[Dixielandjazz] "The Reluctant Art" and "The Kingdom of Swing"

[Robert Smith]

Dear Bill Haesler



I've now re-read the chapter on Benny Goodman in Benny Green's book "The Reluctant Art". Here are my comments:



Benny Green in the book "The Reluctant Art" really slates "The Kingdom of Swing" by Benny Goodman and Irving Kolodin. There's one sentence that really sums it up, viz.:

"And then, in Chapter Five, entitled 'Musician's Musician', occurs a passage that passes a final verdict on the book as no book at all, but only a package of advertising copy of the crudest kind."

The passage he is referring to is the one in which Bix Beiderbecke collapses during his solo and Goodman takes his cornet and finishes the solo for him. 

 

He also says of Goodman: "The trios and quartets were the product of a natural jazz talent allied to fanatical technical ambition. Gradually the jazz talent shrank as Goodman grew older, while the technical aspirations remained undimmed. Slowly the perfect imbalance between the two was destroyed, and the official date of the abandonment of the perfect four-man formula Goodman had evolved for himself was October 2nd, 1939. On this day he made a recording which in two very different but equally vital ways heralded the end of Goodman's Golden Age." This is the first sextet, and it's Charlie Christian "whose playing began to make Goodman's appear flabby in contrast."



Kind Regards



Bob Smith