Cats in Asia

Cats in Asia When he blew into Burma and gave out with some hot licks at the University of Rangoon, Jazzman Benny Goodman was greeted after the performance by ex-Prime Minister U Nu, who cried ecstatically : "Your music makes my toes tickle!" It was like that all along Goodman's route through Asia. Benny and his band were scoring the same kind of rocking success in their Far East tour that Dizzy Gillespie had in the Middle East last year and Louis Armstrong had in Africa.

In Thailand, Benny had left audiences stomping with excitement (and forced competing nightclubs to open late) playing mellow arrangements of such favorites as Muskrat Ramble, Honeysuckle Rose and Up a Lazy River. Swinging on into Cambodia, the band performed for 25,000 milling fans in front of King Norodom Suramarit's palace, later cut loose in a special jam session for 100 invited diplomats and Cambodian royalty held in the palace's ornate ballroom. Grateful King Suramarit decorated Benny with the Order of Chevalier de Monisaraphon.

But it was in Burma that Benny really wowed them. In Rangoon, Benny led his band dressed in pink gaungbawng headgear, black alpaca jacket and checked sarong. The crowd (including Soviet Ambassador Alexey D. Shiborin) went wild. "Thank the Lord I've lived to hear this!" cried a frenzied spectator. Before he left, Benny made a recording of the Burmese national anthem that may be made the official version by the Burmese government. Then Benny and band took off for six solidly booked concerts in Tokyo, where he was introduced as "the great Benjamin Goodman" and showered with flowers. Said one sideman nostalgically: "Those were real times!"

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