Icono Clast
2005-08-18 23:07:25 UTC
[This was sent 8/17/2005 16:34 and apparently disappeared.]
[PLEASE NOTE cross-posts. Please delete irrelevant Groups should you
choose to reply.]
It happened seventy years ago today,
the Seventeenth of August, 1935:
When Benny Goodman saw the mob trying to get into Oakland's
McFadden's Ballroom (I wish I could find the newspaper picture), he
asked something like "What's happening?" Someone answered "They've
come to see you!"
This followed a disastrous evening at Elitch's Gardens in Denver when
the audience, some demanding their money back, stood in motionless
silence when the band played the music for which we know it.
Humiliated, he managed to please that audience with Polkas and Waltzes.
But the Oakland audience was hep to what he really wanted to do. He
opened with Fletcher Henderson's chart of "One O'Clock Jump" and the
Swing Era was born.
His gig at the Palomar Ballroom, four days later in Los Angeles, was
equally successful. Not knowing what had happened in Oakland, the
Angelinos claim that they were at the birth of the Swing Era.
Even Goodman's official WEB site has succumbed to the Angelinos' con:
"1935 [Benny] Scores first big success when band opens at Palomar
Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, marking the beginning of the
swing era." According to Gene Krupa, the first couple of sets were
rather subdued but when the band started to swing "we were in!"
Most people in this forum aren't aware that I'm a Big Band freak who
attends at least one Big Band performance every week, often more. For
me, the Big Band, if not the Swing, Era is alive and well.
___________________________________________________________________
A San Franciscan who never says "No!" to an invitation to dance!
< http://geocities.com/dancefest/ >-< http://geocities.com/iconoc/ >
ICQ: < http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 > ---> IClast at SFbay Net
* "Sent on a cross-country tour by his agent, Goodman encountered
negative reaction all along the way, until he reached Oakland. For
the first time the band scored a resounding success, followed by
another at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. Radio broadcasts from
the Palomar helped spread the word from coast-to-coast, and Goodman's
orchestra was suddenly on top of the world." -- Solid! The
encyclopedia of big band, lounge, classic jazz and space-age sounds
http://www.parabrisas.com/d_goodmanb.php
". . . a nation-wide tour began in May and flopped at first: Stacy
said that in Denver everybody was across town listening to Kay Kyser.
But in Oakland in August there was a crowd waiting and Goodman
thought they must have arrived in the wrong place. There and at the
Palomar Ballroom they finally found a college-age audience who'd
tuned in to Let's Dance in the evening, looking for dance music on
the radio: the big-band jazz style which had already been on the boil
for years was a hit, the Swing Era began . . ." -- Musicweb:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/encyclopaedia/g/G66.HTM
". . . a cross-country tour with the orchestra. After some minor
successes and major disasters, the group was well-received in Oakland
and then on August 21, 1935 they nearly caused a riot at the Palomar
Ballroom in Los Angeles as teenagers went crazy over the band -- Duke
University
http://www-music.duke.edu/jazz_archive/artists/goodman.benny/05/biography.html
"The tour culminated with Goodman's performance at the Palomar in
L.A. Although Oakland turnouts were said to have been good and crowds
enthusiastic, the band was not expecting what they were met with in
Southern California. What seemed to be the end of the road for the
Benny Goodman big band suddenly became the beginning of a new era in
American music history when the kids that night, in the summer of
1935, heard the band launch into a hot jazz number and began crowding
around the bandstand cheering and encouraging the group." -- Swing
Music Net http://www.swingmusic.net/getset.html
[PLEASE NOTE cross-posts. Please delete irrelevant Groups should you
choose to reply.]
It happened seventy years ago today,
the Seventeenth of August, 1935:
When Benny Goodman saw the mob trying to get into Oakland's
McFadden's Ballroom (I wish I could find the newspaper picture), he
asked something like "What's happening?" Someone answered "They've
come to see you!"
This followed a disastrous evening at Elitch's Gardens in Denver when
the audience, some demanding their money back, stood in motionless
silence when the band played the music for which we know it.
Humiliated, he managed to please that audience with Polkas and Waltzes.
But the Oakland audience was hep to what he really wanted to do. He
opened with Fletcher Henderson's chart of "One O'Clock Jump" and the
Swing Era was born.
His gig at the Palomar Ballroom, four days later in Los Angeles, was
equally successful. Not knowing what had happened in Oakland, the
Angelinos claim that they were at the birth of the Swing Era.
Even Goodman's official WEB site has succumbed to the Angelinos' con:
"1935 [Benny] Scores first big success when band opens at Palomar
Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, marking the beginning of the
swing era." According to Gene Krupa, the first couple of sets were
rather subdued but when the band started to swing "we were in!"
Most people in this forum aren't aware that I'm a Big Band freak who
attends at least one Big Band performance every week, often more. For
me, the Big Band, if not the Swing, Era is alive and well.
___________________________________________________________________
A San Franciscan who never says "No!" to an invitation to dance!
< http://geocities.com/dancefest/ >-< http://geocities.com/iconoc/ >
ICQ: < http://wwp.mirabilis.com/19098103 > ---> IClast at SFbay Net
* "Sent on a cross-country tour by his agent, Goodman encountered
negative reaction all along the way, until he reached Oakland. For
the first time the band scored a resounding success, followed by
another at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. Radio broadcasts from
the Palomar helped spread the word from coast-to-coast, and Goodman's
orchestra was suddenly on top of the world." -- Solid! The
encyclopedia of big band, lounge, classic jazz and space-age sounds
http://www.parabrisas.com/d_goodmanb.php
". . . a nation-wide tour began in May and flopped at first: Stacy
said that in Denver everybody was across town listening to Kay Kyser.
But in Oakland in August there was a crowd waiting and Goodman
thought they must have arrived in the wrong place. There and at the
Palomar Ballroom they finally found a college-age audience who'd
tuned in to Let's Dance in the evening, looking for dance music on
the radio: the big-band jazz style which had already been on the boil
for years was a hit, the Swing Era began . . ." -- Musicweb:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/encyclopaedia/g/G66.HTM
". . . a cross-country tour with the orchestra. After some minor
successes and major disasters, the group was well-received in Oakland
and then on August 21, 1935 they nearly caused a riot at the Palomar
Ballroom in Los Angeles as teenagers went crazy over the band -- Duke
University
http://www-music.duke.edu/jazz_archive/artists/goodman.benny/05/biography.html
"The tour culminated with Goodman's performance at the Palomar in
L.A. Although Oakland turnouts were said to have been good and crowds
enthusiastic, the band was not expecting what they were met with in
Southern California. What seemed to be the end of the road for the
Benny Goodman big band suddenly became the beginning of a new era in
American music history when the kids that night, in the summer of
1935, heard the band launch into a hot jazz number and began crowding
around the bandstand cheering and encouraging the group." -- Swing
Music Net http://www.swingmusic.net/getset.html