[78-L] 25 years ago today

[Jeff Sultanof]

Show business has always been filled with real characters.

There are a few who saw the nicer side of Goodman. In many cases, the
stories reflect that he was simply out of it and not focused on anything but
his music. He did have some truly unpleasant relationships with certain
musicians, and his actions were often tactless. On the other hand, Tommy
Dorsey (Jimmy was a great drinking buddy) and most certainly Buddy Rich
could be downright cruel (although trumpeter/leader Dean Pratt thought Buddy
was a sweetheart).

Shaw was certainly one-of-a-kind, but I've never heard of a musician in one
of his bands have a bad thing to say about him, interestingly enough. His
personal life was another story. In his case, the media attention certainly
had an adverse effect on him. He never wanted to be famous, and he didn't
want his life examined in the press.

I think I said earlier that the idea of black musicians joining Benny was
not due initially to Benny's progressive attitudes, but to John Hammond's
hounding him to hire certain musicians. Hammond was using Benny to break the
popular music color line. Benny had misgivings initially about hiring Teddy
Wilson, and he got around it by featuring Wilson with the small group, so
that it didn't look like he was a regular member of the band. Of course,
once no one really cared about it, he just incorporated Wilson and Hampton
into his big band.

Jeff Sultanof

On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Julian Vein <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>wrote:

> On 14/06/11 19:57, Taylor Bowie wrote:
> >
> > Jan Savitt had a black vocalist (George Tunnell,  aka Bon-Bon).  Not
> sure,
> > but I think he hired him even before Shaw hired Holiday.
> >
> >
> > Taylor
> Bon Bon recorded with Jan Savitt for the first time 18 Feb 1937.
> June Richmond recorded with Jimmy Dorsey 15+16 Mar 1938.
> Billie Holiday with Artie Shaw 24 Jul 1938 (if you ignore the session
> where he was a sideman for Billie).
>
>      Julian Vein
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