Swingin' in the Reign

The King of Siam, as any heart-wrung fan of The King and I knows, is likely to be a fellow whose love for Thailand is matched by a thirst for the best of the West. The reigning King, grandson of Anna's princely Chulalongkorn, comes by it naturally: he was born in Cambridge, Mass. 32 years ago while his father was studying medicine at Harvard, and slakes his thirst with a special passion for clarinet and sax. Last week King Bhumibol Adulyadej (pronounced Poom-i-pon A-dool-ya-date), who looks half his age, and his almond-eyed Queen Sirikit, who looks like mandolins sound, landed in Manhattan on their four-week swing through the U.S. And all the ticker-tape parade, the ride in the subway, the view from the Empire State Building faded into nothing when His Majesty went to dinner with the King of Swing Benny Goodman (and 94 others) at the suburban estate of New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

For 90 minutes after dinner, Bhumibol and Benny led a foot-stomping, starch-melting jam session. Next day the King toted a sax up to the 22nd-story roof garden above Benny's Manhattan House apartment for the fulfillment of a jazzman's dream. With Bhumibol and Benny were Gene Krupa on the skins, Teddy Wilson on the piano, Urbie Green on the trombone, Jonah Jones on trumpet, Red Norvo on vibes. The King stood them toe-to-toe for two hours, paid his royal respects to The Sheik of Araby (in 17 eardrumming choruses), savored Honeysuckle Rose, swung low On the Sunny Side of the Street. Near session's end, Benny decorated him with a new Selmer sax. The King will use it in his own dozen-man modern band, in which he stars (with a onetime Thai Premier and minister to Washington as sideman) in U.S.-style swing sessions that are broadcast from the palace over the Thai radio every Friday night to his 22 million subjects.

The King's romance with jazz is pleasantly tolerated by Queen Sirikit. For one thing, Bhumibol is monogamous, unlike most of his celebrated ancestors (his father was the 69th child of King Chulalongkorn). "He doesn't need any more wives," Sirikit once said with a smile. "For him, his orchestra is one big concubine."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.