On January 16, 1938, the Benny Goodman Orchestra became the first jazz/swing band to ever perform at Carnegie Hall. As journalist John McDonough states, "Goodman's recital at Carnegie Hall gave the world permission to take jazz, its past and its future, seriously."
John McDonough is a Senior Editor for DownBeat magazine, a contributor to NPR and the Wall Street Journal and a lecturer in Jazz History at Northwestern University in Chicago.
