Music Hall, before winning a spot on a new radio show called Let's Dance. The band now featured exciting soloists, such as trumpeter Bunny Berigan and drummer Gene Krupa. A weekly show also called for a lot of music so Benny hired the arranger Fletcher Henderson, who set the style for the band. They started recording for the Victor company and their breakthrough record was Henderson's arrangement of the Jelly Roll Morton composition, King Porter Stomp.

Benny was a ferocious rehearser and the band got better and better. But when the radio series came to an end, Benny took the band on a cross-country tour to California. The tour was not a success - even his booking agent suggested they give up - but Benny was determined to see the tour through. When they opened at LA's Palomar Ballroom on 21 August 1935, a transformation occurred, and the swing era was born!

This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2009 and marked Benny's centenary year.

In 1928, Benny left for New York and soon began to thrive in the Big Apple.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

Curtis Stigers remembers the clarinettist, bandleader and 'King Of Swing' Benny Goodman.

The second episode begins in 1928, when Benny left for New York as a member of the Ben Pollack band. When the work dried up, Pollack and his band retreated to Chicago but Benny was soon back in New York. Constantly in demand for a whole variety of recording sessions, from jazz to vaudeville, Benny worked with Red Nichols, the great trombonist Jack Teagarden, and played in several Broadway shows including the Gershwin Brothers' Strike Up the Band.

His first regular band took up a residency at Billy Rose's Music Hall, before winning a spot on a new radio show called Let's Dance. The band now featured exciting soloists, such as trumpeter Bunny Berigan and drummer Gene Krupa. A weekly show also called for a lot of music so Benny hired the arranger Fletcher Henderson, who set the style for the band. They started recording for the Victor company and their breakthrough record was Henderson's arrangement of the Jelly Roll Morton composition, King Porter Stomp.

Benny was a ferocious rehearser and the band got better and better. But when the radio series came to an end, Benny took the band on a cross-country tour to California. The tour was not a success - even his booking agent suggested they give up - but Benny was determined to see the tour through. When they opened at LA's Palomar Ballroom on 21 August 1935, a transformation occurred, and the swing era was born!

This series first broadcast on Radio 2 in 2009 and marked Benny's centenary year.

In 1928, Benny left for New York and soon began to thrive in the Big Apple.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

In the third episode, from mid-1936, Benny's reputation has built quickly, on disc, in theatres and ballrooms, and on radio. The swing-band format was already fixed, certainly in Benny's mind: five brass, four saxes and rhythm, including his brother Harry on bass. A wonderful added attraction was his Trio, featuring Teddy Wilson on piano. His singer at the time was Helen Ward and Goodman started singing himself, and very well too, a feature that would continue throughout his commercial bandleading career. Then the vibraphone player and drummer Lionel Hampton enters the picture in California, and the Benny Goodman Quartet is born.

African-Americans in all branches of culture did feel 'advanced' by the fact that a smash-hit jazz group featured two black men. And Goodman's integration of popular music happened ten years before Jackie Robinson entered Major League Baseball. Lionel Hampton comments: 'Blacks would not play in any place on the stage and motion pictures, only job you ever saw them on the screen, they were required to be maids or butlers, but they weren't nobody in baseball, football. Benny Goodman Quartet was the front door for Jackie Robinson in the major league baseball, so it was just really a heaven-sent deal to have this great group together. And you know we all thick with each other, we all like to play with each other, we all love each other, we got along and we never had a bit of racial trouble because everybody was listening to this magnificent music'.

In 1938 Artie Shaw becomes more prominent with his hit recording of Begin The Beguine, a much bigger hit than anything Benny ever released, and Shaw and Goodman would remain rivals for years. Dan Morgenstern comments; 'you know he [Artie Shaw] was a hit maker and that I think caused Benny to be a little miffed'. Nevertheless, Benny was the more prolific recording artist, and his Carnegie Hall concert of 16 January 1938 remains one of the most famous musical events of the last century. There's long been a debate about who suggested it in the first place and we endeavour to find out more.

