Editing Benny Goodman (section)

== Early years ==
Goodman was the ninth of twelve children born to poor [[History of the Jews in the United States#Jewish immigration|Jewish emigrants]] from the [[Russian Empire]]. His father, David Goodman, came to the United States in 1892 from [[Warsaw]] in [[partitioned Poland]] and became a tailor.<ref name="bg">{{cite web |title=Biography |url=http://www.bennygoodman.com/about/biography2.html |work=Benny Goodman – The Official Website of the King of Swing |publisher=Estate of Benny Goodman |access-date=November 5, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101030030926/http://bennygoodman.com/about/biography2.html |archive-date=October 30, 2010 }}</ref> His mother, Dora Grisinsky,<ref name="bg"/> came from [[Kaunas]]. They met in [[Baltimore, Maryland]], and moved to Chicago before Goodman'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.<ref name="Firestone">{{cite book |last1=Firestone |first1=Ross |title=Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman |url=https://archive.org/details/swingswingswingli00fire |url-access=registration |date=1993 |publisher=Norton |location=New York |isbn=0-393-03371-6 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/swingswingswingli00fire/page/18 18–24] |edition=1st}}</ref>

Money was a constant problem. On Sundays, his father took the children to free band concerts in [[Douglass Park]], the first time Goodman experienced live professional performances. Believing that music might be a ticket out of poverty for his sons, Goodman’s father enrolled ten-year-old Goodman and two of his brothers in free music classes, from 1919, at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/benny-goodman|title=Benny Goodman|website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org|access-date=May 6, 2020}}</ref> His older brothers were given a tuba and a trumpet, while Benny, the smallest, got a clarinet. Benny also received two years of clarinet lessons from the classically trained clarinetist and [[Chicago Symphony Orchestra]] member, Franz Schoepp.<ref name="oxfordmusiconline">{{Cite web |last=Wang |first=Richard |year=2001 |title=Goodman, Benny |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000011459 |url-access=subscription |access-date=May 6, 2020 |website=Grove Music Online |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.11459 |isbn=978-1-56159-263-0}}</ref><ref name="pbs-biography">{{cite web |url= https://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_goodman_benny.htm |title=Jazz: A Film By Ken Burns Selected Artist Biography — Benny Goodman |date=January 8, 2001 |access-date=March 29, 2007 |publisher=PBS}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7d7NfKMhPeMC&q=Franz+Schoepp+Kehelah+Jacob+Synagogue&pg=PA71|title=Swingin' the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture|first=Lewis A.|last=Erenberg|date=September 8, 1999|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226215181|access-date=May 6, 2020|via=Google Books}}</ref> During the next year Goodman joined the boys club band at [[Hull House]], where he received lessons from director James Sylvester. By joining the band, he was entitled to spend two weeks at a summer camp near Chicago. It was the only time he could get away from his bleak neighborhood.<ref name="Firestone" /> At 13, he got his first union card.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v1999R6lT2AC&q=Benny+Goodman+union+card&pg=PA48|title=45 Profiles in Modern Music|first1=Elmer Richard|last1=Churchill|first2=Linda R.|last2=Churchill|date=May 6, 1996|publisher=Walch Publishing|isbn=9780825128530|access-date=May 6, 2020|via=Google Books}}</ref> He performed on Lake Michigan excursion boats, and in 1923 played at Guyon's Paradise, a local dance hall.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/music-popular-and-jazz-biographies/benny-goodman|title=Benny Goodman &#124; Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com|access-date=May 6, 2020}}</ref>

In the summer of 1923, he met [[cornetist]] and composer [[Bix Beiderbecke]].<ref name="oxfordmusiconline"/> He attended the Lewis Institute ([[Illinois Institute of Technology]]) in 1924 as a high-school sophomore and played clarinet in a dance hall band. When he was 17, his father was killed by a passing car after stepping off a streetcar,<ref name="collier">{{cite book |title=Benny Goodman and the Swing Era |first=James Lincoln |last=Collier |year=1989 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bennygoodmanswin00coll/page/48 48] |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-505278-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/bennygoodmanswin00coll/page/48 }}</ref> which Goodman called "the saddest thing that ever happened in our family".<ref name="Firestone" />{{rp|42}}