Harrison said he had his students watch clips from the Carnegie Hall performance to help them better understand the older generation of jazz.

Peplowski, a clarinet soloist who played in the last iteration of Goodman’s big band in 1985, will also perform. To honor Goodman’s legacy, Black said the event will feature both original pieces and new arrangements of tunes from the 1938 performance. Black said Goodman utilized the concept of looking at something old and reinterpreting it in his music. Black said Goodman took lessons from the synagogue, in which themes of argumentation, reinterpretation and reinvention were emphasized throughout religious texts such as the Talmud, which reads as an argument between two people about Jewish law. Goodman got his first clarinet from his synagogue, and his clarinet teacher taught both African-American and Jewish students in Chicago. Goodman’s dedication to jazz’s racial integration came in part from his Jewish upbringing, Black said. “I can thank (Goodman) for the fact that I didn’t have to think of the integration of musical groups as something noteworthy.” “When I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, no one really batted an eye at an integrated band,” Harrison said. Goodman used his popularity and fanbase to fight against the notion of racial segregation in music, Harrison said.

In the 1930s, Harrison said, club owners had to be conscious of the general public’s attitude toward race and only employed all-black or all-white bands without any interracial mixing. “On top of that, (Goodman) went on stage with African-American musicians … and incorporated their sound into what he was doing musically.”Ĭharley Harrison, the director of the UCLA Jazz Orchestra, said Goodman is hailed as one of the early champions of integrated jazz ensembles. “The 1938 concert was a pivotal point in music history in that it was the first time anyone brought any form of jazz onto a premier classical concert hall,” Black said. Black said he hopes the event imparts a nuanced understanding of Goodman’s seismic impact on the world of jazz, which was kickstarted by his choice to perform with a racially integrated band at Carnegie Hall in 1938. The program, which will take place Wednesday in the Sinai Temple, will feature the UCLA Jazz Orchestra, as well as an alumni ensemble from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Sixteen years later, Black, the associate director of the Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music at UCLA, organized a tribute concert entitled “Benny Goodman: Ahead of His Time” with clarinetist Ken Peplowski to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Goodman’s renowned concert. Lorry Black first fell in love with Benny Goodman’s album “The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert” at band camp when he was just 14 years old.

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