Teo Macero – Working With Benny Goodman
You know with Benny Goodman, I didn’t work on many records with him but I thought he was a terrific guy. When I was always with Benny, we always had a lot of fun. We laughed a lot. He’d call my office and he’d say, “Teo, what are you doing at five o’clock?” I’d say, “You know Benny, I’m going to finish and get out of here and go on home.” He said, “No, stop up and we’ll have a drink.” And I’d go up there and we’d talk and we’d listen sometimes to some music. But by in large it was just a conversation. He would ask me questions and I would answer them, you know, as best I could. But we had a good relationship. I mean, I did a couple of dates with him. Albums for Sony. Not for Sony but for CBS and it was always a lot of fun!
I know a lot of people didn’t like it but I did. I think he was a great guy. One time I met him in London. I had to go over there to record and I finally found out where the hell he was staying. Not far from where I was. I was staying at the Dorchester and he was just down the road. And I called him up. I said, “Benny, look it. Can we get together for dinner?” He said, “I gotta couple of tickets to a wonderful show.” I said, “Well, okay, you want me to meet you somewhere?” He said, “Yeah, come over to the hotel over there.” He says, “We’ll get the chauffeur to take us over to the theaters and before that we’ll have dinner, go see the show and maybe go out afterwards.” So I went down and met him at the hotel and the guy picks us up in the limousine. He drives around and around and around and around. I says, “Benny, where the hell are we going?” He says to the chauffeur, “Do you know where the theater is?” The guy says, “I think so.” He keeps driving almost for an hour. I mean, we’re probably not more than ten minutes away from the theater and the guy can’t find the theater. I says, “Aw Benny, Jesus Christ, the time. We won’t have time to eat. We won’t have time to do anything!” The guy says, “The theater, now I know where it is.” It was the Savoy. Right next to the Savoy hotel in London was the theater. It was called Noises On or Noises Off something like that. It’s supposed to be very funny.
We get in there and we’re late. Finally he sits down for about 10 minutes and he says to me, “This isn’t funny is it?” I said, “I don’t think so Benny.” He says, “Let’s go.” I says, “You can’t get up in the middle of the performance here.” I said, “Maybe there’s going to be another break.” And I looked on the program and there were a couple of breaks. I said, “Let’s just wait a minute or two.” And sure enough there was a break. I don’t think we were in the theater ten minutes. So we go upstairs and we go to dinner.
The dinner thing was wonderful. First of all we had a drink. And it was a marvelous. I was really enjoying myself. Because Benny and I were laughing. I don’t know what the hell we were laughing about but we were talking about the show, the awful show. He says, “Can you stay in town with me for a few days?” I says, “Benny, I’m leaving tomorrow morning!” He says, “Call your wife and cancel. Tell them you won’t come home for a few days.” “You gotta be nuts!” I says, “She’d probably shoot me!” And he said, “Well, if you stay, we’ll take a ride out in the country. We’ll go hear some music.” So we had a wonderful dinner. I think he ordered a steak and it took so long to get his steak that he calls the waiter over and he says, “Look it, cancel whatever he ordered.” He says, “We’re going to take off of that hot plate whatever you’ve got there, the wagon. Lamb chops.” I said, “That’d be fine.” So we had the lamb chops. We had the drink. And we ordered another one. I never finished the second one. He said, “Do you mind if I drink the second one for you?” I said, “No Benny, you’ve helped me out a great deal.” So he drank the second one. And then when we finish he says, “I gotta go to the bathroom.” I said, “Where?” I said, “I don’t know where the hell anything is around here.” He says, “Stand guard out there.” This is right next to the Savoy hotel.
He does whatever he has to do. I says, “Hey Benny! Look out! Look out!” Laughs.
If you listen to the output of all of his things it’s just tremendous. It’s hard to put it into words. I mean, he had the Benny Goodman Trio, the Benny Goodman Quintet. The Big Band and he did some concert things. And the same with Artie Shaw. It was just a number of wonderful records and I admired all of the ones he did for Columbia. Because I had a chance to work on some of them on the reissues. And also with Artie. Of course Artie, he did a couple of recordings for Columbia but not many.
