From the great Canary Records Bandcamp site:
“A catalog published by Asllan in the ’40s gave Gadinis the honorific “The Greek Benny Goodman.” A story circulates that Dave Tarras took Goodman, who was both the most popular clarinetist of the 1930s-50s and one of the most popular and respected musicians in the U.S. generally, to hear Gadinis, and that it was Goodman himself who told Gadinis that he was “the Greek Benny Goodman.” The origin of the story remains unclear. Decades later, the great Italian-American reed player and composer Joe Maneri, who had worked as a performer at Greek and Jewish weddings in the 1940s and ’50s around New York City, included a free improvisation titled “Gardenias for Gardenis [sic]” inspired by his memories of having seen Gadinis perform.”
