Benny Goodman was entitled to spend two weeks at a summer camp near Chicago. It was the only time he could get away from his bleak neighborhood. He also received two years of instruction from classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp. When he was 17, his father was killed by a passing car after stepping off a streetcar. His father's death was "the saddest thing that ever happened in our family", Goodman said. He attended Lewis Institute (Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1924 as a high-school sophomore and played clarinet in a dance hall band. His early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists
Benny Goodman Christian. Hammond had seen Christian perform in Oklahoma City in 1939 and recommended him to Goodman, but Goodman was uninterested in electric guitar and was put off by Christian's taste in gaudy clothing. During a break at a concert in Beverly Hills, Hammond inserted Christian into the band. Goodman started playing "Rose Room" on the assumption that Christian didn't know it. But his performance impressed everyone. Christian was a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet from 1939 to 1941, and during these two years he turned the electric guitar into a popular jazz instrument. Goodman continued his success throughout the