Glenn Miller | |
---|---|
![]() Major Glenn Miller
|
|
Background information | |
Birth name | Alton Glenn Miller |
Born | March 1, 1904 Clarinda, Iowa, U.S. |
Died | circa December 15, 1944 (aged 40) English Channel(presumably) |
Genre(s) | Swing music Big band |
Occupation(s) | Bandleader |
Instrument(s) | Trombone |
Years active | 1923–1944 |
Associated acts | Glenn Miller Orchestra |
Alton Glenn Miller (March 1, 1904–presumably December 15, 1944), was an American jazz musician, arranger, composer, and band leader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1942, leading one of the best known "Big Bands". Miller's signature recordings include, "In the Mood", "Tuxedo Junction", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "Moonlight Serenade", "Little Brown Jug", and "Pennsylvania 6-5000".[1] While travelling to entertain U.S. troops in France during World War II, Miller's plane disappeared in bad weather. His body was never found.
Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa on March 1, 1904, the son of Mattie Lou (née Cavender) and Lewis Elmer Miller.[2][3] He went to grade school in North Platte, Nebraska. In 1915, Miller's family moved to Grant City, Missouri. Around this time, Miller was given his first trombone and then played in the town orchestra. In 1918, the Miller family moved again, this time to Fort Morgan, Colorado where Glenn went to high school. During his senior year, Miller became very interested in a new style of music called "dance band music". Miller enjoyed this music so much that he and some classmates decided to start their own band. By the time Miller graduated from high school in 1921, he had decided he wanted to become a professional musician.[4]
In 1923, Miller entered the University of Colorado where he joined Sigma Nu Fraternity,[5] but spent most of his time away from school, attending auditions and playing any gigs he could get, most notably with Boyd Senter's band in Denver. He dropped out of school after failing three out of five classes one semester, and decided to concentrate on making a career as a professional musician. He later studied the Schillinger technique with Joseph Schillinger,[6] who is credited with helping Miller create the "Miller sound", and under whose tutelage he himself composed what became his signature theme, "Moonlight Serenade."[7]
In 1926, Miller toured with several groups and landed a good spot in Ben Pollack's group in Los Angeles. During his stint with Pollack, Miller had the opportunity to write several musical arrangements of his own. In 1928, when the band arrived in New York City, he sent for and married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. He was a member of Red Nichols’s orchestra in 1930, and because of Nichols, played in the pit bands of two Broadway shows, Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy, his bandmates included Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa. "The consensus there was that Miller was no more than an average trombonist."[8] Despite this, during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Miller managed to earn a living working as a freelance trombonist in several bands. However, on occasion, he did place his trombone for sale in various pawn shops while he earned money elsewhere in a race to repurchase it. In November of 1929, an original vocalist named Red McKenzie hired Glenn to play on two records that are now considered to be jazz classics: "Hello, Lola" and "If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight". "Not only were [the two songs Miller recorded] considered major musical items, but they also represented one of the major breakthroughs in blacks and whites playing together." Besides Glenn were clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa and Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone.[9]
In the mid-1930s, Miller also worked as a trombonist and arranger in The Dorsey Brothers ill-fated co-led orchestra.[10] Miller composed the song "Annie's Cousin Fanny"[11] and "Dese Dem Dose"[12] for the Dorsey Brothers Band in 1934 and 1935. In 1935, he assembled an American orchestra for British bandleader Ray Noble,[13] developing the arrangement of lead clarinet over four saxophones that eventually became the sonic keynote of his own big band. Members of the Noble band included future bandleaders Claude Thornhill, Bud Freeman and Charlie Spivak. Ray Noble and his American Dance Orchestra recorded and performed a live version of the Glenn Miller composition "Dese Dem Dose" as part of a medley in April, 1935 at the Rainbow Room in New York.
Glenn Miller made his first movie appearance in the 1935 Paramount release The Big Broadcast of 1936 as a member of the Ray Noble Orchestra[14]. The Big Broadcast of 1936 starred Bing Crosby, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Ethel Merman, Jack Oakie, and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and featured performances by Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers, who would appear with Miller again in two movies for Twentieth Century Fox in 1941 and 1942.
