Benny Goodman returned to his swing band because he concluded that was what he knew best. In 1953, he said, "Maybe bop has done more to set music back for years than anything...Basically it's all wrong. It's not even knowing the scales...Bop was mostly publicity and people figuring angles." In 1949 he studied with clarinetist Reginald Kell, requiring a change in technique: "instead of holding the mouthpiece between his front teeth and lower lip, as he had done since he first took a clarinet in hand 30 years earlier, Goodman learned to adjust his embouchure to the use of both lips and
Eleanor Sophia Smith choral director. She also composed songs and arranged music specifically for her students to perform. She initiated an annual Christmas concert which also included a dramatic presentation and was eagerly anticipated by the neighborhood for its holiday pageantry. Under her direction of the music school, the Hull House Boy's Band developed, which included immigrant boys from the neighborhood who would later become noted jazz performers. Jazz pianist Art Hodes recalled that one of the first jam sessions he ever had occurred when a young clarinetist named Benny Goodman joined the Boy's Band. James Petrillo, who would later become the leader