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 railroad yards and factories that was populated by German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Scandinavian, and Jewish immigrants. Money was a constant problem. On Sundays, his father took the children to free band concerts in Douglas Park, which was the first time Goodman experienced live professional performances. To give his children some skills and an appreciation for music, his father enrolled ten-year-old Goodman and two of his brothers in music lessons at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue. During the next year Goodman joined the boys club band at Hull House, where he received lessons from director James Sylvestert. By joining the band, he