Glenn Miller compiled several musical arrangements and formed his first band in 1937. The band failed to distinguish itself from the many others of the era, and eventually broke up. Benny Goodman said in 1976, "In late 1937, before his band became popular, we were both playing in Dallas. Glenn was pretty dejected and came to see me. He asked, 'What do you do? How do you make it?' I said, 'I don't know, Glenn. You just stay with it."[15]
Discouraged, Miller returned to New York. He realized that he needed to develop a unique sound, and decided to make the clarinet play a melodic line with a tenor saxophone holding the same note, while three other saxophones harmonized within a single octave. George Simon discovered a saxophonist named Wilbur Schwartz for Glenn Miller. Miller hired Schwartz, but instead had him play the lead clarinet. According to Simon, "Willie's tone and way of playing provided a fullness and richness so distinctive that none of the later Miller imitators could ever accurately reproduce the Miller sound." [16] With this new sound combination, the Miller band found success. Miller was not the first to try this style, but he was the most successful at refining it and making it key to almost his entire repertoire.
In September 1938, the Miller band began making recordings for the RCA Victor Bluebird Records subsidiary.[17] In the spring of 1939, the band's fortunes improved with a date at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, and more dramatically at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York. With the Glen Island date, the band began a huge rise in popularity.[18] In 1939, Time magazine noted: "Of the twelve to 24 discs in each of today's 300,000 U.S. jukeboxes, from two to six are usually Glenn Miller's."[19] There were record-breaking recordings such as "Tuxedo Junction", which sold 115,000 copies in the first week.[20] 1939's huge success culminated with the Miller band in concert at Carnegie Hall on October 6, with Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, and Fred Waring also the main attractions.[21]
From 1939 to 1942, Miller's band was featured three times a week during a broadcast for Chesterfield cigarettes, originally with the Andrews Sisters and then on its own.[22] On February 10, 1942, RCA Victor presented Miller with the first gold record for "Chattanooga Choo-Choo".[23] "Chattanooga Choo Choo" was performed by the Miller orchestra with his singers Gordon "Tex" Beneke, Paula Kelly and the vocal group, the Modernaires.[24] Other singers with this orchestra included Marion Hutton,[25] Skip Nelson,[26] Ray Eberle[27] and to a smaller extent, Kay Starr,[28] Ernie Caceres,[29] Dorothy Claire[30] and Jack Lathrop.[31]Pat Friday ghost sang with the Miller band in Sun Valley Serenade and Orchestra Wives with Lynn Bari lip synching.[19]
In 2004, Glenn Miller orchestra bassist Herman "Trigger" Alpert explained the band's success: "Miller had America's music pulse[...]. He knew what would please the listeners."[32] Although Miller had massive popularity, many jazz critics of the time had their misgivings, believing that the band's endless rehearsals and "letter-perfect playing" diminished excitement and feeling from performances.[33] They also felt that Miller's brand of swing shifted popular music away from the "hot" jazz bands of Benny Goodman and Count Basie towards commercial novelty instrumentals and vocal numbers. Miller was often criticized for being too commercial. His answer to the criticism was, "I don't want a jazz band".[34] Many modern jazz critics still harbour similar antipathy toward Miller.[35] In an article written by Gary Giddins for The New Yorker in 2004, Giddins felt that these early critics erred in denigrating Glenn Miller's music, and that the popular opinion of the time should hold greater sway. The article states: "Miller exuded little warmth on or off the bandstand, but once the band struck up its theme, audiences were done for: throats clutched, eyes softened. Can any other record match "Moonlight Serenade" for its ability to induce a Pavlovian slaver in so many for so long?"[35]
Louis Armstrong thought enough of Miller to carry around his recordings transferred to seven inch tape reels when he went on tour. "[Armstrong] liked musicians who prized melody, and his selections ranged from Glenn Miller to Jelly Roll Morton to Tchaikovsky." [36] George Shearing's quintet was influenced by Glenn Miller: "with Shearing's 'locked hand' piano (influenced by the voicing of Glenn Miller's saxophone section) in the middle [of the quintet's harmonies]."