The series features brand new interviews with jazz critic Gary Giddins; Prof. Dan Morgenstern (of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University); clarinettist and saxophonist Ken Peplowski; Loren Schoenberg (of the Jazz Museum in Harlem); singer Louise Tobin; Sir John Dankworth and writer John Hancock. There are also rare archive contributions from Benny Goodman himself; Peggy Lee; Buddy Greco; his daughter Rachel Goodman; boyhood friend Jim Maher; biographer Ross Firestone; record executive John Hammond; bandleaders Artie Shaw, Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton; and the musicians Bob Wilber, Jerry Jerome, Louis Bellson, Nick Fatool, Jimmy Maxwell, Milt Bernhart and singer Helen Forrest.

By 1936, Benny's reputation built quickly as a smash-hit jazz group featured two black men

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

Johnny Mercer enters the picture as lyricist on the big Goodman hit, And Then Angels Sing, and becomes a regular on Goodman's Camel Caravan radio show. Star trumpeter Harry James departs to start his own band while his wife, Louise Tobin, becomes Benny's new girl singer. In a new interview, Louise remembers her days with Benny and the band, which included a travelling 'first'. The brilliant electric guitar pioneer Charlie Christian also joins the band after a rather unusual audition.

In 1940, Benny is suffering increasingly from back trouble and is forced to disband temporarily to undergo surgery. His great clarinet rival, Artie Shaw takes on a number of Benny's musicians and contributes some provocative thoughts on Goodman's approach to the clarinet and music. But Goodman reforms his band with a new recording contract and a new style, orchestrated by the young arranger Eddie Sauter.

Saxophonist Jerry Jerome remembers: 'I got Eddie to audition, so we started rehearsing and it sounded so bad. When you play a Sauter arrangement for the first time, you're playing clusters, you're playing harmony notes that are in conflict literally until it's rehearsed and blended. And the guys were furious with me for recommending him 'cos it sounded so bad'. After much rehearsal, it started to sound good and then terrific, as we hear in one of Sauter's great arrangements Benny Rides Again.

Trouble is brewing between Benny and his drummer Gene Krupa and within weeks, he is gone.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

Johnny Mercer enters the picture as lyricist on the big Goodman hit, And Then Angels Sing, and becomes a regular on Goodman's Camel Caravan radio show. Star trumpeter Harry James departs to start his own band while his wife, Louise Tobin, becomes Benny's new girl singer. In a new interview, Louise remembers her days with Benny and the band, which included a travelling 'first'. The brilliant electric guitar pioneer Charlie Christian also joins the band after a rather unusual audition.

In 1940, Benny is suffering increasingly from back trouble and is forced to disband temporarily to undergo surgery. His great clarinet rival, Artie Shaw takes on a number of Benny's musicians and contributes some provocative thoughts on Goodman's approach to the clarinet and music. But Goodman reforms his band with a new recording contract and a new style, orchestrated by the young arranger Eddie Sauter.

Saxophonist Jerry Jerome remembers: 'I got Eddie to audition, so we started rehearsing and it sounded so bad. When you play a Sauter arrangement for the first time, you're playing clusters, you're playing harmony notes that are in conflict literally until it's rehearsed and blended. And the guys were furious with me for recommending him 'cos it sounded so bad'. After much rehearsal, it started to sound good and then terrific, as we hear in one of Sauter's great arrangements Benny Rides Again.

Trouble is brewing between Benny and his drummer Gene Krupa and within weeks, he is gone.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

Curtis Stigers remembers the clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman in his centenary year. In the fourth episode, following his success at Carnegie Hall, trouble is brewing between Benny and his star drummer Gene Krupa and within weeks, he is gone. Krupa was a hard act to follow and his departure ushers in a period of change.

Johnny Mercer enters the picture as lyricist on the big Goodman hit, And Then Angels Sing, and becomes a regular on Goodman's Camel Caravan radio show. Star trumpeter Harry James departs to start his own band while his wife, Louise Tobin, becomes Benny's new girl singer. In a new interview, Louise remembers her days with Benny and the band, which included a travelling 'first'. The brilliant electric guitar pioneer Charlie Christian also joins the band after a rather unusual audition.

