Let's start with Benny Goodman. Born in Chicago in 1911, Goodman was a child prodigy on clarinet, and was a natural at playing pre-swing, swing and big band music. While influenced by a few lesser-known players, he was primarily adept at integrating the new
sounds of jazz with his classical music training and ethnic heritage (his father was Polish, his mother Lithuanian, and the family was Jewish). He also distilled styles of musicians around him into one of the defining sounds from the first 30 years of jazz. A shrewd businessman, Goodman became wealthy due to his success, and also married
into the Vanderbilt family. Major names associated with Benny Goodman include pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, drummer Gene Krupa, trumpeter Harry James, and guitarist Charlie Christian.
Billie Holiday's life was one of musical success and financial/personal failure. Born in 1915 to unwed teenagers in Baltimore as Eleanora Fagen, Billie took her stage name from Billie Dove, a period movie actress, and her musician father, Clarence Holiday, who played guitar with Fletcher Henderson. From her
first recordings with Benny Goodman, Holiday clearly had a gift for treating a song in her own way. She phrased lyrics in much the way Louis Armstrong soloed on trumpet and Bessie Smith muscled the blues, ending notes before or after the beat, but rarely on the beat. Most of the other singers of the period (among them Bing Crosby and, later, Frank Sinatra)
went to school on Holiday's jazz-musician approach to singing. Ella Fitzgerald, later a master of rhythm, scat and swing, didn't swing as much early in her career as Billie Holiday. People Holiday sang with comprise the Who's Who of jazz. Those most famous to many will be tenor saxophonist Lester Young, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist and bandleader Teddy Wilson, plus virtually every other notable sideman from the Ellington and Basie bands. Just a little about Billie Holiday the person - she had little self-control or self-respect with regard to alcohol,
drugs and men who mistreated her. Most of her best singing was done before 1945 (or before the age of 30!). She died in the hospital after being arrested for narcotics possession and use at the age of 44 (although she may have been slightly older - records for African-American births were not the greatest in
the early part of the century).
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 Benny Goodman
King Porter Stomp
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
3/1/1935
Stompin' at the Savoy
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
1/24/1936
Mooglow
The Benny Goodman Quartet
(with Lionel Hampton, vibraphone;
Teddy Wilson, piano; Gene Krupa,
drums) 8/21/1936
Don't Be That Way
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
(At Carnegie Hall) 1/16/1938
Life Goes to a Party
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
(At Carnegie Hall) 1/16/1938
Sing, Sing, Sing (with a Swing)
Benny Goodman & His Orchestra
(At Carnegie Hall) 1/16/1938
Billie Holiday
Your Mother's Son-In-Law
(with Benny Goodman & Jack
Teagarden) 11/27/1933
What a Little Moonlight Can Do
(with Teddy Wilson) 1935
These Foolish Things
(with Teddy Wilson & Johnny
Hodges) 1935
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Palomar Ballroom, Los Angeles
Where the Benny Goodman
Orchestra first hit it big
in 1935. L.A. fans had heard
the band on late night
broadcasts from New York,
and lined up around the block
to get in. The beginning of the
so-called "Swing Era".
Carnegie Hall, N.Y.C.
Where the Benny Goodman
Orchestra, Trio and Quartet
made history in a January 1938
concert. Featured were Harry James,
Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, Gene
Krupa, Count Basie, Lester Young,
Buck Clayton, Johnny Hodges, Cootie
Williams and Martha Tilton, vocals.
The Apollo Theater, Harlem,
N.Y.C
Where Billie Holiday debuted in 1934.
She was discovered at a Harlem club
called Pod & Jerry's by noted talent
scout John Hammond who also
discovered Count Basie, electric
guitarist Charlie Christian, Bob
Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Bruce
Springsteen.
Commodore Record Shop
and Label, N.Y.C.
Billie Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit"
for Commodore, a record store
and jazz label owned by Milt Gabler.
Billy Crystal (the actor) used to
hang around the store where his
dad, Jack, worked. Recordings on
Commodore included Lester Young,
Ben Webster, Bud Freeman, Coleman
Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell, Willie
"The Lion" Smith, Joe Sullivan,
Ralph Sutton and Chu Berry.
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