[20] Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme held the orchestra in high regard. Torme credited Miller with giving him helpful advice when he first started his singing and song writing career in the 1940s. Mel Torme met Glenn Miller in 1942, the meeting facilitated by Torme's father and Ben Pollack. Torme and Miller discussed "That Old Black Magic" which was just emerging as a new song by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Miller told Torme to pick up every song by Mercer and study it and to become a voracious reader of anything he could find, because "all good lyric writers are great readers". [37] In an interview with George T. Simon in 1948, Frank Sinatra lamented the inferior quality of music he was recording in the late forties and in comparison, "those great Glenn Miller things like 'Polka Dots and Moonbeams'" from eight years earlier. With the opposite opinion, fellow bandleader Artie Shaw frequently disparaged the band after Miller's death: "All I can say is that Glenn should have lived, and 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' should have died."[38]
Buddy De Franco surprised many people when he led the Glenn Miller orchestra in the late sixties and early seventies. De Franco was already the veteran of bands like Gene Krupa and Tommy Dorsey and also a major exponent of bop in the nineteen fifties.[39] But De Franco loved certain aspects of the Glenn Miller sound and according to him, never saw Miller as leading a swinging jazz band anyways. "I found that when I opened with the sound of Moonlight Serenade, I could look around and see men and women weeping as the music carried them back to years gone by."[40] De Franco's favorite Miller recordings are Skylark and Indian Summer. Simply put, De Franco says, "the beauty of Glenn Miller's ballads [...] caused people to dance together".[41]
Miller and his band appeared in two Twentieth Century Fox films, 1941's, Sun Valley Serenade which also featured Milton Berle. [21] The Miller band returned to Hollywood to film 1942's Orchestra Wives,[22] featuring Jackie Gleason playing a part as the group's bassist, Ben Beck. "[Gleason] achieved the rare accomplishment of making Glenn Miller laugh. Miller had a physical disability that made laughing painful, so he tried to avoid watching Gleason's comic acts after the first time."[42] Harry Morgan appeared as the unrequited love interest of the Ann Rutherford character[23]. Years later, Morgan appeared in The Glenn Miller Story as Miller's pianist, Chummy MacGregor.[43]
Miller was contracted to do a third movie for Fox, but as he entered the army, this never panned out. "Glenn Miller's sudden entry into the Army caused the cancellation of his third picture deal with 20th Century-Fox [...]. Company is dickering for another band for the first picture 'Blind Date' slated for autumn production." [44]
In 1942, at the peak of his civilian career, Miller decided he could better serve those in uniform by joining the war effort. At 38 years old, Miller was too old to be drafted, and first volunteered for the Navy but was told that they did not need his services. [45] Miller then wrote to Army Brigadier General Charles Young on August 12 1942. Miller persuaded the United States Army Air Forces to accept him so he could in his own words, "be placed in charge of a modernized army band." After being accepted in the Army, Glenn’s civilian band played their last concert in Passaic, New Jersey on September 27, 1942.[4]
Captain Glenn Miller served initially as assistant special services officer for the Army Air Forces Southeast Training Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1942. He played trombone with the Rhythmaires, a 15-piece dance band, in both Mongtomery and in service clubs and recreation halls on Maxwell. Miller also appeared on both WAPI (Birmingham, Alabama) and WSFA radio (Montgomery), promoting the activities of civil service women aircraft mechanics employed at Maxwell.[46]
Glenn Miller was transferred. The band he was most noted for while in the military, was stationed at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut March 27, 1943 to June 19, 1944.[24] "Through Miller, band members and vocalists like Tony Martin, Johnny Desmond and Ray McKinley became familiar names."[25] Miller initially formed a large marching band that was to be the core of a network of service orchestras. Miller's attempts at modernizing military music were met with some resistance from tradition-minded career officers. An example is the arrangement of "St. Louis Blues March", combining blues and jazz with the traditional military march. This was recorded on October 29, 1943 at the Victor studios in New York City.[47] "Miller's striking innovations and his adaptations of Sousa marches for the AAF band prompted Time magazine to claim that he had rankled traditionalists in the field of Army music and had desecrated the March King. The magazine also criticized Miller's injection of casual enjoyment into the disciplined cadences of military music, stating that the Army was 'swinging its hips instead of its feet.'"[48]Miller's weekly radio broadcast "I Sustain the Wings" moved from New Haven to New York City and was very popular. This led to permission for Miller to form his 50-piece Army Air Force Band and take it to England in the summer of 1944, where he gave 800 performances.