Klarinet Archive - Posting 000183.txt from 1998/05

From: Rich & Tani Miller <musicians@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: The Benny Goodman Story, and an Artie Shaw
Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 18:21:15 -0400

If you are interested in a good book about musicians of this era, Mel Torme's
biography about Buddy Rich is excellent reading. It really gives insight into
the lives of these musicians. I think the title is something like "Traps: the
drum wonder". Buddy Rich was no angel either (a brain tumor might have
contributed to his erratic behavior) but he had incredibly high standards when it
came to music and music performances. Sure he had to live, but never sacrificed
his music for the sake of commercialism. Many, many musicians are mentioned in
this book. Mel is an excellent writer!

Kenneth Wolman wrote:

> >> But Steve Allen, who really used to play the
> >> clarinet, played Goodman. He might have played the same make and model that
> >> Goodman did, for authenticity.
> >
> >I think it's fair to say that "authenticity" was not a high priority for the
> >producers of this film.
> >
> >I'm surprised Dan hasn't stepped in on this thread. It's one of his favorite
> >movies.
>
> I think Steve Allen was pretty good on the instrument, but Goodman HAS to
> have dubbed the music himself.
>
> I remember seeing some of those 1940s "The XXXX Story," as in Benny
> Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, etc., when I was a kid. Not to
> mention Kirk Douglas doing a knockoff of Bix Beiderbecke in "Young Man With
> A Horn." Miller and T. Dorsey, like Goodman, were also supposed to be
> rat's asses in real life: I have heard people from that generation say that
> the best thing that ever happened to Miller's reputation came from being on
> that plane. Yet everyone got sanitized, beatified (at least), and
> portrayed as a familiar of Saint Cecilia. And the films got too painfully
> cute for words: even at 15 (I was precocious), I winced at the running gag
> in the Benny Goodman film about how everyone said to him "Oh Benny, don't
> be that way!" Gee, if that wasn't a cue for a song....
>
> I wonder what Hollywood back in the 1940s would have done with the lives of
> Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.
>
> On the other hand, some day Ken Russell will make a movie portraying the
> late Lawrence Welk as a pedophile with a weakness for prescription cough
> medicine and doing strange things with Pete Fountain's clarinet....
>
> Ken
>
> Kenneth Wolman Information Technology Morgan Stanley Inc.
> 750 Seventh Avenue New York, NY 212-762-1685
> My unpaid life: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/1649
> "I only wish I could write with both hands, so as not to forget
> one thing while I am saying another." -- St. Teresa of Avila
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
> For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org

---------------------------------------------------------------------
For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org