70 Years Later: Benny Goodman Is Still The King

After a disastrous cross-country tour, Benny Goodman and His Orchestra began a three-week stay on Aug. 21, 1935 at the Palomar Ballroom on Vermont and Third in Hollywood. Goodman started the evening cautiously, playing some stock arrangements he had purchased on the trip. The Palomar crowd seemed as indifferent to the band as the other audiences had been that summer. According to Willard Alexander, the band's booking agent, Goodman's drummer Gene Krupa said, "If we're gonna die, Benny, let's die playing our own thing."

At the beginning of the next set, Goodman told the band to put aside the stock arrangements and called for charts by Fletcher Henderson and other "swing" arrangers who were writing for the band. When the band’s trumpeter, Bunny Berigan, played his solos on Henderson’s versions of "Sometimes I'm Happy" and "King Porter Stomp," the Palomar dancers cheered like crazy and exploded with applause! They gathered around the bandstand to listen to this new music.

Radio had made the difference. Earlier that year, the crowd at the Palomar had heard Goodman’s band on the Let's Dance program. The coastal time difference enabled West Coast listeners to hear Goodman beginning at 9 p.m., three hours earlier than listeners on the East Coast heard the show. A West Coast disc jockey, Al Jarvis, had been playing Goodman’s recordings on his shows. The dancers at the Palomar had been groomed for Benny Goodman and His orchestra. And radio broadcasts from the Palomar sent the excitement from coast to coast.

The Swing Era had begun....

Note

To hear Benny Goodman's music, click either link:

Benny Goodman Playlist 1
Benny Goodman Playlist 2

To read how Benny Gooman launched the Swing Era, click this link:

Benny Goodman Launches Swing Era in Chicago