[49] While in England, now Major Glenn Miller recorded a series of records at HMV (now EMI) owned Abbey Road Studios. HMV at this time was the British and sometime European distributor for the American record company that handled and originated Glenn Miller's recordings, RCA Victor.[50] The recordings the AAF band made in 1944 at Abbey Road were propaganda broadcasts for the Office of War Information. Many songs were sung in German by Johnny Desmond and Glenn Miller spoke in German about the war effort.[51][52] Also, "[...] Glenn Miller recorded a number of titles with Dinah Shore [at Abbey Road] on September 16 1944. These were the last recordings he made. Extraordinarily the recordings remained unreleased and unheard by millions of Glenn Miller fans around the world until the expiry of their copyright in 1994."[53]
On December 15, 1944, Miller, now a major, was to fly from the United Kingdom to Paris, France, to play for the soldiers who recently had liberated Paris. His plane departed from RAF Twinwood Farm, in Clapham, Bedfordshire, but disappeared over the English Channel.[54] Miller's remains and the wreckage of the plane (a single-engine UC-64 Norseman, USAAF serial 44-70285) have never been found.
Since Miller's disappearance more than sixty years ago, there have been many theories about what happened. Buddy DeFranco, told biographer George T. Simon of the many theories of Miller's disappearance that were told to him while he was leading the band in the 1970s. DeFranco said "If I were to believe all those stories, there would have been about twelve thousand four hundred and fifty eight people there at the field in England seeing him off on that last flight!"[55]
Miller's plane may have been bombed accidentally by Royal Air Force aircraft over the English Channel after an abortive air raid on Siegen, Germany. One hundred and thirty-eight Lancaster bombers, short on fuel, jettisoned approximately 100,000 incendiaries in a designated area before landing, per standing orders.[56] The logbooks of Royal Air Force navigator Fred Shaw recorded that he saw a small single-engined monoplane spiraling out of control and crashing into the water. If this was indeed Miller's plane, the RAF crews were not culpable for the plane carrying Miller straying off course into their designated drop area. However, a second source, while acknowledging the possibility, casts doubt on the version, citing other RAF crew members flying the same mission who state the drop area was in the North Sea, a more likely location.[57][58]
Miller's surname resides on the 'Wall of Missing' at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial. A monument stone was also placed in Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut next to the campus of Yale University.[26] General Jimmy Doolittle[59] said, “[...]next to a letter from home, that organization was the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations.”[60]
The Miller estate authorized an official Glenn Miller "ghost band" in 1946. This band was led by Tex Beneke, former lead saxophonist and singer for the civilian band. It had a make up similar to the Army Air Force Band: it had a large string section.[61] The orchestra's official public début was at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway where it opened for a three week engagement on January 24, 1946.[62] Henry Mancini was the band's pianist and one of the arrangers.[63] This ghost band played to very large audiences all across the United States, including a few dates at the Hollywood Palladium in 1947, where the original Miller band played in 1941.[64] In a website concerning the history of the Hollywood Palladium, it is noted "[e]ven as the big band era faded, the Tex Beneke and Glenn Miller Orchestra concert at the Palladium resulted in a record-breaking crowd of 6,750 dancers."[65] By 1949, economics dictated that the string section be dropped.[66]
This band recorded for RCA Victor, just as the original Miller band did.[66] Beneke was struggling with how to expand the Miller sound and also how to achieve success under his own name. What began as the "Glenn Miller Orchestra Under the Direction of Tex Beneke" finally became "The Tex Beneke Orchestra". By 1950, Beneke and the Miller estate parted ways.[67] The break was acrimonious and Beneke is not currently listed by the Miller estate as a former leader of the Glenn Miller orchestra.[68]
