Benny Goodman tribute at New Jersey Jazz Fest

Swing jazz is headed for Hackettstown, New Jersey's Centenary Stage in the form of a Benny Goodman Tribute from the Stan Rubin Orchestra.

Stan Rubin will  make his way to the Centenary Stage to lead the Benny Goodman Tribute on Saturday, January 12 at 8 P.M.,  when the Stan Rubin Orchestra arrives with  its 15 piece big band to launch the January Jazz Fest in Hackettstown.

Bandleader, conductor, and clarinetist,  the legendary Benny Goodman is  synonymous with swing and big band jazz orchestra. With a career spanning over 50 years, Goodman worked with such legendary jazz performers such as Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Mildred Bailey, Bessie Smith and countless others. His following of fans and music enthusiasts has kept Benny Goodman’s name and legend an ever-present staple in jazz and swing music.

Celebrating the life and music of Benny Goodman is the acclaimed Stan Rubin Orchestra featuring bandleader, Herb Gardner. Stan Rubin, widely known as the foremost preserver of the swing style, enjoys his strong roots in the state of New Jersey, from his early days at Blair Academy in Blairstown, to his graduation from Princeton University, where the jazz band he started when he didn’t make the basketball team was eventually invited to perform for Grace Kelly’s wedding to the Prince of Moraco, which changed everything for Rubin.

Rubin  has invested $300,000 of his own money into a library of swing, a collection of the arrangements played by the likes of Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Harry James and a half-dozen others who swung America from the 1930s into the early 50s.
"The beauty of big-band swing is that it combines musical structure with improvisation, the hallmark of jazz, but swing doesn't abandon the melody like some modern jazz”– Stan Rubin
Bandleader Herb Gardner has performed with a renown roster of jazz luminaries, including Wynton Marsalis, Doc Cheatham, Max Kaminsky, Gene Krupa, Roy Eldridge and more.  He  toured with popular jazz performers Wild Bill Davison, Kenny Davern and Dick Wellstood.    While serving as co-leader of Vince Giordano’s Nighthawks, Gardner played at George Bush’s inauguration and Bill Clinton’s victory party.

Tickets for the Benny Goodman Tribute with Stan Rubin Orchestra are about $ 27.50 in advance, with discounts for seniors and students.   A January Jazz Fest “Flex Pass”, offered at $66,  is available for all three concerts, which includes The Kathy Kosins Trio tribute “To the Ladies of Cool” on January 19, and  The Hot Club of Detroit on Jan 26.

Tickets are available through the Centenary Stage Company box office at 715 Grand Avenue, open 1-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and two hours prior to each performance. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.centenarystageco.org or by calling the box office at 908-979-0900. The venue is about one hour west of Manhattan via U.S. 80.

'This Can't Be Love' Benny Goodman swings!

Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman: who was the better musician?

"Q. What are the differences between the styles of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman?

A. This is a question from Yahoo's Answer section. Here is the answer they provided;
"I could not find any differences between the two, they were both accomplished clarinettist's and both were major soloists with their own bands blending commercialism with interesting musical values both being dedicated with unflinching values."

Artie Shaw had an answer when asked the same question. Artie repled "Benny Goodman plays clarinet, I play music."

Benny Goodman, of course, was a pioneer in big band swing who was one of the most important band leaders of the era. He was dubbed "The King of Swing' in 1936 (by Gene Krupa?). Artie, later was declared the "King" with the great success of his landmark recordings of "Stardust" and "Begin The Beguine."  Earlier, In response to Goodman's nickname, the "King of Swing", Shaw's fans dubbed him the "King of the Clarinet." Shaw, however, felt the titles were reversed. "Benny Goodman played clarinet, I played music," he said.

Benny Goodman "Sing Sing Sing"

Who crowned Sinatra-'the Chairman of the Board'?

Milton Berle, William B. Williams & Frank Sinatra 1976

Q. Who crowned Frank the Chairman of the Board?

A. One of Frank Sinatra's biggest fans and supporters, during both the good and the bad times, was a New York radio personalty, William B. Williams. "Willie B.' played an important role in Frank's career...and Frank was forever grateful. The most and perhaps only public disagreement ever aired between the two concerned Williams' job title.
 
In some 40 years at WNEW-AM, Williams never personally minded being called a "disc jockey," common slang for a man who made his living spinning records. In Sinatra's world, however, "disc jockey" had a demeaning ring, conjuring the image of music being shuffled about as casually as one might shuffle cans of tuna fish.

