Benny Goodman, vol. 1. - sound recording reviews

National Review, May 24, 1993 by Ralph De Toledano

Jazz is the American contribution to culture, and there are hundreds of fine jazz musicians. Those who made the significant contributions can be ticked off on the fingers of one hand. But it takes only one finger to tick off the man who launched the Swing Era and gave it its form--Benny Goodman.

He broke down the gates of the polite dance-band business and introduced the jazz-oriented Swing Era. How many hundred or thousands of Goodman recordings, air shots, or tapes exist is a question. He bequeathed five truckloads of material to the Yale University Library--unreleased tapes, recordings that were never issued, arrangements, and other memorabilia. From this has come Volume I of the Library's releases. It is great Swing Era music--the swing that had the jitterbugs yowling--and it will be followed by other samplings. Perhaps somewhere in that great mass there is one recording that matches the great "Sing, Sing, Sing" of the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert (BMG D 193504).