Nine years ago a band leader named Ben Pollack was drawing hot music's purists to Chicago's Southmoor Hotel. His band, a future who's who of jazz, included a solemn, bespectacled clarinetist named Benny Goodman, a shockheaded, galvanic drummer named Gene Krupa, a rangy, adolescent trombonist with an Iowa accent named Alton Glenn Miller. As the years went by, and hot jazz built up from a provincial ripple to a national tidal wave, Clarinetist Goodman rode to shore on its crest and was crowned King of Swing.
For three years (1935-38) Clarinetist Goodman retained his...
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