Mission to Moscow was a tune introduced by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra and written by

the group’s pianist, Mel Powell (1923-1998). They recorded it for Columbia on July 30, 1942, the

last side Goodman made right before a ban on making records took effect, imposed by the

President of the American Federation of Musicians, James C. Petrillo. Note that the tune was

published by Regent Music Corporation, run by Benny’s brothers Gene and Harry.

Twenty years later, Goodman took a big band to the USSR (the Union of Soviet Social

Republics), or The Soviet Union as it was also known, for a real-life mission to Moscow, on behalf

of the United States government.

Goodman biographer Ross Firestone later wrote that Benny, in part because Russia was his

parents’ homeland, had long wanted to play his music in the USSR and had been trying to do so

as far back as 1946.

Some jazz fans who thought that Benny Goodman’s music was old-fashioned might have

preferred Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington or Dizzy Gillespie being allowed to go to the USSR,

but Goodman was given the opportunity.

His first engagement there took place at the Sports Palace in Moscow on May 30, 1962, which,

coincidentally, was Benny Goodman’s 53rd birthday. Most of the seats for that concert were

taken by top Communist party officials, including Premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), shown

above shaking Goodman’s hand.

Khrsuhchev evidently left the concert at intermission, remarking, “I don’t dance myself, so I

don’t understand these things too well, but I enjoyed it.”

It was at the annual Independence Day reception at the United States Embassy in Moscow on

July 4, 1962 that Goodman and Khrushchev had a so-called “confrontation.” They talked about

jazz and art, with Khrushchev saying on that occasion that he didn’t like either.

“Secret Weapon,” an editorial cartoon by William “Bill” Mauldin (1921-2003),

and published July 7, 1962 in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper

Goodman was able to move on and play more for the people of the USSR, who really enjoyed

him (and other jazz, too), with concerts at Sochi, Tbisi (Tiflis), Tashkent, Leningrad, and Kiev that

followed.

It was June 20, 1962 when they were in Leningrad at the Winter Garden Stadium with

almost 6,000 people - mostly teenagers - in the audience. They cheered every tune, and Benny

supposedly said, “It was like the Paramount in the old days.”

“We’ll play some of the things they expect and some new things,” he promised. “I’ll give the

audiences anything I think is good.”

He and the band returned to Moscow for five performances at the Sports Palace, July 3 and

July 5-8, 1962.

One young man holds out a piece of paper hoping for an autograph while other people from

the audience crowd around Moscow’s Sports Palace stage, after Benny Goodman gave his final

concert date in the U.S.S.R. on July 8, 1962.

Goodman had his own Park Recording Company audio tape his concerts in the USSR in Tblisi

on June 12 and 13, Tashkent June 16, Kiev June 30, and in Moscow on July 3 and / or July 5-8,

1962. With the latter tapes, RCA Victor chose excerpts to issue as “Benny Goodman in Moscow,”

RCA Victor LSO-6008.

At the time, George Avakian was running the popular music department at RCA Victor; it was

he who suggested recording the tour and creating an album.

“Normally when you proposed something to Benny, he would react very coolly and say, ‘Well-ll,

you know . . . Not bad . . . We’ll think about it.’ But this time he was wildly excited. The tour was

very important to him, and he had a full understanding of its historical significance,” Avakian

reported.

“Here’s the exciting two-LP waxing of Benny Goodman’s history making trip to the Soviet Union

with a jazz ork made up of top American musicians. Every track shows off the enthusiasm and

warmth with which Goodman and Crew were greeted in the U.S.S.R., and the ork, in its

performances here, show’s why, for it’s a swinging, pulsating band, spotlighting not only Benny but

Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, Joe Wilder, Teddy Wilson, Vic Feldman, Joe Newman and many more.

