Talk:Glenn Miller/Archive 1

message: Some more information on Glenn Miller if you can find it of good use...
Nicole Caldwell
7/14/2005
Arts and Society- Jazz
Individual Artist 
Glen Miller: A Goal to be Achieved
How does Iowa contribute to jazz? “Alton Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa on March 1, 1904. But it was in North Platte, Nebraska, several years later that Glenn actually got his musical start when, one day, his father brought home a mandolin. Glenn promptly traded it for an old battered horn, which he practiced every chance
he got. In fact his mother worried, ‘"It got to where Pop and I used to wonder if he'd ever amount to anything."’ In 1923, Miller entered the University of Colorado, although he spent more time traveling to auditions and playing where and whenever he could. After flunking three of his five courses one semester, Glenn dropped out to concentrate on his career as a professional musician. (1) Glenn Miller is a man with a goal to achieve; Glenn Miller has said again and again: “A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.”’
Miller started his career off by touring with several orchestras and ended up in Los Angeles where he landed a spot in Ben Pollack's group, a band that included a guy named Benny Goodman. “Benny Goodman was a world reknowned clarinetist known for his stand-offish and cheap nature and his influence in the “Swing Era.”’ Ben Pollack’s orchestra had a high demand among ballrooms, nightclubs and theaters. Here, Miller also got the chance to write some arrangements. Arriving in New York City he soon sent for, and married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger of Denver, CO in 1928, and for the next three years, earned his living as a free-lance trombonist and arranger. Glenn Miller formed his first orchestra in 1937 in New York City. The first orchestra flopped and it took a good year for Miller to formulate a well-structured ensemble. In 1938 he formed an entirely new orchestra that featured the unique “Miller sound.”(12) The “Miller sound” was produced by the clarinet holding the melodic line while the tenor sax plays the same note, and supported harmonically by three other saxophones.(1) It made Miller’s sound unique and popular.
	“What made Miller’s music so incredibly popular was that it was so listenable, so danceable and so easily identifiable. (the last link) Glenn Miller’s focus was always on the entire orchestra, not on individual soloists – an emphasis that permanently estranged Miller from jazz purists and led jazz critics and musicians to debunk his music, then and now. If nothing fails like success, in their eyes Miller was the biggest failure of the Swing Era… Staying on top of the music world was hectic. Fortunately, most band members were in their early 20s and withstood the rigorous schedule. Miller’s magnificent ballads brought couples together at ballrooms, jukebox hangouts or living room parties and linked them while they were separated by oceans and war. The band’s theme and most famous ballad, Moonlight Serenade, was dubbed our nation’s “second national anthem” by Dave Garroway, who hosted the all-night 1160 Club on WMAQ in Chicago during the 1940s. And, some of the band’s up-tempo numbers, such as In the Mood and A String of Pearls, were battle cries for a generation of bobby soxers.  The band’s popularity persuaded 20th Century –Fox to produce two movies centering on Glenn Miller and his orchestra.” (10) One film that is particularly famous these days, the Glenn Miller Story, a film based on Glenn Miller’s life and the trials and tribulations he went through to keep a personal life and struggle with the music scene. Miller and his band gave hundreds of performances at ballrooms, theaters, and nightclubs from coast to coast, found time for several weekly radio broadcasts, and made records, records, and more records.
	There were record-breaking recordings as well, such as "Tuxedo Junction", which sold 115,000 copies in the first week. "In the Mood", and "Pennsylvania 6-5000", all appearing on the RCA Victor Bluebird label. In early 1940, Down Beat Magazine announced that Miller had topped all other bands in its Sweet Band Poll, capping off this seemingly sudden rise to the top. 
	In 1942, Miller joined the United States Army Air Forces and was commissioned as a Captain. He was also appointed Director of Bands and devoted himself to reorganizing military music. Then he formed the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band that gave over 800 performances during a 2-year period to Allied servicemen in the U.S. and overseas. On December 15, 1944, he was scheduled to fly from England to Paris to play for the soldiers who had recently liberated the city. His plane disappeared over the English Channel and was never found. (3) 	“Miller, a gifted arranger and a competent trombonist, died of a plane crash on December 25 [sic], 1944. According to Miller’s biographer and friend, George T. Simon, “when Miller boarded the small plane, the band leader asked Col. Baesell [the officer who arranged for the unauthorized flight] where the parachutes were. ‘“What’s the matter, Miller?”’ Baesell asked. ‘“Do you want to live forever?”’ Maj. Alton Glenn Miller was only 40 years old when he disappeared. The Iowa-born band leader left behind his wife, Helen, and their two small children—a son , Stevie, adopted in 1942, and a daughter, Jonnie (whom Miller never had a chance to see), adopted in late 1944.  Both were adopted members of later generations, it is not an overstatement to say that no musical group captured the public’s attention as much Glenn Miller’s orchestra until the Beatles came along in 1964.” (12)
	Glenn Miller was an excellent musician and set a lot of goals. Miller is like a William Penn college student, in a sense, consistently setting new goals and sticking with it. Each and every student at William Penn feels that they can do better and Glenn Miller felt that there was a better sound out there to be expressed. I picked Glenn Miller because he has a big influenced in Iowa. Since he was born in Clarinda, IA proving that maybe one of you or me will someday be as prestigious as Glenn Miller. 
The numbers are cited text. An excellent research topic
:What is the copyright status of this information?  Where has it come from? -- Francs2000 | Talk  22:39, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: more info

