Benny Goodman: King of Swing - Episode 6

Curtis Stigers remembers the clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman in his centenary year. In the final episode, we've reached the late 40s and the big band business in America is in decline. There are real tensions among the bandleaders, which come to a head on a Hollywood film-stage when Benny Goodman actually trades punches with one of his more traditional rivals, Tommy Dorsey. The bandleaders are all under economic pressure but Benny wrestles with the new style, bebop, and the idea of modernism in general. He starts his own bebop band, with exciting young players and arrangers including Wardell Gray, and studies a different playing technique with the English clarinettist Reginald Kell. But his heart isn't in it and everybody keeps leading him back into the past, including Alan Livingston at Capitol Records. Nevertheless Benny's drive to play and lead bands sustains his career through to the 80s and he continues to play until his death on Friday 13 June 1986 at the age of 77.