When Glenn Miller was alive, various bandleaders like Bob Chester imitated his style.[69] By the early 1950s, various bands were again copying the Miller style of clarinet led reeds and muted trumpets, notably Ralph Flanagan,[70] Jerry Gray,[71] and Ray Anthony.[72] This, coupled with the success of The Glenn Miller Story (1953),[73] led the Miller estate to ask Ray McKinley to lead a new ghost band.[66] This 1956 band which included musicians such as pianist Don Wilhite among others, is the original version of the current ghost band that still tours the United States today.[74] The official Glenn Miller orchestra for the United States is currently under the direction of Larry O'Brien.[75] The officially sanctioned Glenn Miller Orchestra for the United Kingdom has toured and recorded with great success under the leadership of Ray McVay.[76] The official Glenn Miller Orchestra for Europe has been led by Wil Salden since 1990.[77]
In the mid-1940s, after Miller's death, the Miller led Army Air Force band was decommissioned and sent back to the United States. "[T]he chief of the European theater asked [Warrant Officer Harold Lindsay] Lin [Arinson] to put together another band to take its place, and that's when the 314 was formed." According to singer Tony Bennett, the 314 was the immediate successor to the Glenn Miller led AAF orchestra. [78] The Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band's long term legacy has carried on with the Airmen of Note, a band within the United States Air Force. This band was created in 1950 from smaller groups within the Bolling Air Force Base in Washington D.C. and continues to play jazz music for the Air Force community and the general public.[60]
Even after Miller broke up his civilian orchestra in 1942, the band had two hits in 1943 for RCA Victor.[79] (These were recorded before the band broke up and before the recording ban imposed by the musicians union in the fall of 1942. One of the hits was "That Old Black Magic"[27] which was one recording from three sessions that happened between July 14 and July 16, 1942. The musicians union ban on new recordings went into effect August 1, 1942. [80] Two years later, "Glenn Miller, an album of 78 rpm records, topped the newly instituted album charts in May 1945 and became the most successful album of the year."[81] In 1953, Anthony Mann directed The Glenn Miller Story for Universal-International Pictures starring James Stewart and June Allyson.[73] The fictionalized biographical film was a popular success. Miller's mother said of the movie that actor James Stewart "wasn't as good looking as my son".[82] "In 1959, RCA Victor released a triple LP of previously unissued performances, For the First Time ..., which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Performance by a Dance Band."[28] The number one 1967 single "All You Need is Love" by The Beatles quotes "In the Mood" in the closing fade-out[29]. Harpers Bizarre, a 1960s rock band with a penchant for camp recorded "Chattanooga Choo Choo", making it a minor "easy listening" hit in the late 1960s.[83] In the late 1970s, taking advantage of the popularity of disco, "Tuxedo Junction" released disco versions of "Moonlight Serenade" and "Chattanooga Choo Choo". "Chattanooga Choo Choo" actually placed as a best selling record almost forty years after the original Miller recording.[84] "In 1989, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers sampled Miller's recording of "In the Mood" on their gold single 'Swing the Mood'." [85]
Glenn Miller's widow, Helen, died in 1966.[86] Herb Miller, Glenn Miller's brother, led his own band in the United States and England until the late 1980s.[87] Herb's son, John continues the tradition leading a band playing mainly Glenn Miller style music.[88]
In the United States and England, there are a few archives that are devoted to Glenn Miller. The Glenn Miller archive, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, includes the original manuscript to Miller's theme song, "Moonlight Serenade", among other items of interest.[89] In 2002, the Glenn Miller Museum opened to the public at the former RAF Twinwood Farm, in Clapham, Bedfordshire, England.[90]
In 1996, the U.S. Postal Service issued a Glenn Miller postage stamp.[91]
The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammys), honored Glenn Miller by including three of his recordings in their Hall of Fame. In 1983, "In The Mood", Bluebird B-10416-A, was inducted.[92]The recording of "Moonlight Serenade", Bluebird B-10214-B, was also honored by the Grammys in similar fashion in 1991.[93] "Chattanooga Choo Choo", Bluebird B-11230-B, was inducted in 1996.[94] Most recently, in 2003, Miller received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[95]
The entire output of cigarette sponsored radio programs Glenn Miller did between 1939 and 1942 were recorded by the Glenn Miller organization on acetate discs.[96] In the 1950s and afterwards, RCA-Victor distributed many of these on long playing albums and compact discs. A sizeable representation of the recording output by the various Glenn Miller led bands are almost always in circulation by Sony Music Entertainment and the Universal Music Group, the successor conglomerates to RCA-Victor, Brunswick, Bluebird, Columbia and Decca. Glenn Miller remains one of the most famous and recognizable names of the big band era of 1935 to 1945.