message: ANyone have a picture of him?
Done. --SeanO 02:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture

message: As Miller's longtime business manager, I can buy Don Haynes as someone who knew him well, but the credentials stated for George Simon are thin at best. And considering that his only other mention in the article is a possible libel on a dead man, is there anything to back up Simon's veracity? Or if Simon was, as stated in the above discussion, "friend and biographer" and was repeating speculation not his own, then the article needs a re-write to clarify. The whole business about a heart attack in a bordello is disturbing in the absence of a shred of factual backup.--Buckboard 00:29, 9 July 2006 
(UTC)
George Simon was briefly in Glenn Miller's first band, was a reporter for Metronome magazine and wrote articles about Glenn Miller, and  knew him very well from the mid 1930s to the time of Miller's disappearance when they both served in the US army.  He also wrote the respected biography, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra, from 1974.  Also, not related to this topic but still interesting, he was Carly Simon's uncle.  He died in 2001.  I agree that whoever started the rumors about Miller's death is acting in a way dubious and offensive, but you can't legally libel a dead person in the United States. Also, Simon wasn't advocating the arguments or starting the rumors about Miller's death, he was saying they were totally wrong and unsubstantiated.  6 October, 2006 See this website for more information about G Simon:  
http://www.answers.com/topic/george-t-simon
:Hey anon, can you please start signing your comments? It makes it easier to sort of who has said what.  All you have to do is type four tildes in a row (like this:  ~~~~ ) and then when you hit save, it'll fill out your information and a datestamp.  This article could definitely use some stronger sourcing, unfortunately I don't have any bios on Miller in my collection. — e. ripley\talk 16:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What kind of sourcing? Much of the article contains publicly known facts. :) 67.11.227.124 23:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Be that as it may, each assertion of fact has to be backed up by verifiable sources, and many in this article are not.  I don't know that any of them are in question, I haven't read through the article, but it is a bit light on citations for the amount of facts that are present. — e. ripley\talk 19:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Technically, any assertion of fact should be sourced; our sourcing policy is here Verifiability; Citations. Most of the time, particular attention is paid to disputed information. I don't know if there's any disputed information in here or not, but generally that's how things work. I should add that I'm not suggesting there's any incorrect information in here -- necessarily, I don't know -- but it really does need some citations throughout, a reference section started with biographies as sources for the article, etc.  — e. ripley\talk 20:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  George Simon

message: I know Glenn Miller had hits all the way up until 1943, but does anyone know how to verify this?  Also, the article makes claims about chart positions for "In The Mood" and "Tuxedo Junction" but I can't seem to get any backup evidence on the internet.  Thanks.
70.114.14.25 02:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got a book called Pop Hits 1940-1954 by Joel Whitburn. It has all the pre-1955 Billboard peak chart positions for Glenn Miller in it, along with anyone else who made the US singles charts from 1940 to the end of 1954, based on the actual charts. Billboard didn't publish a best-selling singles chart that segregated the individual versions of each song until 1940; before then, the song was what charted, not the record. The Pop Hits 1940-1954 book is as authoritative as his Top Pop Hits book dealing with charts from 1955-present. (Whitburn put out another book based on pre-rock music called Pop Memories 1890-1954, but a lot of the chart information comes from other sources, and some of it is pretty dubious.) I'll be happy to do lookups or add what you need. As for Miller's success on the charts, it was enormous; off the top of my head, the first #1 song on the first singles sales list in 1940 was a Miller recording, and I think only Bing Crosby was more successful on the charts in the 1940s, even with most of Miller's chart activity coming from 1940-43. Cheemo 05:19, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information about Glenn Miller's rankings on Billboard from 1938-1943 

message: I am requesting a section for information on his family, his kids, mother, brother, wife, etc. It seems that such information is present in other wiki articles but non-existent in this one with the exception of the one mention of his daughter requesting a memorial in Arlington.--68.207.206.69 08:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family 

message: Does anyone like or hate the new trivia entry where they call Glenn Miller a "smegger"?  I would go with "strongly dislike", but maybe it's not for me to say. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hipsterdoofus1 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RE: Trivia 

message: Please explain what methods to use if these footnotes and works cited are not correct.  24.160.139.154 03:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RE: Requests for different method of footnoting and acknowledging sources 

message: I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I am totally confused on how to properly cite sources for this article.  I thought the "Works Cited" section would be a way, combined with the footnotes that go to corresponding websites in the text, to honestly cite the sources for the information in this article.  If "Works Cited" is deleted, please tell me how to cite the sources. 67.11.169.152 21:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Works Cited being deleted

message: Substituted at 14:51, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment