[Dixielandjazz] Benny Goodman Article

[Dick Baker]

At 02:33 PM 7/12/2007, Carol, Clarinet you wrote:
>Bill Crow, the legendary journeyman bass player and writer, "Jazz  Anecdotes"
>and "From Birdland to
>Broadway" describes what it was like to  play with the Benny Goodman band
>during the infamous Russia tour of 1962 and  Benny's treatment of his 
>musicians
>(and vocalist).  It is a Long Read, but  very very interesting.
>
>_http://www.billcrowbass.com/Writing/To%20Russia.htm_
>(http://www.billcrowbass.com/Writing/To%20Russia.htm)

I read Bill Crow's marvelous account of Benny Goodman's tour of the Soviet 
Union with more than average interest.  Sixteen years later, in 1978, I was 
the Terry Catherman equivalent, the State Department escort officer, with 
Gunther Schuller and the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble.  We 
didn't get nearly the attention the Goodman trip had received, naturally, 
but I surely recognized a lot of the situations.  We played in three of the 
cities Goodman visited, Moscow, Tbilisi, and Tashkent.  And I can one-up 
Crow on the Tashkent VIP meeting:  He crossed paths with Shirley McLain at 
their Tashkent hotel, but I met--and sat up most of the night talking 
politics and religion with--Muhammed Ali.

>
>---------------------

      Dick Baker
  djml at dickbaker.org