Miller had a staff of arrangers who wrote originals like "String of Pearls" (written and arranged by Jerry Gray)[30] or took originals like "In The Mood" (writing credit given to Joe Garland and arranged by Eddie Durham[31]) and "Tuxedo Junction" (written by bandleader Erskine Hawkins and arranged by Jerry Gray) and arranged them for the Miller band to either record or broadcast. Glenn Miller's staff of arrangers in his civilian band, that handled the bulk of the work were Jerry Gray, Bill Finegan[32], Billy May[97] and to a much smaller extent, George Williams[33], who worked very briefly with the band. According to Norman Leyden, "[s]everal others [besides Leyden] arranged for Miller in the service, including Jerry Gray, Ralph Wilkinson, Mel Powell, and Steve Steck."[34]
Glenn Miller composed individually or in collaboration, at least fourteen songs that are available on recordings and added lyrics to another song.
The fifteen songs that Glenn Miller composed or added lyrics to are the following:
1. "Moonlight Serenade". Glenn Miller composed the music in 1935, with official lyrics added later by Mitchell Parish after two other sets of lyrics were written.[35] "Moonlight Serenade" was Glenn Miller's theme for his radio programs between 1939 and 1942 (except for a brief period in 1941). [98] This song has been covered from artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra[36] to Barry Manilow[37].[nb 1] Initially it was released as a B side to the song bandleader Frankie Carle composed[38] and the Miller band covered called "Sunrise Serenade" in May, 1939 by Bluebird. The record eventually made the Top Ten charts and was the number five record of 1939 in the year-end chart by Billboard.
2. "Room 1411 (Goin' to Town)" was composed with Benny Goodman[99] in 1928 when Glenn Miller was part of "Benny Goodman's Boys", the instrumental was recorded on June 23, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois and was released as a 78, as Brunswick 4013 with "Jungle Blues". "Benny Goodman's Boys" consisted of an all-star ensemble that featured Glenn Miller on trombone, Tommy Dorsey on trombone, who is not on the "Room 1411" recording, Dick "Icky" Morgan on guitar, Bud Freeman on tenor saxophone, Harry Goodman on bass and tuba, Fud Livingston on clarinet and tenor saxophone, Wingy Manone on trumpet, Jimmy McPartland on cornet, Ben Pollack on drums, and Benny Goodman on clarinet, saxophone, and cornet. On the January, 1928 recording sessions, the band was referred to as "Benny Goodman's Boys with Jim and Glenn". The band continued to record in 1928 and 1929. Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman lived in the same suite at the time in an apartment in Whitby whose number was 1411. The title of the composition derives from the apartment number. Goodman played baritone saxophone "on the more straight-ahead Chicago-style 'Room 1411'"[100]. "Room 1411 (Goin' to Town)" is Glenn Miller's first known composition. The recording is available on the Red Hot Jazz website: http://www.redhotjazz.com/bgb.html. [nb 2]
3. "Sold American" was composed in 1938 by Glenn Miller and John Chalmers "Chummy" MacGregor, the pianist in the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The title was recorded on May 23, 1938 on Brunswick and again on June 27, 1939 for RCA Victor. A 78 was released in 1938 as Brunswick 8173 with "Dipper Mouth Blues".[101] In 1939, a new recording was released as a Bluebird 78, 10352A, with "Pagan Love Song". The title is based on a radio ad jingle for Lucky Strike which ended with the phrase, "Sold, American". The song was performed live by Glenn Miller on March 8, 1939 and broadcast on the radio from a remote at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. [102] "Sold American" was released as a single in the UK paired with "Moon Love" on the HMV label.[103] [nb 3]
4. "Solo Hop"[104] was a Top Ten hit from the summer of 1935 according to the official Glenn Miller Orchestra webpage. Glenn Miller composed this for a pick-up band when he started recording for Columbia Records. "Solo Hop" featured Bunny Berigan on trumpet, future bandleader Claude Thornhill on piano and future bandleader Charlie Spivak on trumpet. It was released by Columbia as a single backed with "In a Little Spanish Town", label number CO-3058-D. [105] George Simon, a friend of Glenn Miller's, contradicts sources that say it was a top ten hit and says it was barely noticed by record buyers. [106]
