
Speaker Now, Frances, rebop Biba. That’s the first hole in one of the first things they did, you know. It’s called. Well, it’s it was whispering da da da da da da da da da.
Speaker You know, but the one the two nay road says be bop.
Speaker Be bop. That’s where it comes from.
Speaker Tell me about when you were a kid. You had many on the radio.
Speaker He said me well, haven’t seen him in the movies in that great big broadcast.
Speaker Let’s try to get him.
Speaker We don’t know, like the first time that Benny made an impression on me was in the movies and.
Speaker You know, bar mitzvah time.
Speaker And I think it was called the big broadcast of 1938. And then shortly thereafter, the band was making a big hit and they were broadcasting radio remotes from where the band was playing. Every night we could get the biggest bands and listen, you know, and it just roped us in, you know, so we were doing the same thing. You know, we were playing. Yeah. We had bands that met in the back of stores, you know, somebodies basement, somebodies garage. You know, late Sunday afternoons.
Speaker Always doing that.
Speaker And what was always special is his play.
Speaker I’ll tell you. Well, he was the he was a very great clarinet player with jazz, which was, you know, that was that was my meat. You know. And he was a amet, whether they call it a perfectionist. He tried to play perfectly, you know, and he played every day till he died. He’s up. He was obsessed.
Speaker And on the clarinet, you really have to be heard.
Speaker It’s tough to describe when you were when you were a kid and you told me you had a Victrola, and that is represented by faxing yourself.
Speaker I read it’s funny and it’s said I took months to take off his solos from the recordings because I used the RCA Victrola, which was a Wind-Up spring operated phonograph, and it would slow down and get flat, you know. And so, you know, everything started and stopped and the tones got ringing. In my years, I would be crazy. You know, I’d take months to really get a good transcription.
Speaker And you you were playing clarinet then? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tell me about it.
Speaker Well, I started with the violin, and by the time I got to high school, I was playing clarinet and the saxophone and.
Speaker Had parted company with the violin. And the flute telemetric, then joining good friend Guy Pops, you guys are buddies.
Speaker Oh, this is a story. Yeah, I remember telling somebody that story and how we actually met was because Popsy was a good friend of mine. And when Benny was talking about starting up a new band, perhaps he got this brilliant idea. Called me on the phone. He said, listen, those guys that you always play with, you know, in the rehearsals, he says, get them, get them together and come and play an audition for Benny. And it’s true, we auditioned this one day and we all got hired the same day. That’s lucky, too.
Speaker What was it like? What do you do?
Speaker Well, it was just the saxophones and Benny. And. He he brought out between the devil and the deep blue sea and my old flame. Traditional hits, big hits, and we played the stomp, you know. Saveloy, the stompin at the Savoy. You know, traditional things and. We’d work on a few pieces and then he’d change the subject. You know? But. He’s got an idea, and the idea was strong enough so that he hired all five of us without making any judgment calls, you know. And we stayed together about three months, four months, which was miraculous.
Speaker Tell about that he was always firing guys. I lucked out.
Speaker I did look out. Yeah, he had a he was always trying to improve the band and also.
Speaker A misunderstanding. People used to think he was staring at them. They called it the the the Ray, the Benny Goodman Ray, you know. And I asked him about it later in life. And he said. Now he says, that’s just my mind might have been a mile away thinking about something else. And my eye rested on somebodies second trumpet. You know, a lot of guys got nervous with that, Ray, but it was nothing.
Speaker You give me a wonderful description. We talked before about what was unique about his band was you’d been in that in the wee Herman band where he’d been in Child Barnetts.
Speaker There were like a first drawer player in sex. And they were the boss. And they would tell the band rehearsed everybody individually would change. You was like first.
Speaker Oh, that’s so that’s interesting. Yes. And we rehearsed the set. Yeah. Well, the word lead, you know, the word lead. It applies to the trumpet, the trombone, the lead trumpet, the lead trombone, the lead sax. You know, those men were in some bands like straw bosses. They made the breathing masks and they made the phrases and they kind of even rehearsed the group within the band.
Speaker It was a group within a group and.
