**This Benny Goodman stamp is a part of the jazz music set from the Legends of American Music series. Make sure to check out my hub page for this project. Also check out my post on jazz stamps.
The incredible jazz clarinetist and band leader Benny Goodman was from a very large Russian-Jewish family. He was born in 1909 and was the ninth of twelve children. Goodman grew up in the Maxwell Street neighborhood of Chicago. At the age of ten, Goodman began taking music lessons at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue. There, he began studying the classical clarinet.
Two years later, Goodman began playing in the boys club band at Hull House. Chicago at the time was full of jazz musicians who came from New Orleans, introducing the music to northern audiences. Goodman heard musicians such as Jimmie Noone, Johnny Dodds, and Leon Roppolo. He began trying to emulate these musicians. His talent as a musician was evident early and at the age of 13 he got his card for the musicians’ union. At 14, he met Bix Beiderbecke and began playing as a sideman in the trumpet player’s band. Two years later, he was in the Ben Pollack band, in which he made some of his earliest recordings.
Bandleader
Goodman went to New York City where he began to play as a session musicians for radio as well as in Broadway pits. He met and played with countless other jazz musicians including Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Joe Venuti. He began recording with Brunswick using the name of “Benny Goodman’s Boys,” including a song in 1928 that he wrote with Glenn Miller, “Room 1411.”
His first hit was playing with the singer Scrappy Lambert on the song “He’s Not Worth Your Tears.” After switching labels to Columbia in 1934, he had a string of top ten hits. Songs such as “Ain’t Cha Glad,” “Moonglow,” “Take My Word,” and “Bugle Rag,” made Goodman a household name.
In 1935, Benny Goodman began to play “swing” style arrangements of the type that Duke Ellington and other Black bands were playing. During a three-week engagement at the Palomar ballroom in Los Angeles, Goodman introduced this music to large white audiences. These performances are often said to have launched the swing era.
Carnegie Hall Debut
On January 16, 1938, Benny Goodman and his band played for a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. This performance was one of the most important in jazz history. Indeed, it represents the moment when the genre was finally a part of mainstream American culture. However, it was also important because Goodman was leading an integrated band. Performing that night were pianists Teddy Wilson and Count Basie, the vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, and saxophonist Lester Young, all of whom were Black.
Further, a year later, Goodman brought into the band the Black guitarist Charlie Christian. This was to introduce the electric guitar to jazz audiences (and most audiences), transforming American music.
By the end of the 1940s, the swing era was over. Though his time as the “King of Swing” was over, Goodman continued to make music in all sorts of small ensembles in both classical and jazz genres until his death in 1986.
The Stamp
United States, 1996
Scott Number US 3099
Readers of this blog will know that while I greatly admire the audacity of the Legends of American Music stamp series from the 1990s, it also has many problems. One of the strange things about the set is that there were ten jazz artists who were honored in 1995. The very next year, there were four “Big band leaders” who were depicted on stamps. The four include Benny Goodman as well as Glenn Miller, Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey, and Count Basie. The designer for the Bandleader set was Bill Nelson and the stamps became public on September 11, 1996. Learn more here.
I find it baffling that the swing bandleaders from the jazz set, which includes both early jazz pioneers such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton as well as later bebop masters. Additionally, it is frustrating that this group does not include Duke Ellington. The only explanation is that he was already on a stamp in 1986. I think a second stamp should of Ellington should have been in this set.
In any regard, there can be no doubt that the “King of Swing,” Benny Goodman richly deserves the honor of a U.S. postage stamp. Make sure to revisit some of his greatest hits. Here is my favorite:
