Benny Goodman

Abstract Benny Goodman has probably generated more anecdotes than any other musician. He was a superior instrumentalist and an extremely successful bandleader. He was also absent-minded, inscrutable, ruthless, and often infuriating. His eccentricities on and off the bandstand gave the musicians who worked for him abundant material for backstage stories. This sampling of them begins with a story told by Gene Lees: In the early 1930s, Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman sat together in the same New York studio sax section, before either of them was famous. Shaw always had his nose in a book during breaks. Goodman asked him what he was reading and Shaw showed him: Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. Thereafter Benny would greet Artie at work each day with “How ya doin’, J.B.?” and when they parted, “See ya later, J.B.” Shaw was not going to give him the satisfaction of asking him what it meant, but finally curiosity got the better of him.