Klarinet Archive - Posting 000212.txt from 1998/05

From: "Steven J Goldman, MD" <gpsc@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] The Benny Goodman Story (ugh, gag, choke!!)
Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 01:58:31 -0400

Yea it's Hollywood at it corniest and most inaccurate, but if you just watch
it for fun and the music it's not all that bad. Also, while a good pianist,
Steve Allen never played the clarinet. He learned a few fundamentals so his
fingering would not look ludicrous. But they had to stuffed his horn with
tissue because the sound was so bad. Benny always played in the background
to keep things moving but the finale cuts were recorded separately.

Steve Goldman
sjgoldman@-----.com

-----Original Message-----.
From: Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Date: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 4:38 PM
Subject: [kl] The Benny Goodman Story (ugh, gag, choke!!)

>
>> 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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>>
>=======================================
>Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
>Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
>leeson@-----.edu
>=======================================
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
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