Speaker Not like in a symphony you see in a symphony. There’s no lead and there’s no straw boys. There’s first, second, third solo, you know, and it’s anonymous. Doesn’t matter who plays that part. It’s part of the big structure. You know, part of the composition. Then he was like that in a symphony. He was he was. He was thinking for every voice so that he was the actual lead. He was the conductor and he was the lead in every section. So we had no no option.
Speaker Know that mean that he was tougher in a way, but also that he understood the strength of each player.
Speaker He was always thinking about the strengths of each player. Yes. For instance, in the trumpet. There was a tradition in the band that if a trumpet player would join the band, he would sit next to the drums and he would play jazz. That’s the first entrance into the band. You know where Harry James used stand? You know. And after a while, I noticed that that guy would be moved over one chair and he would be playing lead in about three months or two months. And then somebody else would come in and play jazz. And they were going like that until the man was sitting on the end of the fourth chair. And I would say to him, you better not unpack, because that’s that’s the door out. You know, that’s it. And that’s the way it happened. It was funny.
Speaker You told me that that contract he had this thing about contracts, that they didn’t mean anything because they you said, well, I don’t know.
Speaker It didn’t mean anything. But he did. You know, he like to sign contracts with us. Five men that he hired at one time. We got all nice, neat little contracts for about one hundred and thirty five hours a week, you know. And. It was nice, I showed it to my relatives and they liked it. I think I still got it someplace.
Speaker But if he didn’t like your work and many times it was just a question of two weeks notice, union laws and rules. So the contract meant nothing.
Speaker Was my voice 30 better? Was it clear? I think that’s great.
Speaker How does my voice sound on television? Excellent. Yeah, you really got a nice. I study with Bing Crosby.
Speaker They fly over the same thing about hiring and firing.
Speaker You told me to use in the saxophone section alone and you remember counting 40 guys, you run into people and say they would pick me up.
Speaker This is a coincidence that while I played with that band, I was with them the first time, about a year and a half, and I actually met about 45 saxophone players coming and going. Coming in, going out, auditioning. Testing. And later on in my career, it was useful because we had something in common and we met, we knew each other. Names were familiar and helped a lot.
Speaker Going to explain where they were going. And he would fire something. You stuck around. You told me that he knew somebody. Well, he would come in in addition, guys, and say that this is true.
Speaker When he when he decided to change men, he would often call a rehearsal, you know, and we might be working in a theater or in a ballroom. And he said he’d tell me. You sit him down and go through the stuff and. And I’ll be in. At two o’clock, you know, he come in and we did that a lot in a year and a half. You know. I was the only one consistent in those rehearsals.
Speaker This is the second.
Speaker Talk about in 1946, you would have things changed around it. There was more pressure on him. That was when you got him and it got to you to create the picture for us. What was happening in the music scene?
Speaker You mean why I left the band? Yeah. But it also relieves you can relate it to the fact that forty six, the whole music scene is changing.
Speaker Well that was after you. You know, you, you’re introducing bee bop and. And the idea of what happened between the jazz bands, the swing band and uh and Bird and Diz, that’s really what it is. But at that time, the reason for leaving a band would be various. You know, I was on the East Coast and I didn’t want to go to the West Coast or the band wanted to go to the West Coast. Then I had to go home and take care of relatives. You know, there’s many reasons why you leave a band. But in the case of Benny, there was one day we’re rehearsing at Carnegie Hall and this is after a year and a half and all those saxophone player. And he said to me, you’re gonna have to change your way of playing. And that that was a surprise. And it caused me to give him my two weeks notice and leave the band, you know.
Speaker That’s the way I lift the ban. So how about Bob?
Speaker Now, Bob, change.
Speaker Well, you know, the big dance. It’s like it’s like apples and oranges. Big bands have one great attraction and the onset of bebop had another attraction.
Speaker It’s just.
Speaker It’s like comparing Hindemith and Schoenberg. You know, one is both great giant composers, but in different eras, one one thing follows another. Charlie Parker. That’s just that. That’s the story.
Speaker Start again. And explain how it start with Charlie Parker. That’s at the time what it was like, what the what it felt like, what Benny’s reaction was and how it changed.
Speaker Well, he took it. He got used to it. At first, the, uh. He wouldn’t listen to it, you know. My question would be this. We don’t know what it.
