Too Good To Be True

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE - Benny Goodman And His Orchestra - Listening to these tracks after more than three quarters of a century, it becomes obvious why Benny Goodman and his Orchestra were riding high in popular esteem in 1936. The Swing Era was well under way; there was no hint of the coming of bop, modern jazz or whatever gimmicky name might be applied to the strange, angular, non-swinging, 'cool' (and rarely melodic) form that tried to elbow real jazz out of the way less than a decade later. This, the Goodman band, had in it's ranks enough jazz men to ensure a supply of muscular jazz for the connoisseurs, musicians who nevertheless could read scores and play section work with a precision that appealed to the dancing feet of young men and women who were not yet subjected to the curious social segregation implied by the term 'teenagers' or 'bobby-soxers. ' Popular fancy demonstrated it was largely tired of soothing syrup; the great depression was as good as over, and just as Dixieland jazz had come in 1919 to banish the war, so Swing in 1936 was giving Depression the formal notice to quit.