Going into middle school, I needed to pick an instrument for music class. The choice was clear: I could barely get a whimper out of a flute, and my buzzing on the brass was no good, but by God could I wail on the saxophone. My father was only too happy to indulge my affinity for woodwind by purchasing me a… clarinet. Practicality ruled the day: a clarinet, you see, is significantly cheaper than a saxophone, and is just compact enough to be crammed into one's backpack for easy transportation—my father had no sympathy for the fact that I idolized sexy sax man, not Squidward. I've been unpacking that trauma ever since.

It was surprising to me, then, to learn that all of that unpleasantness could have been avoided had someone simply played me this album all those years ago. Goodman is front and centre on the ol' licorice stick, and blows as hard as any another cat on the scene; there's no shortage of sax appeal here. As for the rest of the quartet: there's no bass (sad), but instead we've got double percussion—drums and vibraphone (!)—to lay down a backbone, plus keys to fill everything out.

From the instrumentation alone, this one struck me as antiquated: nothing else we've heard so far emphasizes these particular instruments, and I can't help but find the combination slightly cheesy. Not in a bad way! It's always fun, and it does legitimately go hard, but clarinet and vibraphone sound so wholesome to me; overall it doesn't quite have the same edge as some other things we've listened to.

Am I right in deeming this sound "dated?" Sort of: Goodman's quartet first made it big around 1936, but this particular recording is an attempt to recapture that magic in 1964 (well after the group had split—hence the "again" in Together Again!).¹ Music had changed much in those intervening decades, thanks in no small part to Goodman himself: many consider his 1938 Carnegie Hall concert to be the event that elevated jazz from popular frippery to serious art music. Society had changed as well, and Goodman was involved there too—his racially integrated quartet was highly controversial and nearly unprecedented, but that didn't stop them from touring the South; by all accounts that I've read, Goodman unflinchingly insisted on the equal treatment of all band members at every stop along the way.

I'm not sure what the original reception to this album was in 1964, but I wouldn't be surprised if it mirrored my own: it's lovely music, but also clearly from another time—a long-lost treasure unearthed from a forgotten time capsule. I suppose that's a reputation one only earns by doing something groundbreaking in the first place.

One final thought: while listening to this album, I kept feeling there was some kind of connection I couldn't quite place. By the end of the week I finally pieced it together: the theme from Monsters, Inc. sounds like it could've come right out of a Goodman ensemble (albeit with soprano sax filling in for clarinet). And man, what a bop that theme is.

Favourite track: Dearest