In 1942 when Stan Levey was just 16 years old he was working at the Downbeat Club in Philadelphia with Dizzy Gillespie when one night Benny Goodman's manager comes in and says that the King of Swing needs a drummer over at the Earle Theater. The manager takes a liking to Stan, introduces him to Benny and Benny hires him. One week later Benny's brother Irving comes up to Stan and says, "Benny says you should go home." Fast forward 19 years to 1961 and Stan gets a call from Benny (who acts like nothing ever happened between them) to play at Disneyland. Stan once told me that Benny was famous for hiding an audio tape recorder under the bandstand to secretly record the musicians without their knowledge in order to avoid having to pay them royalties for the recorded music after he released it on a record. This of course didn't sit well with the musicians if they found out about it but Stan would say that's the kind of stuff Benny did. This video is a kinescope recording by NBC of a concert performed at Disneyland in the summer of 1961 and broadcast on September 15th of that year. All of our RU-vid jazz videos are strictly non-profit and we do not receive any payments from RU-vid.
21 авг 2024
