The Pop Story

Benny Goodman - The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert (1950)

Benny Goodman via last.fm

I’m singularly unqualified to talk about jazz - which is a bit of a bugger, as there is a lot of it coming up. What is self-evident, though, listening to music from this era - Benny Goodman being a prime example - is how much pop has lost in terms of swing and dynamics, especially in the last 10 years. This being a recording of a live concert, it is - obviously - the sound of a group of musicians in one room playing together. Were it a studio recording from the same period, though, it would be a similar deal. No overdubs, no quantizing, no sequencers, no loops - and definitely no brickwall limiting at the mastering stage (was there even a ‘mastering stage’ in the ’50s?)

The quiet bits are quiet, the loud bits are loud, everyone’s loose and messy and playing these tunes (as all the great musicians do) as if for the first time, despite it being a repertoire Goodman’s band knew inside and out… play this to a 15 year old and they probably wouldn’t recognise it as music [sad jazz face].

The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert on Spotify