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
Don Jacoby Don Jacoby Don "Jake" Jacoby was a noted trumpeter, teacher, band leader and author who died December 25, 1992 at age 72. He played with Benny Goodman, Les Brown, did session work for CBS, NBC and soloed at Carnegie Hall. In addition, he did much recording session work in Dallas, Texas, where he also performed with his own groups and served for a while as president of A.F. of M. Local 147. Jacoby was born in York, Pennsylvania and learned to play trumpet from an uncle at six years old. He was one of the youngest players ever accepted to