Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

• Ephesians 5:31

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

• James 1:27

I did not do a ton of research for this one.  I like both clarinetists.

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman (1909-1986) was born into a large Jewish American family.  He became the “King of Swing.”  He led a big band, but he also had great success with smaller groups.  Benny Goodman made headlines by having black members of his band.  His combos later on were about half white and half black.  He was noted for his efforts in integration to get the best music he could get.

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky, aka Artie Shaw (1910-2004) was an American clarinetist.  He was also a writer of both fiction and non-fiction.  While his years of being active in band leading and playing the clarinet outlived Goodman, he had breaks in his musical career.  Artie Shaw had some black singers with his band, but not much else in that regard is mentioned.

I like listening to Music Choice – Singers and Swing.  They occasionally will put a note about the person performing.  During a Goodman song, one of them said that he grew up in Chicago, and he started playing in bands in his early teens to help in the support of his large family.  He was ninth in a family of twelve children.  While listening to Artie Shaw, a note said that he left his family to pursue a career in music.  Another note said that Shaw considered Benny Goodman his chief rival.

These three notes got me thinking.  Who was the better clarinetist?  Like I said at the beginning, I like them both.  If you alternated between the two all day long, I might have a hard time deciding which arrangement was the best.  I might have a hard time figuring out whether it is Shaw or Goodman playing.  Of course, a few pieces are distinctive.

But the notes regarding how their careers began said volumes to me.  Benny Goodman, according to these notes, began playing music to help his parents.  Artie Shaw ran away from home.

In looking at just one other factor, Benny Goodman was good friends with Columbia Records producer John Hammond.  Although he and Hammond had their differences, he married Hammond’s sister, Alice Frances Hammond Duckworth.  They had two daughters, and he accepted his wife’s previous three children into the family.  He had one daughter play classical piano as part of his concerts when she was a teen.

Artie Shaw was married eight times.  Two were annulled, but the other six ended in divorce.  Four of his wives were actresses: Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Doris Dowling, and Evelyn Keyes.  One was to a daughter of composer Jerome Kern, Betty Kern.  One had written Forever Amber, Kathleen Winsor.  The first two marriages were to non-celebrities.

I have no idea if either of them believed in God, but in looking at the man instead of the music, Goodman started playing for a more honorable reason, although times were hard in those days for everyone.  And Goodman stayed with his one wife.  Goodman was a family man.

I would want people to say about me that I loved Jesus, and I loved my fellow man.  I doubt if everyone who knows me will agree.  I have had my differences with people over the years, and do stick to some things, like my faith in God to the point of digging in my heels.  In these days of your life being out there for all to see, and everyone having an opinion whether they really knew you or not, I lean toward the Goodman side of the scale.

I am a family man and a believer in Jesus Christ.

Here is Benny Goodman with Peggy Lee, What Don’t You Do Right.

And here is Artie Shaw, Begin the Beguine (one of his signature songs)

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.