In 1940, Benny is suffering increasingly from back trouble and is forced to disband temporarily to undergo surgery. His great clarinet rival, Artie Shaw takes on a number of Benny's musicians and contributes some provocative thoughts on Goodman's approach to the clarinet and music. But Goodman reforms his band with a new recording contract and a new style, orchestrated by the young arranger Eddie Sauter.

Saxophonist Jerry Jerome remembers: 'I got Eddie to audition, so we started rehearsing and it sounded so bad. When you play a Sauter arrangement for the first time, you're playing clusters, you're playing harmony notes that are in conflict literally until it's rehearsed and blended. And the guys were furious with me for recommending him 'cos it sounded so bad'. After much rehearsal, it started to sound good and then terrific, as we hear in one of Sauter's great arrangements Benny Rides Again.

Trouble is brewing between Benny and his drummer Gene Krupa and within weeks, he is gone.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

The personnel changes continue and it isn't just musicians, but also vocalists who come and go. Helen Forrest is a particularly good singer but, despite making some great recordings with the band she doesn't enjoy her stay and, when she eventually quits the band, a young blonde by the name of Peggy Lee is given a try. She makes a very tentative start, but Benny, who was turning into a serial hirer-and-firer, for some reason shows a little patience.

By 1942 the World War reaches America. On 2nd March guitarist Charlie Christian, who's been ailing for some time, dies of tuberculosis at the age of only 25. The war leaves its mark on the Goodman family, with the death of Benny's younger brother Jerome. In the middle of all this, Benny himself (being still only 32), is called up for military service but he's disqualified by his chronic back condition. His wartime audiences remain huge and are further boosted when Peggy Lee comes good with the big hit, Why Don't You Do Right?

Benny and his band accompany Frank Sinatra in New York and Benny notices the signs that singers will take over and the big bands fade away. Benny is also by now a fairly well-established concert artist in the classical idiom and he confirms this by commissioning a trio called Contrasts from composer Bela Bartok.

His fans tolerate the classical excursions, but what they don't expect is for Benny to abandon swing music altogether. In the spring of 1944, with his band back at the top of all the major polls, he dissolves it; pleading a desire to be 'a family man' (his daughter Rachel had been born the year before).

When he reforms the band, Benny finds both the public and the critics turning against him and, with all the usual comings and goings of players, it's amazing that the post-war Benny Goodman Orchestra retains any sort of continuity. As modern jazz and singers overtake swing, it isn't easy to see where Benny will go next.

At the turn of the '40s, great musicians like Cootie Williams were playing in Benny's band

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

The personnel changes continue and it isn't just musicians, but also vocalists who come and go. Helen Forrest is a particularly good singer but, despite making some great recordings with the band she doesn't enjoy her stay and, when she eventually quits the band, a young blonde by the name of Peggy Lee is given a try. She makes a very tentative start, but Benny, who was turning into a serial hirer-and-firer, for some reason shows a little patience.

By 1942 the World War reaches America. On 2nd March guitarist Charlie Christian, who's been ailing for some time, dies of tuberculosis at the age of only 25. The war leaves its mark on the Goodman family, with the death of Benny's younger brother Jerome. In the middle of all this, Benny himself (being still only 32), is called up for military service but he's disqualified by his chronic back condition. His wartime audiences remain huge and are further boosted when Peggy Lee comes good with the big hit, Why Don't You Do Right?

Benny and his band accompany Frank Sinatra in New York and Benny notices the signs that singers will take over and the big bands fade away. Benny is also by now a fairly well-established concert artist in the classical idiom and he confirms this by commissioning a trio called Contrasts from composer Bela Bartok.

His fans tolerate the classical excursions, but what they don't expect is for Benny to abandon swing music altogether. In the spring of 1944, with his band back at the top of all the major polls, he dissolves it; pleading a desire to be 'a family man' (his daughter Rachel had been born the year before).

When he reforms the band, Benny finds both the public and the critics turning against him and, with all the usual comings and goings of players, it's amazing that the post-war Benny Goodman Orchestra retains any sort of continuity. As modern jazz and singers overtake swing, it isn't easy to see where Benny will go next.

At the turn of the '40s, great musicians like Cootie Williams were playing in Benny's band

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

Curtis Stigers remembers the clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman. Episode five picks up the story at the turn of the 40s, when great musicians like trumpeter Cootie Williams are playing in Benny Goodman's band.

