Yesterday I posted Busby Berkeley’s wonderfully choreographed ‘Hopping Dance’, performed by Bobby Van. The dance’s spiritual cousin–or perhaps it’s parent really–was a Berkeley production number from fifteen or so years earlier, ‘Horray For Hollywood’ from ‘Hollywood Hotel’ (1937). It features Benny Goodman and his then wildly successful swing era big band and, although they’re not hopping all over the place, the number puts them literally on the march, similar to the way in which Bobby Van takes a journey bounding through his small town. Berkeley liked the idea of forward momentum and stages the Goodman bands journey with great verve and brio, using well placed overhead shots as he does in the Van number but intercutting with close-ups of band members singing Johnny Mercer’s amusing lyrics, a paeon to the silliness and infectious enthusiasm generated by the movie business of that time period. (Now there is no such infectious feeling about that business; everything about Hollywood and entertainment-making is dour, fearful, stressful, paranoid…and then there’s the dark side). Thanks to my pal Marc Myers of the excellent JazzWax blog for reminding me of this lovely opening number, made back in the days when pop music’s biggest star and teen idol–Goodman–was a man who looked like a tax auditor.