Swing, Swing, Swing:The Life and Times of Benny Goodman

Swing music has for so long been synonymous with "the standards" and "mainstream" that people have forgotten how innovative and controversial the form was. The hot world of Swing, spearheaded in the 1930s by the Benny Goodman Orchestra, elicited the kind of popular passion, social uproar, and critical backlash that can only be compared, in later generations, to that of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Ross Fireston's new biography of this difficult, brilliant man establishes Benny Goodman's position as one of the seminal influences in 20th-century popular music. It features the sounds and stories, the life and the times of one described as the greatest jazz clarinetist ever, tracing a career that spanned six decades. The world's first racially-integrated band, the "dancing in the aisles" shows at the Paramount, the whirlwind trans-American trips, the historic 1962 tour of Russia and the classical performances at Carnegie Hall, are all captured in the words of the players and managers and fans who witnessed them. Ross Firestone is the co-author of "Going my own Way", the life of Gary Crosby, and of "Postcards from the Road", the life of Elizabeth Ashley.