Benny Goodman - Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing

Benny Goodman - Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing
by Oren Jacoby

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DVD details

Actor: Benny Goodman
Director: Oren Jacoby
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 60 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-11-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Sony

DVD Reviews of Benny Goodman - Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing

DVD Review: Good, straight-forward introduction to Benny's world
Summary: 4 Stars

This is a good, basic intro to the Benny Goodman who was known to millions as "The King of Swing." They could have gone a lot farther with aspects of Benny most people know nothing about--he commissioned and performed great works from Bela Barok, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, for example, but that isn't even *mentioned*--but the appeal here is to a mainstream understanding of BG. The documentary footage is fascinating, though we could have stayed longer in Carnegie Hall. They also whitewash Benny's severe personality problems, which only got worse as he aged. His Russian Tour, during which he alienated virutally all his men and may have been acting strangely because of a cocktail of pain-killers and uppers he was taking, isn't even mentioned, nor is the simple significance of the fact that his was the first American cultural institution allowed behind the Iron Curtain. His whole classical career is dealt with in about 30 seconds. There are some interesting details: we learn of his secret affair with and near-marriage to singer Helen Ward. We find out his daughters felt distanced from him because all he could talk about was music. And we see some great Carnegie Hall footage. (Supposedly the big overhanging mike wasn't used to record that concert; three mikes off to the sides of the stage recorded it. The NBC "Diamond" microphone, used to record Toscanini's famous broadcasts, was switched off that night.)

Some of the sidemen seem to tell tales that grow longer with every year. (Lionel Hampton says he told someone who asked what jazz is "If you have to ask, don't mess with it." Supposedly Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, among others, also said the same thing.) And there are a few factual errors: the Let's Dance broadcasts didn't really triumph on the west coast because Goodman's band went last and the west coast audience was the only one still awake when it played; the bands actually rotated through the night, and everyone heard an even dose of all the musics performed; why Benny succeeded so big not on the whole west coast but specifically in LA is something that will never be known. Also the super near the end that identifies Goodmand and Krupa together as from a rehearsal for the Carnegie Hall Anniversary concert is a mistake. It should read "The Timex All-Star Sessions."

Aside from these minor blemishes this is a fine documentary, but far from definitive. The best look yet at BG is the Ross Firestone book "Swing Swing Swing." Like most American Masters documentaries, this seems to have been made a bit hastily, and could have had more depth and been less simplistic. But it's good clean fun nonetheless.

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