The personnel changes continue and it isn't just musicians, but also vocalists who come and go. Helen Forrest is a particularly good singer but, despite making some great recordings with the band she doesn't enjoy her stay and, when she eventually quits the band, a young blonde by the name of Peggy Lee is given a try. She makes a very tentative start, but Benny, who was turning into a serial hirer-and-firer, for some reason shows a little patience.

By 1942 the World War reaches America. On 2nd March guitarist Charlie Christian, who's been ailing for some time, dies of tuberculosis at the age of only 25. The war leaves its mark on the Goodman family, with the death of Benny's younger brother Jerome. In the middle of all this, Benny himself (being still only 32), is called up for military service but he's disqualified by his chronic back condition. His wartime audiences remain huge and are further boosted when Peggy Lee comes good with the big hit, Why Don't You Do Right?

Benny and his band accompany Frank Sinatra in New York and Benny notices the signs that singers will take over and the big bands fade away. Benny is also by now a fairly well-established concert artist in the classical idiom and he confirms this by commissioning a trio called Contrasts from composer Bela Bartok.

His fans tolerate the classical excursions, but what they don't expect is for Benny to abandon swing music altogether. In the spring of 1944, with his band back at the top of all the major polls, he dissolves it; pleading a desire to be 'a family man' (his daughter Rachel had been born the year before).

When he reforms the band, Benny finds both the public and the critics turning against him and, with all the usual comings and goings of players, it's amazing that the post-war Benny Goodman Orchestra retains any sort of continuity. As modern jazz and singers overtake swing, it isn't easy to see where Benny will go next.

At the turn of the '40s, great musicians like Cootie Williams were playing in Benny's band

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

In the final episode, we've reached the late 40s and the big band business in America is in decline. There are real tensions among the bandleaders, which come to a head on a Hollywood film-stage when Benny Goodman actually trades punches with one of his more traditional rivals, Tommy Dorsey.

The bandleaders are all under economic pressure but Benny wrestles with the new style, bebop, and the idea of modernism in general. He starts his own bebop band, with exciting young players and arrangers including Wardell Gray, and studies a different playing technique with the English clarinettist Reginald Kell. But his heart isn't in it and everybody keeps leading him back into the past, including Alan Livingston at Capitol Records.

Nevertheless Benny's drive to play and lead bands sustains his career through to the 80s and he continues to play until his death on Friday 13 June 1986 at the age of 77.

By the late 1940s, the big band business in America is in decline.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

In the final episode, we've reached the late 40s and the big band business in America is in decline. There are real tensions among the bandleaders, which come to a head on a Hollywood film-stage when Benny Goodman actually trades punches with one of his more traditional rivals, Tommy Dorsey.

The bandleaders are all under economic pressure but Benny wrestles with the new style, bebop, and the idea of modernism in general. He starts his own bebop band, with exciting young players and arrangers including Wardell Gray, and studies a different playing technique with the English clarinettist Reginald Kell. But his heart isn't in it and everybody keeps leading him back into the past, including Alan Livingston at Capitol Records.

Nevertheless Benny's drive to play and lead bands sustains his career through to the 80s and he continues to play until his death on Friday 13 June 1986 at the age of 77.

By the late 1940s, the big band business in America is in decline.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman

Curtis Stigers remembers the clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman in his centenary year.

In the final episode, we've reached the late 40s and the big band business in America is in decline. There are real tensions among the bandleaders, which come to a head on a Hollywood film-stage when Benny Goodman actually trades punches with one of his more traditional rivals, Tommy Dorsey.

The bandleaders are all under economic pressure but Benny wrestles with the new style, bebop, and the idea of modernism in general. He starts his own bebop band, with exciting young players and arrangers including Wardell Gray, and studies a different playing technique with the English clarinettist Reginald Kell. But his heart isn't in it and everybody keeps leading him back into the past, including Alan Livingston at Capitol Records.

Nevertheless Benny's drive to play and lead bands sustains his career through to the 80s and he continues to play until his death on Friday 13 June 1986 at the age of 77.

By the late 1940s, the big band business in America is in decline.

Curtis Stigers celebrates the life and music of clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman