Benny Goodman Trio—”After You’ve Gone” (1935)
In 1986 pianist Teddy Wilson (1912-1986) and seven other American musicians made a tour of Europe with a tribute to Benny Goodman concert. During a performance in Gouda, I was fortunate to be standing pressed to the left side of Mr. Wilson’s piano, looking down on his slender fingers dancing over the 88 keys. During the intermission we talked briefly and when I asked him how he had met Goodman, he nodded in the direction of vibraphonist Red Norvo and said "at a party at his place.” Their introduction to each other took place in the mid Thirties and shortly thereafter Goodman and Wilson made their first trio record together: “After You’ve Gone.”
Benny Goodman-clarinet; Teddy Wilson-piano and Gene Krupa-drums, for RCA Victor in New York, July 13, 1935.
On December 1, 1935, John Hammond’s review of this recording session was published in a New York newspaper, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, under the heading “Recent Jazz Recordings: A Session at Victor -- Goodman, Krupa and Wilson Pool Their Talents.”
“There are many features about a recording studio which are absolutely terrifying to an artist,“ Hammond began his column. “The cold, bleak atmosphere of the room, the anxious waiting for the buzzers and light, the interminable delays in changing waxes and regulating instruments, and, finally, the absence of an audience, make recording an ordeal for all but the most self-confident performers. It is this very tension that makes it so difficult to capture real swing music on records. Unless an improvising artist can feel wholly at ease, he cannot begin to express himself with any assurance. And, in so far as swing musicians are concerned, it is from an appreciative audience that the necessary assurance comes.”
Hammond continued, “In recent months there has been only one occasion which marked an exception to this hard and fast rule: that extraordinary session at Victor when Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and the miraculous Teddy Wilson pooled their talents in the making of four sides featuring clarinet, drums and piano. Although the event started at nine in the morning, an ungodly hour for any professional dance musician, not only the studio but the recording personnel seemed cheerful. Nobody was in a hurry, every encouragement was given to each artist and the natural result was a spirit which transmitted itself right on to the wax.”
“After You’ve Gone” -- composed 17 years earlier by African American singer/songwriter/pianist Turner Layton (1874-1978) -- was the first record of this Benny Goodman Trio. Coupled with “Body And Soul,” it was released in August 1935 and became an immediate success -- in contrast to Goodman’s first big band record session of a fortnight earlier. As Hammond described the trio record: “There is an integration in this record that one rarely finds in any music, and this quality has much to do with that mysterious word called ‘swing’.”