Fullsome liner notes by George Avakian make the most of the historical musical mission. This LP

should turn into a sales blockbuster.” - “Spotlight Albums of the Week: Album Reviews,”

Billboard, October 6, 1962, p.14

The personnel of the band that Goodman took to the USSR in 1962 was Joe Newman ( tp /

arr ), Jimmy Maxwell, John Frosk, Joe Wilder ( tp ), Willie Dennis, Wayne Andre, Jimmy Knepper

( tb ), Jerry Dodgion ( as / fl ), Phil Woods ( as ), Zoot Sims ( ts ), Tommy Newsome ( ts / arr ),

Gene Allen ( bar ), John Bunch ( p / arr ), Turk Van Lake ( p ), Bill Crow ( b ) Mel Lewis ( d ), Tadd

Dameron, Joe Lipman, and Bob Prince ( arr ), with Teddy Wilson ( p ) and Vic Feldman ( vib ) on

certain selections.

Goodman bio-discographer D. Russell Connor commented that the majority of Benny’s fans did

not care for the Moscow album, stating “their lack of interest in it is evidenced by the relative

paucity of reissues of the original Rca-Victor tracks. That’s too bad, for it was a good band . . .

More of the band’s efforts during the tour of the USSR deserve to be heard.”

Connor did reveal that in the late 1970s “a major American record company” contemplated

issuing on a single 12” LP some Moscow performances combined with selections from Goodman’s

May 1958 engagement at the Brussels World’s Fair, but the idea was not pursued. Intriguingly, the

Moscow tunes under consideration were all previously-unissued, such as Don’t Be That Way,

Lullaby of Birdland, and Joya Sherill’s vocal of St. Louis Blues.

Connor did make note of something that happened while Goodman and the band were in

Moscow in 1962.

“The Department of State had purchased copies of the author’s ‘BG - Off the Record’ to be

distributed as gifts to Soviet citizens. Prior to the first concert at Sochi, trumpeter Joe Newman

gave one to a Russian named Valentin, in front of the hotel in which the band was quartered,” he

explained. “No sooner had he done so than two husky plainclothesmen appeared from out of the

shadows, heaved Valentin into a motorcycle with sidecar attached, whisked him off into the black

Soviet night. Alarmed, Newman asked a bystander, ‘What are they going to do with him?’ The

reply was ominous. ‘We’ll be lucky if we ever see him again.’ American press services carried the

story as evidence of Soviet efforts to keep the citizenry at arms’ length from band members. Later

in the tour this attitude was relaxed, and the sidemen had some jam sessions with local talent in

Russian equivalents of U.S. night clubs.”

Several accounts written, some years after Goodman and the band returned to the US, recall

the tension between Benny and the sideman, that they wanted to play more modern music, that he

upset the band, etc. We encourage reading the four issues of Gene Lees Jazzletter from August

to November 1986, the “Mission to Moscow” chapter in Ross Firestone’s Goodman biography, and

an article in the August 30, 1962 issue of DownBeat for the complete picture.

Yet asked about the tour after he landed back in New York City at Idlewild Airport, now known

as John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport, Goodman praised the Russian audiences and

denied there had been any complaints from his sidemen about the tour.

“They behaved beautifully, they played beautifully and I think they were wonderful,” he said.

source acknowledgements:

D. Russell Connor. Benny Goodman: Listen to His Legacy (Metuchen, NJ and London:

The Scarecrow Press and The Institute of Jazz Studies, 1988), pp.240-241.

Bill Crow. “To Russia without Love: The Benny Goodman Tour of the USSR, Part I,”

Gene Lees Jazzletter, August 1986.

- - - . “To Russia Without Love: The Benny Goodman Tour of the USSR, Part II,”

Gene Lees Jazzletter, September 1986.

- - - . “To Russia Without Love: The Benny Goodman Tour of the USSR, Part III,”

Gene Lees Jazzletter, October 1986.

- - - . “To Russia Without Love: The Benny Goodman Tour of the USSR, Part IV,”

Gene Lees Jazzletter, November 1986.

Ross Firestone. Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life & Times of Benny Goodman (New York City and

London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993).

“Goodman Men Sound Off about Soviet Tour,” DownBeat, August 30, 1962.

“Songwriters Hall of Fame: Gene Goodman,” songhall.org/awards/winner/Gene_Goodman.

image attributions

The Associated Press

The Benny Goodman Papers, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University, on behalf of the

Trusts under the Will of Benny Goodman

The Papers of Bill Mauldin, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Popa Family Collection

Regent Music Corporation

Stan Wayman, The LIFE Picture Collection, Getty Images