Benny, King of swing

Benny Goodman is one of those rare personalities who has become a legend in his own lifetime. His name and his clarinet will always be indelibly associated with the era of the "big band, " that period of "swing" music which permeated all parts of the Western world, but especially the United States, in the 1930s and '40s. Benny's large collection of photographs and memorabilia has been drawn upon to provide a panorama not only of those central years in his productive life and the many great jazzmen and singers with whom he his associated but also of his childhood and early struggles, his great successes as a performer of "serious" music and his continuing musical activities since swing and the big band gave way to other forms of entertainment.