Benny Goodman's Role In Jazz

Benny Goodman really drew my attention after watching the film about him in Jazz class a few weeks ago. I was very surprised to see that his instrument of choice was the clarinet. I didn’t think the clarinet t was that influential in the musical world until I learned more about Benny. From the film I learned about how his father wanted his children to pick up music because he wanted them to make a career out of something they loved. Benny’s father was a tailor and according to the film he wasn’t very content in his profession. The film then when on to talk about how he picked up the clarinet because he was the smallest out of his brothers, it was far easy for him to handle. Benny started gathering notoriety for himself as a musician around
the age of fourteen. Something that I found very perplexing and disheartening was that Benny’s father never herd his son play his clarinet once. Tragedy struck when his father was killed by a car, the day he was supposed to hear his son perform. Benny’s fathers accident not only hurt his family emotionally but also finically, the family’s financial security was now his and bothers responsibility. Goodman already had a reputation as a musician and was making decent money. He deiced to head to New York City, this is where his career exploded. Benny would be coined “King of Swing” and remains one of the biggest names in the swing era. Benny Goodman was not only a world renowned musician he also started the first integrated black and white music groups. Benny was completely focused on the talent aspect of his band. So when he found talent in young black musicians he created a separate group because of the general publics view about race relations at the time. One of the more famous members of Benny’s group was his drummer Gene Krupa who was the other white member of Benny’s black and white band. After listieing to some of Benny’s music such as, One O'clock Jump and Sing Sing Sing, I can’t help but tap my foot to the infectious melodies of his swinging jazz. I would have to concur with the majority’s opinion Benny Goodman is a king of swing.