I have read only one other book by Ross Firestone-Going My Own Way, with Gary Crosby. That book is capably written but not very insightful, as "grudge" autobiographies tend not to be. I opened Swing, Swing, Swing expecting a similar kind of book, since more people seem to hold grudges against Benny Goodman than any figure in jazz.

I was plentifully and pleasantly surprised. This book has nothing to do with personal grudges. It is extremely well researched, and the fruits of that research are judiciously applied. Benny Goodman's sidemen have been interviewed more repeatedly over the years than anyone else's. Firestone uses many of those interviews but has conducted numerous additional interviews of his own, most of which have resulted in new or clarified details.

Benny Goodman's musical successes-and failures-had much to do with his troublesome personality, a personality that biographers and jazz historians have struggled to explain. It is perhaps too obvious to observe that Goodman's legendary unpredictability was caused in part by his background and in part by his own, unique DNA. In attempting to be more precise, however, jazz historians have trod the perilous path of psychoanalysis. For the most part, Firestone avoids that. He provides a variety of perspectives about Goodman's character from a variety of sources, and he is careful to discuss the potential biases of those perspectives. Firestone's own contribution to the discussion is to suggest that some of Goodman's erratic behavior stemmed from health problems, about which Firestone reveals new and substantial information.

An important element of the Benny Goodman story concerns his relationship with John Hammond, one of jazz's most important producers and ultimately Goodman's brother-in-law. Hammond was a complex figure who did much to further the careers of Goodman, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson and others. But he was a strong-willed person who maneuvered-sometimes without scruples-to get his own way. Hammond's support was critical to Goodman's early success, but as time passed their relationship deteriorated, ending up in layers of distrust and jealousy. The relationship is particularly hard to understand fully because John Hammond's autobiography, John Hammond On Record (1977) contains a good deal of misrepresentation, though it is not always easy to separate the exact truth from the embellishments. Firestone works his way through all this and comes up with a helpful portrait of these two complex jazz giants.

Firestone is particularly good at analyzing sources behind the sources. When writing jazz history, it is tempting quote from the jazz periodicals of the age--Down Beat, Melody Maker, and Metronome-because they are filled with attention getting headlines and word bites. Firestone uses such sources extensively, but not usually for information. More frequently, he uses them to illustrate conflicts and pressures within the industry that impacted Goodman's career.

This book differs from James Lincoln Collier's 1989 biography, Benny Goodman and the Swing Era, in that it focuses more exclusively on Benny Goodman's life and does not attempt a thorough overview of the "Swing Era." To me, that makes a better book because anyone interested in a full-scale biography of Goodman almost certainly has a substantial knowledge of the "Swing Era." That is not to say, however, that this book lacks interesting historical detail. Firestone's discussion of the genesis, development and presentation of the Let's Dance radio show, which helped propel Goodman to stardom, is the most detailed I've read. Firestone also provides fascinating details and critical assessments of Goodman as a classical clarinetist.

When James Lincoln Collier's book, Benny Goodman and the Swing Era, was published in 1989, two years after Goodman's death, I expected more Goodman studies were on the way. I know that several jazz historians were combing through the Goodman archives at Yale University. And yet not much resulted from that, at least not yet. This is the second full-length biography of Goodman, and it is an improvement over the first. The research is better, the focus is more consistent and the writing more compelling. This book does justice to a challenging and difficult subject.