Catalogue: JASCD 402
Price Code: B
Release Date: 01/03/2003
Bar Code: 604988 04022 7
|
Benny GOODMANAn Airmail Special from Berlin 1959
 
Benny Goodman possessed a rare gift, one shared with
only a handful of other jazz musicians. Duke Ellington had it. Miles Davis had
it, as did Art Blakey. It would probably be too perfunctory to describe it as a
talent for leadership, and far too pretentious to call it something as ornate as
a transcendent catalytic ability. The truth lies somewhere between the two. Like
Ellington, Davis and Blakey, Goodman was able to consistently pull together
musicians of disparate styles and musical predilections and re-cast their music
in his own idiom, without so much as surrendering any of their individual
identities. He had done this with his original Quartet of Lionel Hampton, Gene
Krupa and Teddy Wilson, four super-nova talents that might have burned
themselves out in a blaze of self-indulgence had someone with a lesser grip on
leadership than Goodman been in charge. Later on in his career, he created fewer
stars and often drew upon a small clique of established names but the principle
remained the same - you came to play Benny Goodman's music, whoever you
were. See also JASCD 144/5, JASCD 394, JASCD 409, JASCD 656.
Price:
£8.99
Quantity:
|