William B. Williams, Sinatra explained to an audience one night at Radio City, was no more a "disc jockey" than Van Gogh was a "brush jockey." William B. Williams, said Sinatra, was a radio personality — host of "Make-Believe Ballroom," a man who presented fine music in the style fine music deserved.

Beyond being a high compliment, this was also Sinatra holding up his end of a mutual admiration society — repaying the man who first dubbed him the "Chairman of the Board."

Since the mid-1940s, Williams had embraced Sinatra as a sterling performer of the golden-age standards he personally adored. Williams would play Sinatra on his radio program daily, and one day, while rhapsodizing about the man and his talent, Williams decided that if Benny Goodman was the King of Swing and Duke Ellington was a duke, Sinatra needed a title as well.

Chairman of the Board it was, and Sinatra loved it the moment he heard it.
Sinatra's debt to Williams also extended beyond mere verbal coronation. Come the early '50s, Sinatra's career was spiraling downward. Other crooners were moving into his spot and his producer at Columbia, Mitch Miller, was trying to bring him back with novelty songs Sinatra despised.
And that's without even mentioning Ava Gardner.

Through it all, however, Williams kept playing Sinatra every day, the good stuff. Loyalty being a language Sinatra spoke, he never forgot." Source: WNEW-AM 1130

Stompin’ at the Savoy...who wrote it? - National Swing and Big Band | Examiner.com

Benny Goodman CD

Stompin’ at the Savoy...who wrote it? - National Swing and Big Band | Examiner.com

The 'Girl Crazy' pit band featured Glenn Miller

“Girl Crazy,” the George and Ira Gershwin Broadway musical premiered in 1930  The original production starred Ethel Merman (photo) in her debut, and Ginger Rogers.

Ethel Merman became an overnight sensation when she stopped the show with "I Got Rhythm." George Gershwin, supposedly visited her the day after the opening to congratulate her and to advise her to "never take another singing lesson...don't let anyone change you... just keep doing what you are doing!"

 To fans of the big bands, the orchestra for the 1930 show is of great interest. The band in the pit for the original Broadway production was known for its richness of talents: Red Nichols, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Gene Krupa!  Glenn Miller put the group together, including his roommate from the Ben Pollack band days in California....BG.

More than ten years later, MGM filmed 'Girl Crazy' with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.

'Stompin' At The Savoy' who wrote it?

BENNY GOODMAN

The listed composers for the big band hit "Stompin' at the Savoy" are: lyrics by Andy Razaf, music by Benny Goodman, Chick Webb and Edgar Sampson.

This 1934 standard was however, totally and completely composed by Edgar Sampson. So why is Benny Goodman's name listed as a co-composer of the music? The answer is simply "money."  We find that Goodman and Webb had their names added to the song when their bands promoted and  recorded it. Unusual?  No, not at all... it was all too common in the music business to share the composing royalties with performers and managers.

Al Jolson is listed as a composer on a number of the songs he featured in his act.  Many question Irving Berlin....did he personally write more than 1500 successful songs? At one of my recent lectures an attendee claimed a relative had sold a song to Berlin for $25.


The tune, of course, is named after the famous Savoy Ballroom in New York's Harlem. Again, the music was written and arranged for Chick Webb's band by Sampson, who was the band's alto saxophonist. It was recorded as an instrumental by both Webb and Benny Goodman, whose recording was the bigger hit. Lyrics were added by Razaf later.

 Stompin' At The Savoy

Benny Goodman

Lyrics by: Andy Razaf

Music by: Benny Goodman (?)

Music by: Chick Webb (?)

Music by: Edgar Sampson



Savoy, the home of sweet romance,

Savoy, it wins you with a glance,

Savoy, gives happy feet a chance to dance.



Your old form just like a clinging vine,

Your lips so warm and sweet as wine,

Your cheek so soft and close to mine, divine.



How my heart is singing,

While the band is swinging,

I'm never tired of romping,

And stomping with you at the Savoy.

What joy - a perfect holiday,

Savoy, where we can glide and sway,

Savoy, let me stomp away with you;



The home of sweet romance,

It wins you at a glance,

Gives happy feet a chance to dance.

Just like a clinging vine,

So soft and sweet as wine,

So soft and close to mine, divine.



How my heart is singing,

While the band is swinging,

I'm never, never, never tired of romping,

And stomping with you at the Savoy.

What joy - a perfect holiday,

Savoy, where we can glide and sway,

Savoy, let me stomp away with you;



  To purchase the Goodman CD click on MEMORY LANE SHOP.