How did Benny Goodman revolutionize Jazz?

With clarinet in hand, Benny Goodman was transformed from a child in Chicago's impoverished Jewish ghetto into the king of swing, greeted with near pandemonium wherever his band played. read more

The only white musician to really make a significant contribution to the history of jazz was Bill Evans. Benny Goodman, Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey were white commercial rip offs of what the innovative black musicians were doing. read more

Benjamin David "Benny" Goodman was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in the United States. His concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City on January 16, 1938 is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music." Goodman's bands launched the careers of many major jazz artists. read more

"Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall in 1938 takes a stand that jazz, however folk-rooted, can be high art and can make it just as a listening concern," jazz historian Phil Schaap says. Schaap produced the 1999 reissue of Goodman's Carnegie Hall Concert. read more