Jasmine Records Benny GOODMAN - An Airmail Special from Berlin 1959 CD

Benny Goodman possessed a rare gift, one shared with only a handful of other jazz musicians. Duke Ellington had it. Miles Davis had it, as did Art Blakey. It would probably be too perfunctory to describe it as a talent for leadership, and far too pretentious to call it something as ornate as a transcendent catalytic ability. The truth lies somewhere between the two. Like Ellington, Davis and Blakey, Goodman was able to consistently pull together musicians of disparate styles and musical predilections and re-cast their music in his own idiom, without so much as surrendering any of their individual identities. He had done this with his original Quartet of Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa and Teddy Wilson, four super-nova talents that might have burned themselves out in a blaze of self-indulgence had someone with a lesser grip on leadership than Goodman been in charge. Later on in his career, he created fewer stars and often drew upon a small clique of established names but the principle remained the same - you came to play Benny Goodman's music, whoever you were.