5. "Introduction to a Waltz" was an instrumental composition written with Jerry Gray and Hal Dickinson in 1941 that was never commercially recorded for Bluebird. Two airchecks were issued, one from December 11, 1941 on LPT-6700 from a Chesterfield Broadcast. The other is from March 20, 1942, also from a Chesterfield Broadcast issued on LPT-3001[107]. "'Introduction to a Waltz' has quite an introduction--187 bars to be exact, with 8 bars of 'waltz' near the end of the tune." [108]
6. "Annie's Cousin Fanny"[39] or as "Annie's Cousin Fannie is a Sweetie of Mine" from 1935, was written for the Dorsey Brothers Band, which featured lyrics, was recorded three times, first on June 4, 1934 in New York when Glenn Miller was part of the band and released on Brunswick as 6938 b/w "Judy" and on Decca as the A side to the Decca 117 78 that featured "Dr. Heckle and Mr. Jibe" as the B side. The record also appears as "Annie's Cousin Fannie is a Sweetie of Mine" sung by Kay Weber, one of the first female singers of the Big Band Era, and Glenn Miller, who had discovered her. The Dorsey Band recorded three diffferent versions of the song in June and August, 1934, released on Brunswick and later on Decca. [nb 4]
7. "Dese Dem Dose"[109] was composed by Glenn Miller in 1935 for the Dorsey Brothers Band, was recorded in New York on February 6, 1935, and was released as a 78 on Decca paired with "Weary Blues" as Decca 469. Ray Noble and his American Dance Orchestra performed "Dese Dem Dose" as part of a medley on April 17, 1935 live at the Rainbow Room in New York which was recorded and broadcast. Glenn Miller was in the Ray Noble orchestra at the time on trombone. [nb 5]
8. "When Icky Morgan Plays the Organ" was a novelty song composed with lyrics and recorded by Glenn Miller in 1935 when he was a member of the Clark Randall Orchestra. The unique title of the song comes from the "icky" slang expression that Dick Morgan, an eccentric member of the Ben Pollack orchestra used. Dick Morgan was the banjo and guitar player in the Ben Pollack band, who also used a realistic replica of a python in his act with the Pollack band.[40] "Icky Morgan" was released as a Brunswick 10 inch single in 1935 as Brunswick 7415 backed with "Troublesome Trumpet". [nb 6]
9. "Doin' the Jive" was composed by Glenn Miller and Chummy MacGregor in 1937 and recorded for Brunswick on November 29, 1937, and released as Brunswick 8063 with "Humoresque" and as Vocalion 5131 with "Dipper Mouth Blues", was a song with lyrics that introduced a new dance, "the Jive": "You clap your hands/And you swing out wide/Do the Suzie Q/ Mix in a step or two/Put 'em all together/And you're doin' the jive". George Simon reviewed the song in March, 1938, describing it as "much swing, fun, and good Kitty Lane singing." The band contributes vocals along with Glenn Miller and Chummy MacGregor. <citation needed>
10. "Community Swing" was composed by Glenn Miller in 1937 and recorded on June 9, 1937 on Brunswick and released as a 78 with "Sleepy Time Gal". Paul Eduard Miller reviewed the composition in the August,1937 issue of Down Beat: "Miller’s own tune, is a snappy arrangement, ensemble for the most part." <citation needed>
11. "Sometime" was a pop ballad with lyrics composed by Glenn Miller with Chummy MacGregor in 1939 and sung by Ray Eberle. [110] "Sometime" was performed for radio broadcast and two airchecks have been released of the song. [111] "Sometime" was first performed in March, 1939 at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. [112]
12. "Boom Shot" was composed by Glenn Miller with Billy May. May is credited as his first wife, Arletta May, because Billy May had signed an exclusive composer's contract with Charlie Barnet that forbade him for writing anything for Miller under his own name.[113] This song was written in 1942 and recorded for the Twentieth Century Fox movie Orchestra Wives. "Boom Shot" is shown being played in the movie on the jukebox although it is uncredited on the soundtrack for the film. The arrangement is by George Williams.[114] [nb 7]
