I absolutely love Goodman's music. At my high school, each year the senior class would take a trip to visit New York City. I was somewhat of a clarinet nerd, so I took along my clarinet. Every chance that I had, I would hide in the hotel room closet and practice y clarinet. There was a copy of The New Yorker magazine in the hotel room and I happened to notice that Benny Goodman was going to be performing at a place called Basin Street East. It looked to me as though his performance would begin at 2 a.m. the next morning. To say that I was excited would be the understatement of the century! I knew better than to ask our chaperones whether or not I could go hear Goodman. There was absolutely no possibility that they would agree to allow a seventeen year-old Alabama boy out of the hotel to roam around New York City in the wee hours of the morning. I waited until after bed-check and around midnight I sneaked out of the hotel and began a trek across Manhattan toward Basin Street East. I
