Benny Goodman ∽ Camel Caravan Broadcast ∽ Chicago ∽ September 13, 1938 (Pt. 1)

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• published: 09 Jun 2011
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This is a very special broadcast, since it is also kind of an "arranging workshop", held by Professor Fletcher Henderson, with bandleader Benny Goodman as the - slightly impatient - student. I hope I got all the words right from the little dialogue between teacher and student: BG: "Tonight the Camel Caravan spotlight swings to a man who is not a member of the band but who still has one of the most important jobs in it: The arranger. -- Tonight as our guest: Fletcher Henderson who's made some of the best arrangements in our books. -- Come on out, Smack!" (Applause.) "Fletcher, Fletcher, I think a lot of the people would be just interested in knowing how an arrangement comes to be. Let's take Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies", that's one of your best ones, I think. How did you start with that?" FH: "Oh Benny, of course, the first thing is the melody. Let's take it just as it's written; it goes like this ..." (Plays piano.) -- BG: "Okay, Paderewski *), we got it. Where do we go from there?" FH: "Well, that's Mr. Berlin's idea, but we wanna make it swingin'. We wanna swing it something like this ... (Plays piano.) ... but Benny, you can't do it so well with a piano! Can I borrow the band from you for a few moments?" BG: "Sure, Smack, they're all yours!" FH: "Alright now, first let's take the brass section. This is what I wrote for the brass... (Trumpet section plays first three bars.) ... that's the part the brass is playing. While they're doing that - the trumpets - the saxes are there playing something underneath. Benny would you mind, running the saxes through their part alone?" (Benny conducts the saxes for the same three bars). BG: "Alright, I tell you what, Smack?! May I suppose we put those two together, right now?!" -- FH: "Okay, now the brass, and the saxes." (Brass and saxes play the same three bars together.) FH: "Well, there's one other thing we gotta add, though, Benny." -- BG: "You wouldn't be talking about the rhythm section now, would you Fletcher?" FH: "That's it, we got rhythm!" BG: "Alright, here we go." (Orchestra plays the three bars tutti.) -- FH: "Well, there you are; that's all there is to it. All you gotta do now, is: Play it." BG: "Alright, counting on!" (Orchestra plays five other bars of the arrangement, and the audience cheers.) BG: "Wait a minute now, wait a minute, hold on! -- Fletcher you told us all about arranging "Blue Skies". -- But, where did that introduction come from? What's that got to do with "Blue Skies"? FH: "Oh, Benny, I'm surprised that you ask; that's the storm!" BG: "That's the what?" FH: "That's the storm... (Audience laughs.) ..."Blue Skies" from now on!" Benny laughs, and the orchestra finally plays Fletcher Henderson's famous arrangement on Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies". -- The rest is as announced. More about Fletcher Henderson, and his nickname "Smack" can be learned here: http://www.answers.com/topic/fletcher-henderson Some V.I.P., meaning: "very important ... personnel" ;) Benny Goodman - cl, Teddy Wilson - p, Lionel Hampton - vib, Dave Tough - d, Harry James - tp & Martha Tilton - voc ∽ 'Live' from the Congress Hotel, Chicago, IL, September 13, 1938. Transferred from Soundcraft LP-1020, Vol. 2 Part 2 can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL5GEBsL2T4 *) A biography of Ignacy Jan Paderewski can be found here (thanks to Tim Olsen for the information): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacy_Jan_Paderewski