In 2009, The Institute of Jazz Studies received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to digitize two of its most significant bodies of sound recordings: the Benny Carter and Benny Goodman Collections. 

The Carter Collection comprises Carter’s personal archive and contains many unique performances, interviews, and documentation of events in Carter’s professional life.  Many of these tapes and discs were donated by Carter to the Institute during his lifetime, and the remainder were donated by his wife, Hilma, shortly after Carter’s death in 2003.  The Collection consists of 225 cassettes; 159 reel-to-reel tapes (7- and 10-inch); and 184 lacquer discs totaling approximately 742 hours of playing time. The recordings range from the 1930s to the 1990s and include many unissued live performances and studio recordings, soundtracks of his film and television work, and interviews.

 The Goodman Collection consists entirely of reel-to-reel tapes compiled by Goodman biographer/discographer D. Russell Connor over four decades and donated by him to IJS in 2006.  It represents the most complete collection of Goodman recordings anywhere.  As a friend and confidant to Goodman, Connor had access to the clarinetist’s personal archive, as well as those of many Goodman researchers and collectors worldwide. The unissued or rare recordings selected for digitization as part of this project total approximately 404 hours.

In June 2011, the digitization process was completed, and the collections were made available to researchers at the Institute. These recordings will provide new insights into the careers of two of jazz’s greatest instrumentalists and bandleaders.  Beyond the obvious benefits to jazz scholars, Carter’s and Goodman’s careers intersected many other important figures and traversed many varied areas of American culture, including race relations, the film industry, the recording studios, radio and television, the academy, and even international diplomacy. Accordingly, this material will serve as a prime resource for a wide range of specialists in many fields.

Benny Goodman

Access to the Collections: Researchers are welcome to listen to any of the digitized recordings on location at IJS.
Click here for information on using the collections at IJS.

About Benny Carter:

Benny Carter (1907-2003) was one of jazz’s most important creators, whose major contributions in several areas represented a unique confluence of talents. As Duke Ellington once wrote: "The problem of expressing the contributions that Benny Carter has made to popular music is so tremendous it completely fazes me, so extraordinary a musician is he."

As a soloist, Carter, along with Johnny Hodges, was the model for swing era alto saxophonists.  He was nearly unique in his ability to double on trumpet, which he played in an equally distinctive style.  As an arranger, he helped chart the course of big band jazz, and his compositions, such as "When Lights Are Low" and "Blues In My Heart," have become jazz standards.  Carter also made major musical contributions to the world of film and television as one of the first black arrangers/composers to penetrate the Hollywood studios and a guiding force in the integration of the musicians unions.  His musicianship and personality won him the respect of fellow artists and audiences on every continent.  Carter was a strong supporter of IJS and in 1987 he created an endowment to assist jazz researchers, which has helped over sixty students and scholars.

About Benny Goodman:

Benny Goodman (1909-1986) was the symbol of the Swing Era, when jazz was for a time both high art and America’s popular music.  Goodman was a clarinet virtuoso, proficient in classical music as well as jazz, and a bandleader whose orchestras helped spread big band jazz around the world.  He also made a major contribution to civil rights by hiring black musicians Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton to perform with him the mid-1930s. 

During the 1930s, Goodman’s orchestra was the symbol of the Swing Era, which is said to have begun with Goodman’s legendary performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles in August of 1935.  Benny Goodman, known as the “King of Swing,” became a celebrity, as did such notable sidemen as trumpeter Harry James and drummer Gene Krupa.  Goodman’s 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall was a landmark in the acceptance of swing into American culture.  Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the clarinetist continued to lead small groups and specially assembled big bands worldwide, including a momentous 1962 tour of the Soviet Union, sponsored by the U.S. State Department. A musical perfectionist, he set the highest standards for himself and for the musicians who played with him in a career spanning seven decades.