Goodman at the Port

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 12

Goodman at the Port

THOUGHT Novelty Instrumental A prosajc title for the King Cole and | Benny Goodman Trios, There is noth» ing I like better in the small jazz field than the Goodman Trio, but I had to go down to the Port that afternoon and it looked like a clean miss. However it was the appointment at the Port which missed (bad staff work, sir), there was no train for an hour, and so I wandered down the waterfront: An overseas liner had just docked. A lot of people were waiting about. Electric gantry cranes groaned along the wharf inch by inch while the ship’s crew rigged a gangway. The men off watch hung over the starboard quarter rail. Near the stern somebody shoved a wirewound pole out of a porthole, there was -@ pause, and then, misted by static from the electric crane, the Benny Goodman Trio’s record of After You've Gone. Through the porthole I could see a -naked electric bulb, wisps of steam, a blue coat on a hook, and a gym shoe lying on the edge of a bunk, The men off watch silently eyed the people on the wharf. A seaman with thick shiny black hair and pointed shoes pushed to the rail, climbed over, down the steel latticed leg of a crane, and swaggered off through the crowd, folding his coat round him and casting bold glances to right and left. It was a rafferty, tomcat atmosphere, very suitable for jazz, and I was glad I’d come to the Port to hear Goodman.