Goodman Benny - Benny Goodmans Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert

BENNY GOODMANS FAMOUS 1938 CARNEGIE HALL JAZZ CONCERT

OXFORD STUDIES IN RECORDED JAZZ
Series Editor JEREMY BARHAM

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Benny Goodmans Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert
Catherine Tackley

CATHERINE TACKLEY

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tackley, Catherine.

Benny Goodmans famous 1938 Carnegie Hall jazz concert / Catherine Tackley.
p. cm.(Oxford studies in recorded jazz)
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-19-539830-4 (hardcover: alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-19-539831-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Goodman, Benny, 1909-1986PerformancesNew York (State)New York. 2. Goodman, Benny,
1909-1986Criticism and interpretation. 3. JazzNew York (State)New York1931-1940History
and criticism. 4. Carnegie Hall (New York, N.Y.) I. Title.

ML422.G65T33 2011
781.65092dc23 2011030910

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

FOR DAN

THE OXFORD STUDIES IN Recorded Jazz series offers detailed historical, cultural, and technical analysis of jazz recordings across a broad spectrum of styles, periods, performing media, and nationalities. Each volume, authored by a leading scholar in the field, addresses either a single jazz album or a set of related recordings by one artist/group, placing the recordings fully in their historical and musical context, and thereby enriching our understanding of their cultural and creative significance.

With access to the latest scholarship and with an innovative and balanced approach to its subject matter, the series offers fresh perspectives on both well-known and neglected jazz repertoire. It sets out to renew musical debate in jazz scholarship, and to develop the subtle critical languages and vocabularies necessary to do full justice to the complex expressive, structural, and cultural dimensions of recorded jazz performance.

JEREMY BARHAM
SERIES EDITOR

I would like to thank Jeremy Barham for initiating the Studies in Recorded Jazz series and inviting me to contribute to it. At Oxford University Press, Suzanne Ryan has been fantastically supportive. Adam Cohen, Caelyn Cobb and Madelyn Sutton have also been extremely efficient and helpful.

The conception of this book coincided with my move to the Open University, where I was welcomed warmly by my colleagues in the Music Department and supported during the gestation stages of this project. I would like also to thank the members of the What Is Black British Jazz? team, drawn from Music and SociologyJason Toynbee, Byron Dueck, Mark Banks and Mark Doffmanfor their lively and informed discussions about jazz and for their understanding as I juggled work on these two projects. Outside the OU, Tony Whyton remains a great personal and critical friend, and I thank him for his continued support. Andy Simons has been extremely generous with his time and resources, Nigel Haslewood of Sadman Records has been invaluable in helping to obtain rare records, and Cody Coyne kindly assisted with music processing. Susan Satz at the Goodman estate has efficiently ensured my access to resources. Adam Fairhall, Tom Sykes, Claire Troth and Abigail Dolan all contributed useful advice on various aspects. The comments by two anonymous readers on the book proposal and draft manuscript have been extremely helpful to me. Various parts of this book were presented at the Performance Studies Network International Conference at the University of Cambridge in July 2011, the Watching Jazz conference at the University of Glasgow in February 2011, the Royal Musical Association Annual Conference at the University of London in July 2010, and the Mediating Jazz Conference at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, in November 2009. I thank everyone who made comments on these occasions.

My work has been supported by a grant from the Music Analysis Development Fund to visit the Goodman archive at Yale University, as well as funding and periods of study leave from the Faculty of Arts at the Open University.

This book would not have been possible without the help of staff at a number of archives. In particular I would like to thank Emily Ferrigno and Richard Boursy at the Irving Gilmore Memorial Library at Yale University, Gino Francesconi at the Rose Museum and Archives at Carnegie Hall and David Nathan at the (UK) National Jazz Archive. The resources of the following institutions have also been invaluable: Bix Eiben Jazz Museum in Hamburg; British Library; British Library Newspapers; British Library Sound Archive; Getty Archive; Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers, New Jersey; Jazz Institut Darmstadt; and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

My band, Dr Jazz and the Cheshire Cats, have contributed, albeit indirectly, a huge amount to this book. I would like to thank them for taking the place of the 1938 Goodman band, often in public and even on one occasion in a room full of the worlds leading jazz scholars, and for putting up with my attempts to be Benny Goodman. I am extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to experiment on willing guinea pigs. Their resilience, good humor and pleasure in music making is truly inspirational.

During the period of writing this book, my life had to be put on hold; I have a number of people to thank for holding the fort. My colleagues on the A224 module team showed understanding as book and course writing deadlines collided. The North Cheshire Wind Orchestra and its committee survived without me for nearly three months, and particular thanks are due to Mark Heron and Maria Molund, who took over the conducting duties. Helen Wilson, Margaret Webber and Dan Tackley organized the Dr Jazz and the Cheshire Cats tour to Dublin while I was busy writing. Finally, I would like to thank my husband for his unwavering love and support and for putting up with me and the growing piles of (sometimes smelly) Goodman ephemera.