Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.

Illegal drinking was no longer enough of an attraction to keep clubs full. Former speakeasy owners needed something new to bring in customers. Dancing was their answer. The great depression was going strong. People needed fu n and cheap entertainment. The large dance halls offered a great way for people to dance their stress and blues away at a price they could afford. Dance crazes were nothing new in the 1930s. The early 1920s had the Charleston, 1927 gave us the Lindy hop. T he Shimmy, The Big Apple, The Fox Trot, The Varsity Drag and The Jitterbug all followed. Harlem was the hot spot for dancing and the hottest spot of them all was The Savoy Ballroom. The Savoy was a huge dance hall that often featured a “Battle of the Band s”. Two competing swing bands would set up on either end of the dance floor. One would play a tune or two then the other would try to outdo them.

Sometimes they would battle using the exact same arrangement so you could really see and hear which band did i t better The black bands of Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb and Duke Ellington had been playing for these dances and this style for several years before a young clarinetist named Benny Goodman showed up. Benny Goodman starts out as a young bandleader and c larinet player. He secures a good gig at the new Roseland Ballroom which leads to a 3 hour Saturday night radio show called “Let’s Dance”. Along the way a friend suggests he needs to liven up his act with some arrangements like Fletcher Henderson and Chick Webb were playing. This is around 1934 and Henderson’s band is falling apart. Henderson gladly sells his entire “book” (his group of arrangements for his band) to Goodman and signs on as an arranger for more tunes. The radio show featured three bands -a sw eet band, a Latin band and, for the last hour, a “hot” band. Goodman’s band was the “hot” band. These shows were heard across the nation and recorded.

Unfortunately, the gig ended when the sponsor, Nabisco, suffered a labor strike. Goodman had to scramble to find work and ended up booking a cross country tour. Across the Midwest, this tour was generally a failure. The audiences, many of whom hadn’t been listening to the late night dance show, expected the tame, commercial, “sweet” dance music that they had become accustomed to. Whenever Goodman would call one the “hot” numbers from his book club owners and the audience would complain and generally Benny Goodman react badly. By the time the Goodman band had reached the West coast they had assumed the band would fold up an d go home defeated. But, they hadn’t counted on the young college students listening to the Let’s Dance show on their radios at night. Due to the three hour time zone differences, young high school and college students were hearing Goodman’s broadcast at e ight or nine in the evening…..before their bedtime! Goodman was huge in L.A. and didn’t even know it! When the band arrived in Los Angeles they didn’t know who the big crowd out front was waiting for. They went into their set of music, avoiding the “hot” t unes that had got them in trouble all across the continent. The crowd sat politely. Finally, legend has it, one of the band members said, “If we’re going to go out, let’s go out swinging” and they called one of their “hot” tunes. The crowd jumps to its fee t and pandemonium ensues. The Swing Era is born and Benny Goodman is crowned “The King of Swing”. Within months swing is the hottest thing in music. Hundreds of bands are forming and millions of records are being sold.