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| Benny Goodman Playing Cla... |
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The Big Band Scene (Yank Magazine, 1945)
In three columns Yank Magazine correspondent Al Hine summed-up all the assorted happenings on the 1945 Big Band landscape:"The leading big bands now are Woody Herman's, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton's. Benny Goodman, who broke up his own band for the umpteenth time, is a featured performer in Billy Rose's super revue, 'The Seven Lively Arts', but the maestro is said to be thinking of turning over his Rose job to Raymond Scott and making another stab at the band business."
| The Saucy Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Orchestra (Yank Magazine, 1943)
One of the most popular women's group of the 1940s was Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Orchestra; few were surprised to hear that they were first girl band to be signed by the USO when America entered W.W. II. Sired by two vaudevillians, Ada Leonard (1915 - 1997) briefly toiled as a stripper in Chicago nightclubs before embarking on her career in music.This interview displays for the readers her salty, fully-armored personality and her disgust concerning the total lack of glamor that accompanies USO shows, topped-off by a photo of her pretty face.
The article can be printed and we highly recommend that you view the video-short linked below. *Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Band Swing It in this Short Film Clip*
| Irving Berlin (Stage Magazine, 1938)
"Irving Berlin (1888 – 1989) - publisher, key-polisher, apostle of melody, toast of the 'teens -holds his own in the dissonant nineteen-thirties."
| Benny Goodman, The King of Swing, Arrives on Park Avenue (Stage Magazine, 1938)
To mark the momentous occasion of Benny Goodman (1909 – 1986) and his band performing for the 'corsage clique' on Park Avenue in 1938, 'the King of Swing' wrote this short essay concerning all his good work and the enjoyment that it brought to the Jitterbgers of the world:"A band swinging on a dias is like Babe Ruth swinging at home plate. It levels all the bumps of wealth and birth and makes all people free and equal. Maybe that's why Hitler and Mussolini and all the rest of the boys won't give it elbow room..." *Watch Benny Goodman Swing It in this Short Clip*
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