Benny Goodman: Live In Hamburg 1981- Analog Pearls Vol.5

Stockfisch Records

Benny Goodman  -  clarinet  /  Svend Asmussen (DK)  -  violin, vibraphone  /  Philip Catherine (BE)  -  guitar  /  Mads Vinding (DK)  -  bass  /  Bjarne Rostvold (DK)  -  drums  /  Claes Crona (SE)  -  piano

Günter Pauler - My recollections of this concert:

"In the 80s I recorded a lot of concerts for the NDR radio show “The Sunday Concert“. The Benny Goodman concert at CCH Hamburg has especially stayed in my memory. I was sitting behind the stage curtains with a 7-channel mixer that I had built myself and a NAGRA IV-S reel-to-reel recorder. Benny Goodman approached me during a break. He must have sensed my strain caused by having to make a two-channel recording without seeing the stage, nor having made a soundcheck. He laid his hand on my shoulder and said something like “it will all be okay“…"

This recording of one of Benny Goodman’s last concerts in Germany (which was held for NDR’s “Sunday Concerts” series) is much more than a newly discovered collector’s item for fans of the eternally young American swing tradition. Using minimal recording equipment, Günter Pauler made an exciting and even touching sound-document of Goodman’s world-class playing at the Hamburg Congress Centre on his last European tour in 1981. The impressive interplay between the (then) young Danish and Belgian musicians and the old master of classic jazz on the large stage of the CCH Hamburg showcases great mutual playing synergy and class.