SPOTLIGHT ON HISTORYSPOTLIGHT ON HISTORY
Another clarinetist who led a popular white
dance band was Artie Shaw, born in New York’s
Lower East Side in 1910 and, like Goodman, the
son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. An
afi cionado of Stravinsky and other modernist
classical composers, Shaw developed his jazz bona
fi des in Harlem nightspots, combining his two
interests into well-made instrumental hits like
his band’s recording of Cole Porter’s “Begin the
Beguine.” The brothers Tommy Dorsey (trombone)
and Jimmy Dorsey (clarinet) also led successful
big bands in the Swing Era, both jointly and
separately. But the most popular of all the white
bands was led by trombonist Glenn Miller, whose
“In the Mood,” “String of Pearls,” “Chattanooga
Choo Choo,” and other hits became for many
Americans the favorite popular music of the World
War I I era.
In addition to the Ellington, Moten, and Basie
big bands, other black jazz orchestras of the Swing
Era include those of alto saxophonist Jimmie
Lunceford and singer Cab Calloway. Both bands fea-
tured a strong element of showmanship—novelty
songs, dancing, and comedy routines—in addition
to fi rst-rate arrangements and top performers.
Calloway’s band in particular was an incubator for
up-and-coming young instrumentalists of the next
generation such as Dizzy Gillespie.O
ne of the most prominent big bands of the
1930s and 1940s was led by Chicago-born
Benny Goodman, a virtuoso jazz impro-
viser who worked in New York from 1928 until
1934, when he formed his own dance orchestra.
The new Goodman band played in a New York theater,
recorded, and began appearing regularly on Let’s Dance,
a late-night NBC radio series. The clarinetist’s exact-
ing standards as a leader made his band a model of
ensemble discipline and polish, playing a mixture
of jazz tunes and popular songs of the day.
In May 1935 Goodman’s orchestra began a cross-
country tour with only mixed success. But a Los
Angeles performance on August 21 attracted large
numbers of teenagers who had been listening to the
band’s late-night broadcasts from New York, which
aired earlier in the evening in California and thus
drew larger audiences. The young people’s elec-
trifi ed response touched off a wave of enthusiasm
and nationwide publicity so strong that it has been
credited with launching the Swing Era, a new age of
popular music and a signifi cant youth-driven musi-
cal fashion change. The jazz-oriented dance band
was now the preferred popular-music medium and
would remain so for the next decade. In 1938 Good-
man and his orchestra would acquire some of the
classical sphere’s prestige when they played a con-
cert of jazz music at Carnegie Hall.Big Bands in the Swing Era
joined Basie in 1937. Walter Page’s resonant walking bass kept the beat, and
Green provided even, on-the-beat guitar chords. The precision and fi rmness
of Page and Green left drummer Jo Jones free to use the bass drum for accents
instead of keeping time (marking the pulse), as earlier drummers had. Instead,
he moved his timekeeping to the hi-hat, a pair of pole-mounted cymbals that
can be opened and closed with a foot pedal and also be played with sticks or
wire brushes. Timekeeping on the hi-hat (or alternatively on the suspended ride
cymbal) lightened the rhythm section’s sound without sacrifi cing intensity. Basie
himself had arrived in Kansas City as an experienced stride player who used his
left hand as a rhythmic engine. But by the time he and the band headed east in
1936 he had worked out a new, stripped-down piano style that would remain his
signature for the rest of his career.172028_15_361-385_r3_ko.indd 378 23/01/13 8:36 PM