13. "Seven-O-Five" or "7-0-5" or "705" was an instrumental composed by Glenn Miller, arranged by Jerry Gray, and performed with the Army Air Forces Training Command Band. "7-0-5" was performed, recorded, and broadcast on the I Sustain the Wings radio program, Program No.15, on May 5, 1944. [115]
14. "I Sustain the Wings" was composed by Glenn Miller, Chummy MacGregor, Norman Leyden and Bill Meyers[116].This was the theme music for the NBC radio program that was broadcast weekly from June, 1943 to June, 1944 by the Army Air Force Band.[117]. Major Glenn Miller and the American Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force also made recordings for the BBC and the Office of War Information (OWI) in 1944 that were broadcast over the American Broadcasting Station in Europe to Germany in a program called The Wehrmacht Hour.[118]
15. Glenn Miller is also credited with writing an additional, new verse for the song "Basin Street Blues",[119] written in 1928 by Spencer Williams. Miller arranged the song for a Benny Goodman recording and wrote the following additional verse to the song in collaboration with Jack Teagarden, which subsequently was incorporated in later recordings of the song:
"Won't you come along with me, To the Mississippi, We'll take a boat to the land of dreams, steam down the river to New Orleans. The band's there to greet us, Old friends there to meet us. Where the rich and the poor folks meet, let me take you down to Basin Street."
Before 1938:
The first authenticated recordings made by Glenn Miller were in 1926. In the fall of 1926, Earl Baker, a cornetist, made recordings on cylinders using the Edison Standard Phonograph recording device, making the first recordings of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Fud Livingston. Miller and Goodman were both in the Ben Pollack and his Californians band at that time. The Ben Pollack band was in Chicago, Illinois to make studio recordings for Victor. The Baker cylinders are available on the album "The Legendary Earl Baker Cylinders", released by the Jazz Archives record label as JA43 in 1979. The songs performed included "Sleepy Time Gal", "Sister Kate", "After I Say I'm Sorry", and "Sobbin' Blues".[120]
After 1938
Harry Warren and Mack Gordon songs for Sun Valley Serenade and Orchestra Wives: (Harry Warren and Mack Gordon were songwriters under contract with Twentieth Century Fox from 1940 to 1943.[47]During that time period they composed the songs for Miller's movies for Fox.)
Songs that were in the civilian band and Army Air Force band libraries include:[nb 21]
Addenda
In sharing air time with the Andrews Sisters for the early Chesterfield Shows, the Miller band had nine minutes to present its music. Miller instituted medleys of "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue" into the band's broadcasts to enable it to play as much as possible. [177] This medley tradition continued into the Army Air Force band's radio programming.
Sample "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue" medley:
June 19, 1940 Cincinnati, Ohio (Chesterfield Show)
Old: The Touch of Your Hand (arranged Jerry Gray)
New: Basket Weaver Man (written by Joe McCarthy and Walter Donaldson) (arranged Jerry Gray)
Borrowed: The Waltz You Saved For Me (arranged Jerry Gray) (Borrowed from bandleader Wayne King, written by Gus Kahn, Wayne King and Emil Flindt)
Blue: Blue Danube (arranged Jerry Gray) (written by Johann Strauss, Jr., 1867)[178]
For the most part, Glenn Miller worked with extremely talented men and women. Many of the Miller musicians went on to studio and touring careers in Hollywood and New York after World War II:
Some of the Army Air Force members went on to notable careers in classical music. Two such are:
Persondata | |
---|---|
NAME | Miller, Glenn |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Miller, Alton Glenn |
SHORT DESCRIPTION | Jazz musician |
DATE OF BIRTH | March 1, 1904 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Clarinda, Iowa, U.S |
DATE OF DEATH | December 15, 1944 |
PLACE OF DEATH |