Perfect Swing

What better way to open our marvellous collection of re-mastered classics from the swing era than with At The Woodchopper's Ball? Woody Herman's greatest commercial and popular success features Woody's haunting blues clarinet and Neil Reid's punchy trombone with Saxie Mansfield on tenor-saxophone and trumpeter Steady Nelson. Benny Goodman makes two appearances in our compilation and that is only fitting, given his dominant position in the swing pantheon. Christened the 'King of Swing' by his promotions people, Goodman was an incisive instrumentalist, a clarinet virtuoso who had emerged from Chicago's Jewish ghetto, made good musically and formed an excellent big band. Louis Armstrong so much liked Swing That Music that he used it as the title for his (ghosted) autobiography. He made two versions of this exciting piece in 1936, the first with his own band and this with the popular Jimmy Dorsey orchestra just three months later.