Benny Goodman

2026 marks 100 years since Benny Goodman’s first recordings, and to commemorate this, we are taking a look at the life and career of the ‘King of Swing’: from his early work with dance and big bands, through his sextet recordings with Charlie Christian and explorations of the classical world, to the small-band work of his later career.

Goodman was born in Chicago to Jewish parents who had emigrated from the Russian Empire. He came from humble beginnings, and his father saw music as a way out of poverty for him and his siblings. His musical journey began with free music classes at a local synagogue, followed by two years of tuition from a classically trained clarinettist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Goodman took well to this training and was performing professionally before his teens. By fourteen, he was playing in a group that also featured the legendary cornettist Bix Beiderbecke. By sixteen, he was attracting attention further afield and was recruited by California-based bandleader Ben Pollack.

Goodman first appeared on disc under Pollack’s leadership on the track ‘When I First Met Mary’, recorded in 1926 and also featuring Glenn Miller. During these early years, he also became an active session musician, playing in bands led by the likes of Red Nichols and Ben Selvin, as well as working on Broadway musicals and radio broadcasts. Alongside this busy schedule, he began recording for Brunswick under his own name.

The Brunswick recordings by Benny Goodman’s Boys included the first recorded example of a Goodman composition. He wrote ‘Room 1411’ with Glenn Miller, who also featured as one of his ‘Boys’ for the sessions. These 1928 recordings marked the beginning of an illustrious career as a bandleader.

His first chart entry came with a 1931 recording featuring Scrappy Lambert on vocals. This was followed by a slew of other top-ten singles, including ‘Riffin’ the Scotch’, sung by Billie Holiday. Goodman eventually reached the top of the charts with his orchestra’s recording of ‘Moonglow’, during a four-month engagement at Billy Rose’s Music Hall in Manhattan in 1934. His next major engagement was a six-month stint playing for the NBC radio show Let’s Dance. For these broadcasts, he drew on arrangements by Fletcher Henderson, who would go on to write for and play in the orchestra on and off into the 1940s. Hearing Goodman perform these Henderson arrangements on a national scale helped to fuel the popularity of swing music in America.

Perhaps the most famous example of this came during the band’s three-week run at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. There, they drew crowds of young music fans already familiar with Goodman’s group and Henderson’s arrangements through national broadcasts and local radio airplay. The response was rapturous compared with their previous engagements, and swing music’s popularity spread across the United States.

Alongside his orchestral work, Goodman developed two celebrated small groups. He and drummer Gene Krupa were joined by pianist Teddy Wilson to form a trio; the addition of Lionel Hampton on vibraphone then created a quartet. The recordings made by these groups, while perhaps not the first that come to mind when thinking of Goodman, swing just as much as the rest. Both groups also featured Black and white musicians playing together. While they were not the first examples of racially integrated ensembles, Goodman’s national celebrity helped bring the practice into the mainstream.

Quite possibly the pinnacle of Goodman’s career came in New York in 1938, at the height of his national acclaim during the swing era. He was booked to play at Carnegie Hall, a Manhattan venue primarily associated with classical music. Bringing his swing orchestra to such an esteemed venue was no small undertaking, and he organised several rehearsals in the hall to get used to its acoustics. The concert sold out weeks in advance and proved a roaring success. The orchestra began with three contemporary numbers, followed by a retrospective of early jazz. Members of Count Basie’s and Duke Ellington’s bands also joined the proceedings, including a jam session on ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ that was warmly received by the crowd. The climax came with ‘Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)’, and the enthusiastic response to the concert brought the musicians back for two encores.

In 1939, Goodman was encouraged to add guitarist Charlie Christian to his group, but was initially reluctant to introduce an electric guitar into his sound. After an impromptu performance in which Christian was brought onstage to play with Goodman and impressed those present, he joined what became the Benny Goodman Sextet. The group made a number of recordings between 1939 and 1941, when Christian’s health declined; he died in 1942. During his two years in the sextet, Christian brought electric jazz guitar into the mainstream and helped lay the foundations for bebop, with artists such as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis citing him as an early influence.

By the mid-1940s, the popularity of big bands was declining, with vocalists increasingly taking centre stage and bebop emerging as a new musical force. Goodman briefly explored bebop with a group that included Zoot Sims, among others, but returned to swing after about a year. During this period, he also reworked his technique under the tutelage of classical clarinettist Reginald Kell, deepening an interest in classical repertoire that had begun much earlier. From the late 1930s onwards, Goodman commissioned works from several major composers, including Béla Bartók. He continued playing both classical music and jazz throughout the rest of his life, giving his last concert just six days before his death. Goodman died in his sleep in his Manhattan apartment on 13 June 1986, aged seventy-seven. His contribution to jazz deserves recognition not only for helping bring the music into the mainstream, but also for helping break down racial barriers along the way.