Speaker Oh. About but about Benny said how Benny would accept bebop into his life. You know, at that time it was a revolution. And there were some musicians that could study it and love it and others who would turn their back on it and fight for it. You know, I’ll fight against it. You know. I think they were. Louis Armstrong among them. They couldn’t get used to it for just couldn’t it was just too new and too energetic.
Speaker It was energetic. That’s what it was. And they were inventing new tunes from old tunes, you know. But there were men in the band. There were Stan Getz and there was.
Speaker Kay Windang. And Trauma Young and Howard McGee, they were thinking and studying about it, you know, and what they were thinking was like promoting the band. It was going right through the band, you know. So he got used to it.
Speaker You describe a scene where he came into the dressing room, went through the hallway that you were playing theater and heard this stuff on the radio and record player.
Speaker Well, that’s a that’s a day when he actually heard us talking and playing records and discussing, arguing and he went away doing this, you know, walking away. Feeling sorry for his successor?
Speaker It was a nice if you could dump me again, because we may use it out of control. If you could tell that again. So we said that and understand if it’s not in sequence. Then one day we were playing B, Charlie Parker, whatever. BOP records and he came alive. So.
Speaker Yeah. Oh the same the describing that. Yes. It must have been in in Columbus.
Speaker There were these fellas playing bird records and playing salt peanuts and all those beautiful tunes, and Benny walked in accidentally in the dressing room and stayed for about five minutes in the back at the door.
Speaker And went away like snapping his lips, you know, as if it was hopeless. It was just hopeless. That was forty nineteen forty six.
Speaker You told me I was very, very interesting, is that the most specific and vivid description about Teddy Wilson is interested in politics.
Speaker He was, yes. Teddy. You know, he didn’t break the color line. It’s a rumor, but it’s not true. He the one he hired players of color, it was usually the quartet or the trio or the quintet or the sixth, the septet or whatever he used. But it was separate from the band. The guy that really broke the color line was Charlie Barnett. Because he always had love for these people, and not only he had a lover for Duke Ellington. And that’s that’s how it worked.
Speaker But as far as Teddy was concerned. We used to talk on the bus. We had many conversations and he was basically a socialist, you know. Like to talk about it, he like to dream about it, you know, an easier life. But I think it was just something to talk about in the back of the bus. That’s really what it is.
Speaker It’s here again. He’s a wonderful guy. Oh, wonderful. So let’s get to that. Teddy.
Speaker Teddy. Wonderful guy. I think, you know. Studied pianist, you know, and I like to talk about politics as a subject, as how it shows up around the world. You know? And he would talk about England. Uh. He would compare England with Russia. And then he would compare England with us, you know.
Speaker Different kind of democracy. And, you know, it was we had many a time. We also played chess while we traveled.
Speaker You know.
Speaker A little bit about what it was like on the road, traveling the like a spaceship to Mars, you know, separate traveling on the road is like it’s a separate world. You know, you’re everybody’s away from home and everybody’s in this one spaceship.
Speaker Could be a bus. Could be a sleeper. But we don’t separate and we become brothers and sisters.
Speaker You know, it was it’s another life. It’s really hard to describe.
Speaker All right. Yes. It’s over with. That’s great. That’s a wonderful image.
Speaker It’s fantastic. Nora.
Speaker Those in those days, there was you’d also take airplanes was at the beginning of their air travel.
Speaker I would say so, yes.
Speaker In the in the war years, many times the services would offer us a plane ride for a free concert at the field, you know, so we would manage to get across the country just by using the service planes and paying off at each field. You know? And that’s why we would sit in bucket seats and, you know, we’d sit on drum cases, you know, empty planes, you know.
Speaker You described it earlier today, some other unusual places you played that you would go up in theaters and ballrooms and you do a gig at a prison.
Speaker Oh, yeah. We’ve done that. Yeah, they really love it. You know, a great jazz band, obsession with be sexuality.
Speaker Well, the reason why we played prisons, many occasionally there would be a job where we’d play for the prisoners as a recreation or as maybe a background, a publicity background for some big singer. They’re very grateful. It’s part of it’s wonderful thing. I wish we had done it more often, you know. But it was an adventure. You know, you’re going with a certain kind of butterfly, you know. But they liked it. They loved it.
Speaker I mean, specific things about being family, funny or musically, why special he was?
