I Can Hear The Music: The Life of Gene DiNovi

Chapter Twelve

Stan Hasselgard was a kid in Sweden who grew up in the early 1940s playing the clarinet. Benny Goodman was a big influence, and blowing in a Benny-like way, he grew well known all across Europe after the war. In 1947, he moved to New York and made a good impression on everybody. A record he cut for Capitol with Barney Kessel and Red Norvo among the sidemen firmed up his reputation. But at the same time as Stan was establishing himself as a very good straight-ahead clarinetist, bebop was moving him toward modern jazz. That was a process I had a hand in.

Through the summer of 1948, Stan and a quartet made up of me, Chuck Wayne, Clyde Lombardi and Max Roach played for several weeks at the Three Deuces. Stan was a nice guy who was enthusiastic about absorbing bebop lessons, and he got those from us that summer.

Stan had already come under Benny's wing, and he played with Benny in a septet that included two clarinets along with modern musicians like Wardell Gray on tenor and the great young bebop trumpet player Fats Navarro. That was a period when Benny was interested in seeing what bebop was all about, though I can't say I ever noticed any difference it made in his own playing.

All of this history led to a phone call I got at home from Stan on the afternoon of September 9. Stan wanted to know if I could hustle into Manhattan that night for a record date with Benny's group. It seemed that Benny, who could be a tempestuous guy, and his pianist, Mary Lou Williams, no shrinking violet herself, had got into a disagreement. Mary Lou was either fired or quit. Would I replace her? Stan didn't need to ask me twice.

That night, I recorded the Fats Waller tune, Stealin' Apples, with Benny's guys: Fats Navarro, Wardell Gray, Mundell Lowe on guitar, Clyde Lombardi on bass and Mel Zelnick on drums. The funny thing was that Stan, the guy who invited me to the session, didn't take part in the recording. I thought that was a shame. Still, when the rest of us started to play, we got a bebop line on the tune, which suited me just fine. I was still at the stage where I thought playing fast bebop was the best thing in the world. Benny seemed to be okay with that. I vaguely supposed he might have been impatient about all the bop I was playing, but I think Stan had influenced Benny to be more accepting of younger players like himself and Fats and, on this date, me.

Benny, still by far the most famous clarinet player in the world at the time, invited me back a week later for another recording of the same tune, Stealin' Apples. This time, on September 17, it took place at the grand opening of the New York radio station WMGM. We were on The Ted Husing Show, live in front of a full studio audience, and we were being recorded at the same time. The band's personnel varied a little from the week before. Billy Bauer replaced Mundell Lowe on guitar. And there was no trumpet player because Fats Navarro just didn't show up. Benny was peeved about that, but I didn't mind because I was given Fats's solo space.

I think I played pretty well, and I knew one other person who seemed to agree. He was the guy who said at the end of my solo, "What was that?" The guy who seemed so astonished was Count Basie who was in the studio to play with Benny in another group. Basie took the time backstage to chat with me about music in general for a few minutes. That was a big deal to me, though I didn't tell him about the personal significance of his Oh! Red. The telling of that story came at another time in another studio in another city.

As for Stan Hasselgard, I never had another chance to play with him. A few months after the Goodman recording sessions, Stan was in a car in Illinois on the way to a gig. Outside the city of Decatur, on November 23, the car crashed. Stan, twenty-six years old, was killed.

More than a decade later, in 1959 and again in 1961, Benny Goodman hired me two more times to play with a group of his for a couple of weeks each time at Basin Street East in Manhattan. Before we opened in '59, he invited me to his house in Stamford, Connecticut, for the two of us to just jam a little. He was still making up his mind about bebop. By that time, I was far more than a straight bebop pianist, and I thought I could oblige Benny with whatever he wanted.