Harry Goodman

Harry Goodman (June 21, 1906—October 22, 1997) was an American jazz double bassist and tuba player. He was the older brother of clarinetist/bandleader Benny Goodman and trumpet player Irving Goodman.

Active between 1926 and 1939, he was involved in 208 jazz recording sessions. After retiring from playing music in 1939, he turned to business.

Harry Goodman was born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 21, 1906, to David Goodman (1873–1926) and Dora Grisinsky (1873–1964).

Harry had three brothers —Benny Goodman (May 30, 1909—June 13, 1986), Irving Goodman (February 06, 1914—July 07, 1990), and Jerome David Goodman (1923—1944); and two sisters—Ida Goodman Winsberg (1902–1995) and Ethel Goodman (1904–1989).

Benny was a clarinetist/bandleader who led many jazz bands, including Benny Goodman & Friends, Benny Goodman And His All Stars, Benny Goodman And His Modernists, and Benny Goodman Octet. Irving was a trumpet player who played in Benny's bands and with Alvino Rey, Bunny Berigan, Charlie Barnet, Jimmy Dorsey, and Teddy Powell.

Goodman's father, David, came to the United States in 1892 from Warsaw in partitioned Poland and became a tailor. His mother, Dora, came from Kaunas, Lithuania. They met in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Chicago before their children's birth. With little income and a large family, they moved to the Maxwell Street neighborhood, an overcrowded slum near railroad yards and factories that was populated by German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Scandinavian, and Jewish immigrants.

Harry Goodman began his professional music career in the mid-1920s with Ben Pollack and His Californians and made his first recordings, accompanied by Glenn Miller (trombone), Benny Goodman (clarinet), Gil Rodin (alto saxophone), Wayne Allen (piano), Frank Sylvano (vocals), and Fud Livingston (tenor saxophone).

In the following years, he worked with Benny Goodman's studio bands with Jimmy McHugh, Jack Pettis, and Irving Mills.

In the 1930s, Harry made recordings with several musicians, including Hoagy Carmichael ("Rockin' Chair"), Jack Teagarden, Red Nichols, Gil Rodin, The Charleston Chasers, Wingy Manone, Harry Rosenthal, Red McKenzie's Mound City Blue Blowers, Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton.

Harry retired from playing music in 1939, at age 33, and entered the restaurant business in New York City. Later, he became a music publisher.

In 1993, Harry and Benny were profiled in the episode "Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing" of Oren Jacoby's TV documentary series American Masters (aired on December 8, 1993, on PBS).

Harry died in Gstaad, Switzerland, on October 22, 1997, at age 91.