Al Goodman and His Orchestra

Al Goodman
(1890 – 1972)

There is a place where magic happens. You can visit this place between Sixth Ave and Eighth Ave New York City, between West 40th Street and West 54th. In ancient times, this was part of the Wickquasgeck Trail which Native Americans followed through the swamps and rocks of what would be known as New Amsterdam when the Dutch settled in the area. The Dutch began referring to the route as "Breede Weg", which was eventually Anglicized as Broadway.

We can find forty-two theaters with a capacity of at least 500 seats in the Broadway Theater District, which is a lot of potential magic. Most of the shows on Broadway are musicals, which means that the magic not only comes from beyond the proscenium arch but also from a space between the audience and the stage front, the orchestra pit.

During rehearsals, the actors can sing to the accompaniment of a tin-pan piano, but when the curtain goes up and there are audiences paying to fill all those seats, the producer is going to insist on having the best orchestra in the pit that he can get, and he will hire the best musical director he can afford. For decades on Broadway, the man producers most wanted to hold the baton on opening night was Al Goodman.

Born in Ukraine in 1890, Goodman eventually graduated from Baltimore City College and the Peabody Conservatory. For a time, he played in a nickelodeon, but he eventually connected with Broadway composer and producer (and WWI flyer) Earl Carroll. Before producing eleven editions of Earl Carroll's Vanities revue, Carroll hammered out music and lyrics for several Broadway shows, including the farce Canary Cottage (1917, Morosco Theatre, 112 perf.), which he handed the musical director duties over to Al Goodman.

Goodman held the baton for 150 opening nights and was known for assuming the musical director duties for a show, opening the run, and then turning things over to another maestro while he began his next project. Any music man that popular was going to come to the attention of the radio and the recording industry. In addition to dozens of albums cut for RCA and Columbia, Goodman was tapped to conduct the music for The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air (1932), Palmolive Beauty Box Theatre (1935-37), and Your Hit Parade (1935-38). When Fred Allen took over Texaco Star Theater in 1940, Al and his Orchestra took over the musical duties, Fred and Al remained together for the rest of Allen's radio hosting career. Al's pet project during the Forties was The Prudential Family Hour, bringing popular and light classical music as well as show tunes to the masses.

Al Goodman passed away on January 10, 1972, in New York City.