Benny Goodman

Considered by most to be the "King of Swing", Goodman is usually given credit for beginning a new era in jazz and originating the style that became known as swing music. The clarinetist and orchestra leader was both brilliant and intense and it was through his dedication that the swing style gained national acceptance.

Benjamin David Goodman was born in Chicago's Jewish ghetto on May 30, 1909 to a Russian tailor. He was one of twelve children. Even in Goodman's childhood, music was to play an important part in his life. He began to play the clarinet at the age of ten at a local synagogue and later continued his studies at the Hull House, a social-service agency for the under privileged. Despite humble beginnings, Goodman developed into a skilled musician and, when his father died in 1923, a fourteen-year-old Goodman helped to support his family by playing at a Chicago neighborhood dance hall.

Two years later Goodman joined Ben Pollack's jazz band and, with the help of producer John Hammond, soon went on to form his own band. The Benny Goodman Quartet--which included hot jazz musicians Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa--was one of the first interracial jazz groups.

In 1935 on his first coast-to-coast tour, Goodman gave the performance that marked the arrival of the Swing Era. While at the Palmoral Ballroom in Los Angeles, Goodman grew frustrated with the tepid reaction to his variations on typical "sweet" jazz. Throwing caution to the wind, Goodman told the group to "get as hot as you wish". They did, to the audience's delight, and brought down the house.

Shortly after this, in an advertisement for Goodman's performance at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, the new musical style was first labeled "swing". A reviewer from Time attending the performance dubbed Goodman the "King of Swing" .

In March of 1942 Goodman married Alice Hammond Duckworth. They had two daughters: Rachel, a pianist, and Benjie, a cellist. He died on June 20, 1986 in New York.

Goodman is occasionally remembered as cold and indifferent to those around him--an intensely musician who had ears only for his music. Many of Goodman's musicians found him a strict bandleader, one that could be respected, but only from a difference. In Goodman's music, however, he found an outlet in which to pour his life leaving us with an amazing repertoire of songs and styles.

Click on picture to hear recording of "SING SING SING" by Benny Goodman

Artie Shaw

The only swing musician to ever challenge Benny Goodman's crown, Artie Shaw was never able to content himself with the lifestyle brought by fame and success. He had a deep passion for the music and performing--which is very evident in listening to his recordings--but he remained uncomfortable with the popularity and the splashy, conspicuous lifestyle he was forced to live.

Shaw was born Arthur Arshawsky in New York City on May 23, 1910. In 1916 he moved with his family to New Haven, Connecticut. In high school Shaw began playing with a quartet and learned to play the saxophone and later the clarinet. Moving to Cleveland and then back to New York, Shaw played with several different bands as well as free-lancing.

In 1935, just as the Swing Era was erupting with Benny Goodman, Shaw retired from music. A year later, in the summer of 1936, he consented to appear in a swing concert at the Imperial Theater New York. His performance, which introduced string instruments to swing music, created a sensation and in 1937 Shaw formed a new band.

Shaw's fame was cemented with the release of "Begin the Beguine", his first big hit with the new band. However, in December of 1939, Shaw abandoned the music profession again, leaving the band and fleeing to Mexico.

Throughout the 1940s and 50s Shaw played off and on with various bands including the most famous, Gramercy 5, and periodically announced his intention to retire forever from music. Finding his career, his life, and--most specifically--jazz disgusting, Shaw toyed with the idea of being a professional writer. His semi-autobiographical book, The Trouble With Cinderella, was published in 1952. Eventually Shaw moved to Spain and abandoned music completely.

The turmoil of Shaw's professional life was mirrored in his personal one. He was married eight times, first to Jane Carns, then to Margaret Allen, Lana Turner, Betty Kern, Ava Gardner, Kathleen Winsor, Doris Dowling, and Evelyn Keyes.

Click on picture to hear recording of "BEGIN THE BEGUINE" performed by Artie Shaw

Count Basie

"If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune."

For Count Basie, his quote says it all. Most popular among dancers, Basie's music catered to them with its rhythms and styles. His numbers were created for the dancers--for popular entertainment that was both musically elegant and fun.

The jazz pianist and bandleader was born William Basie in Redbank, New Jersey on August 21, 1904. At an early age he began to study piano with his mother and with piano-organist Fats Waller. Basie started his professional career as a vaudeville musician in New York City.

