Critic's Review
arwulf arwulf, All Music Guide
For a man who collaborated with Béla Bartók, the making of modern-sounding bop records in the company of Fats Navarro, Wardell Gray, and Chico O'Farrill was a perfectly logical experiment in form and style. Decades later, however, biased critics and die-hard swing fans were still griping about "Goodman's bop band." With the 2006 release of this volume in the extended Classics Benny Goodman chronology, listeners are able to place those "controversial" recordings in their proper historical context, right alongside Buddy Greco's sweet-to-stupid crooning and various gee-whiz novelty group vocals by a wholesome team identified only as "The Singers." Their slicked back treatment of the pop tune "The Hucklebuck" is highly ironic when encountered amidst various exciting bop tunes, for "Hucklebuck" was the notorious exercise in plagiarism based upon Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time." Parker never received royalties for this very lucrative hit. The real gold in this part of the Goodman retrospective may be found in the tenor saxophone of Wardell Gray (Navarro only appears on the first track) and those exciting Chico O'Farrill arrangements with Latin percussion erupting throughout "Shishkabop." Enclosed is a photo of Gray blowing his horn as Goodman beams in the background, obviously delighted with the younger man's creative approach to the music.