Speaker I don’t know. You’d have to take another two hours to get that out of me. But he was a big influence musically and on the clarinet. And as a leader and as a sideman, you know the relationship.
Speaker And. I learned a lot. Plenty.
Speaker Let’s be specific.
Speaker Well, there some of them are technical, you know, things that I teach today to my students. I picked up watching him play. He had a natural talent and his hands seemed to fit the clarinet. It was a perfect like it was. Well, they call it serendipity. You know, it’s perfect. And I would watch him. And the results to this day. Is that is some of the meat of my lessons. I tell my students the same thing. And of course, the other thing you got to remember that as a leader, he was unique. It didn’t matter how many men played in his band or how many times he changed personnel. It always sounded like Benny Goodman, his band. You know, other bands, when they change personnel, they would change their sound. It would be a another mix. But guys like Benny and guys like Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Guys come in and all of a sudden it’s the same old band just keeps going.
Speaker What is what how you describe it? How would you describe the Goodman? I mean, Goodman said, what was it about that bad character?
Speaker It was just everybody swinging together. You know, it was. And also to accommodate the sound of a clarinet lead. It’s a light instrument. It’s very bright light. So you can’t overpower it. You can’t you know, you can’t hit it with a hammer.
Speaker And it was a small band, what the original band was, a flight the Fletcher Henderson wrote for was a small, little, tight little man and it was swinging together that did it.
Speaker You were saying, oh, about Benny.
Speaker No, I forgot. What was your subject? Is. Is he. You speak about him in the present tense? Oh, yeah. Say his name. Penny Penny’s. You know.
Speaker Guy passes away. He’s not going away. Benis is still around. That’s for sure. And so it’s Dizzy Gillespie, SOS Alkon. I don’t think his influence will go away at all. As a matter of fact, I’d like to see some of it come back from, you know. If there were more bands in rehearsal and more new leaders, we’d all be better off, you know? That’s what we suffer from, a lack of leaders.
Speaker And Benny.
Speaker We play for dance clubs. You know, these 50s clubs like this. Like the dance, you know. And Benny will be around forever.
Speaker Tell that about playing for dancing. Is that the same?
Speaker I love dance music. That’s what lose this. This kind of music is dance music. You call it ballet, if you like, know, but it’s a it’s for dancing. It’s absolutely danceable music, swing music.
Speaker Did you ever hear him talk about or see any connection when he was playing for dances?
Speaker Oh, well.
Speaker Well, you know, and besides dancing, people dance in front of a band. But Benny caused them to stop dancing and gather. They would gather in front of the bandstand and they they started dancing. But then they would come and appreciate some of this, some of the art, some of the stuff, you know. And but it came out of dance, ballroom type work in a concert hall. Everybody sitting down with a heavy meal, falling asleep, you know, and it’s very much a. swing. You know, it’s just kind of a presentation.
Speaker But.
Speaker I like to think that his influence is going to be around for a long time. Yeah.
Speaker When they last night, it’s a replay. The most famous things that we keep hearing looking for the perfect dream. Remember that John Kerry.
Speaker Yeah, well, he had a routine about Benny, had a routine about choosing his reads. Other guys, you know, in the symphonies, you know, they soaked them for hours and they scrape them with a knife. You know, Benny would take the face, read off the top of the box and put it on the reel on the clarinet. Bone dry, just dry. And if it didn’t play, he throw it away so he would buy hundreds of reeds to find one. And we would all have to help him because he was always looking for the reed to play on. His house was full of reeds. Wherever you look was reeds and clarinet pieces of clarinet.
Speaker Thanks. Thank you. Pleasure.
Speaker Oh, I like it. Tell you the story about Ben, he had a great sense of humor and you wouldn’t believe it, but he he he would come up with one liners. I asked him for a raise one day. I think it was a 15 dollar range. I asked for from one hundred and thirty five to 150. Because it was really getting tougher. My mother was yelling. And he said, well, I’ll think about it. And he was kind of thinking it over, you know. And to help him along, I just I said to him, many, you know, you can’t take it with you. And he gave a count of five, about four or five. He said, well, then I am going. I never forgot that.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2Bsu6bAjpqknqqZmK6vucCsq56qo2Sus6%2FHoq2eZ5mjwaa%2B1aKcsGeUlruvxYybmKejXw%3D%3D