In 1927, while on tour, Basie was stranded in Kansas City. Rather than finding his way back to New York, he joined local jazz band The Blue Devils and later Bennie Moten's band. Upon Moten's death in 1935, Basie put together his own band including many members of both The Blue Devils and Bennie Moten's band. Together, the band marked the height of Kansas City jazz, a style of hard-swinging jump blues. Basie's ability to balance the demands of big-band arrangements with solo improvisation--and important style in swing--cemented his place in the swing era's hall of fame.

Radio broadcasts helped to forward the band's fame even to such legendary producers as John Hammond. The radio broadcasts were also responsible for Basie's nickname--an announcer listening to the Kansas City station dubbed him "Count" Basie to compete with other "royal" bandleaders such as Duke Ellington.

Basie is remembered as a born leader, one that could elicit the best from those around him. Full of charisma, he was often looked upon as a father-figure by those who played with him. He had a continuing positive effect on the people his life touched. The genius of the musical world was often considered to be a genius of the inter-personal world as well.

Count Basie died on April 26, 1984.

Click on picture to hear recording of "DANCE OF THE GREMLINS" by Count Basie

Duke Ellington

"Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one."

Throughout his life, Duke Ellington proved this quote. His musical style spreads from the beginnings of jazz to blues to swing. He kept high standards for himself and for those who played with him and through this brought jazz into the respectable mainstream of the music industry.

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in a middle-class neighborhood in Washington D.C. on April 29, 1899. Ellington was trained on the piano as a child, playing at various social events. He wrote his first composition at 16 and played professionally from the age of 17. At 23 he moved to New York City with his first band and there learned jazz piano. The band soon grew and developed its individual sound.

As much as Count Basie wrote for dancers, Ellington wrote for his orchestra. Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's long-time collaborator, said of him, "Ellington plays to piano, but his real instrument is his band."

Ellington is one of the older jazz musicians to later embrace the styles of the swing era. Conducting for fifty years and composing close to 1,500 works, Ellington's music is a reflection of the entire jazz age and all the music it influenced. It is difficult to say whether his music was influenced by the Swing Era or if the Swing Era was born due to Ellington's style of jazz. G.E. Lambert suggests in his biography of Ellington that his greatness lies not in his high standards nor in his talent as a pianist, composer, and bandleader, but rather in his ability to push the boundaries of jazz without abandoning the essence of the music.

Ellington published his autobiography Music is My Mistress in 1973. He died on May 24, 1974.

Click on picture to hear recording of "PERDIDO" by Duke Ellington

Cab Calloway

More than anything Cab Calloway was an entertainer. Known for being well-dressed at every occasion--usually in a white zoot suit or tuxedo--Calloway created the style of the Swing Era. Musically talented as well, Calloway was one of the Swing Era's top bandleaders and singers.

Born on Christmas day in 1907 in Rochester, New York, Cabell Calloway III moved with his family to Baltimore, where he grew up, and later to Chicago, where he studied at Crane College. He worked briefly with his sister, singer Blanche Calloway. In the late twenties Calloway split his time between Chicago and New York, singing and leading The Alabamians in Chicago and The Missourians and the Hot Chocolate Revue in New York. In 1930 he took over The Missourians and changed the name to Cab Calloway and His Orchestra. Calloway then succeeded Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club.

Always a showman, Calloway dressed and danced the part of a flamboyant, swinging bandleader. Known as "the man in the zoot suit with the reet pleats", Calloway originated and popularized an entire Swing Era culture. Words such as 'hepcat', 'jive', and 'jitterbug' were heard on his radio broadcasts and adopted by the nation during the 1930s and 40s.

Scat singing also characterized Calloway's music, making use of nonsense lyrics in place of real words. Phrases such as "skeeten, scaten, hi de ho" became common place and opened up a new avenue for Swing music. Calloway himself is often referred to as the "Hi-De-Ho Man".

While Calloway probably had the charisma and crowd-appeal to succeed merely on his persona, he was always backed by incredible musical talent as well. With his rich and full singing voice, Calloway was successful in musical theater as well, featured in musicals such as Porgy and Bess.

Even today Calloway maintains his appeal. In 1980 he appeared in The Blues Brothers reprising his role as Minnie the Moocher--his first hit song, recorded in 1931. Calloway died on November 18, 1994.