Klarinet Archive - Posting 000204.txt from 1998/05

From: "Carl Schexnayder" <carlsche@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] The Benny Goodman Story (ugh, gag, choke!!)
Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 22:38:42 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Date: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 4:28 PM
Subject: [kl] The Benny Goodman Story (ugh, gag, choke!!)

>> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.73
>> Subj: Re: [kl] Re: The Benny Goodman Story, and an Artie Shaw question
>

WAY TO GO, LEE! I love your uninhibited writing style - very much like my
own would be if I weren't so inhibited, (on the list, anyway)! I would love
to hear you comment on Kenny G., or Ace Cannon, or Boots Randolf, John
Phillip Sousa, etc., etc., etc.... Please write some more......I LOVE
IT!!!!

Carl Schexnayder

>> At 12:34 PM -0400 5/5/98, Lee Hickling wrote:
>>
>> > As I recall The Benny Goodman Story, and I saw it on the AMC cable
channel
>> > not long ago, Goodman does not appear in the movie. A lot of great
>> > musicians did play themselves -- Fletcher Henderson, Teddy Wilson and
>> > Lionel Hampton among them. 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.
>
>It is true that this disgusting movie is very low on my list of movies
>about musicians (or with musicians), but it is a work of high art next
>to the one in which Benny Goodman has to sing "Paducah, Paducah" [It
>rhymes with Bazooka], which is then picked up by Carmen Miranda in
>a hat with 14 pounds of fruit on it. And Benny is smiling like someone
>cut his throat, and all the members of the band (in impossible
>physical positions) are supposed to be showing just how much fun it
>is to play this revolting song.
>
>When I first saw it, I sat like a man watching a cobra; i.e., in
>utter fascination and in the hopes that I would soon die and not
>have to see the great Benny Goodman reduced to such puke as singing
>(in a terrible voice) "Paducah, Paducah." This man who was the
>greatest clarinetist of his age (and personally responsible for
>the most important clarinet literature of his age) couldn't play
>clarinet well enough that they had to have him sing???!!!!
>
>After all, all that was done to humiliate Benny in the biographical
>movie was to cut K. 622 to shreds so that the last movement (which was
>all he played) lasted a good 4 minutes and 30 seconds. And Teddy
>Wilson, and Gene Krupa are sitting there like they know the piece.
>And Benny's mother, about as out of place as a turd in a punchbowl,
>is glowing with happiness at her son's playing (as well she should have).
>That was revolting but I lived through it.
>
>But the Paducah, Paducah movie makes Bruce Lee movies seem like high
>art.
>
>If you have never seen it, don't.
>
>>
>> ________
>> Robert E. Winston rwinston@-----.com
>>
>> Where Windows Users Come From:
>> <http://www.altecgraphics.com/Media/extra2.gif>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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>> For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org
>>
>=======================================
>Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
>Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
>leeson@-----.edu
>=======================================
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
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