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
Benny Goodman two nations after the Cuban missile crisis and the end of that phase of the Cold War; both visits were part of efforts to normalize relations between the United States and the USSR. The Bolshoi Ballet came to the United States, and the Benny Goodman Orchestra toured the USSR. Members of the band included Jimmy Knepper, Jerry Dodgion, and Turk Van Lake (Vanig Hovsepian). Goodman was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After winning polls as best jazz clarinetist, Goodman was inducted into the "Down Beat" Jazz Hall of Fame in 1957. He was a member of the radio