City To Celebrate Centennial Of Jazz Star Benny Goodman

Jazz legend Benny Goodman with his clarinet. This Saturday, May 30 will mark the centennial of Benny Goodman, the legendary "King of Swing" who was born in Chicago in 1909. He is being honored at various locations around the New York metropolitan area, including Lincoln Center and the WKTU radio station.

Goodman studied the clarinet as a child and started playing professionally at the age of 13. He made his first recordings in 1928, at the age of 19, and from 1929 to 1934 he was a leading freelance musician, working on the radio and in recording studios.

Much of his life and career happened here in New York. He worked with the Ben Pollack Band in Brooklyn before starting his own orchestra. In 1934 he auditioned for and acquired a spot on the Let's Dance radio show that was broadcast from the NBC studios in Manhattan. On the evening of January 16, 1938, the Benny Goodman Orchestra performed its now famous concert at Carnegie Hall, becoming the the first musicians to bring jazz to this prestigious concert hall.

In the mid-1930s Benny Goodman lived in an apartment in Jackson Heights.

In 1934, at a party at singer Mildred Bailey's home in Forest Hills, Goodman jammed with pianist Teddy Wilson. It sounded so good that Goodman hired Wilson to record and perform with him, thereby creating the "Goodman Trio." Wilson was black and Goodman, and drummer Gene Krupa were white, and together the three players broke the color line in American music. In the early 1930s, black and white jazz musicians could not play together in most clubs or concerts. In the Southern states racial segregation was enforced by "Jim Crow" law. Benny Goodman helped break that tradition.

In 1936 the trio became a quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton another black musician. In 1937 they began a record-breaking three-week engagement at the Paramount Theatre in New York.

Benny Goodman continued to play the clarinet until his death from a heart attack in 1986 at the age of 77, in his home on East 66th Street in Manhattan.

He will always be remembered as a wonderful musician who helped integrate American music.