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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.01.16 17:42l 53 Lines 2545 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 81972_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jan 16
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 160116/1532Z 81972@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1938
Benny Goodman brings jazz to Carnegie Hall
Jazz has been called "America's classical music," a label that
does more than just recognize its American origins. The label
also makes the case that jazz is worthy of aesthetic
consideration alongside music usually thought of as "classical."
In the current era, when programs of Duke Ellington and J.S. Bach
often draw the same highbrow crowds, that argument hardly seems
controversial. In the 1930s, however, the notion was almost
laughable, which is what made Benny Goodman's January 16, 1938,
concert at New York City's famed Carnegie Hall so revolutionary.
Goodman and his supporting cast claimed a new place for jazz on
the American cultural scene that night, in what has come to be
seen as the most important jazz concert in history.
Benny Goodman was at the absolute height of his legendary career
when his publicist first suggested they book Carnegie Hall. He
was a star on radio, on stage and on film, and the label "King of
Swing" was already attached permanently to his name. So
outlandish was the suggestion that a jazz band might play inside
the citadel of American high culture, however, that Goodman is
said to have laughed the idea off at first. Once he warmed to the
notion, however, Goodman threw himself into the task with
characteristic passion. In addition to numbers from the regular
repertoire of his own band_which included the legendary Harry
James on trumpet, Lionel Hampton on vibraphone and Gene Krupa on
drums_Goodman planned a program featuring a brand-new "Twenty
Years of Jazz" piece and an extended jam session featuring stars
of the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras. The concert
sold out weeks in advance, with the best seats fetching $2.75.
It would be another decade before anyone who was not in the
audience or listening on the radio that night would hear the
famed concert. All recordings of the show were presumed lost
until Goodman's sister-in-law came across a set of acetates in
1950. By then, the performance had already become the stuff of
legend_particularly the stunning, unplanned piano solo by Jess
Stacy on "Sing, Sing, Sing," the evening's final number. The
album made from the recovered acetates became one of the first 33
1/3 LPs to sell over a million copies. The eventual discovery of
the aluminum studio master recordings led to high-quality CD
reissues in 1998, 2002 and 2006 of the legendary Carnegie Hall
Jazz Concert.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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