SWING DANCE ~ LINDY HOP ~ HUSTLE ~ Alaska

 

WELCOME TO ~ NELLEE’S   LINDY HOP SHOP ARCHIVES

CHAPTER 2

“Goodman’s Big Break, and The Palomar Ballroom”!!

 

 

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Benny Goodman’s break came in 1934, when he was hired to be one of three house bands on the NBC Saturday night radio show Let’s Dance. 

 

 

    The Benny Goodman Orchestra playing on Let’s Dance

 

The steady paycheck allowed him to purchase scores of hot arrangements by Fletch Henderson; the show exposed him to a nationwide audience.  While the radio program was heard late at night on the East Coast, listeners in California heard Goodman’s band swing like crazy during peak evening hours.  But Goodman wasn’t aware of this and, in fact, didn’t see his fortunes improving much.  Let’s Dance was canceled after just one season.  Then Goodman set out on a national tour that was nothing short of a bust - at first.  At a gig in Michigan, only 30 people showed up.  In Denver, the manager of the local ballroom threatened to cancel Goodman’s contract after the first night.

 

 

When the Benny Goodman Orchestra arrived in California on August 21, 1935, Goodman and his sidemen, including drummer Gene Kruppa and trumpeter Bunny Berrigan became an “overnight success.” When they opened at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, the band started by playing the safer, sweet material the Palomar expected them to play. 

 

 

 

Dancing at the Palomar Ballroom – Before Benny got there

 

                              

 

 

When that failed to excite the crowd, Goodman decided “The hell with it, if we’re going to sink we may as well go down swinging.”  The band broke out its most charged Harlem-style arrangements and let go, improvising and blowing with a passion. 

 

With Benny Goodman, 1937  Goodman and Kruppa

 

The dancers, who had been turned on to hotter swing music by listening to the Let’s Dance show, went wild! 

 

 

Dancing at the Palomar Ballroom A few years after Benny got there…

 

The next day, the gig at the Palomar was the talk of the music world.  The entertainment paper Variety soon began a column titled “Swing Stuff” – and Goodman started calling his orchestra a swing band.  At age twenty-six, Goodman became The King of Swing.

 

Photograph of Benny Goodman

 

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