Glenn Miller - Biography - IMDb Glenn Miller Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (14) Overview (3) Alton Glenn Miller Mini Bio (1) Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa; the son of Lewis Elmer and Mattie Lou Cavender Miller. He started his music studies when his father gave him a mandolin. He soon traded the mandolin for an old horn. In 1916 he switched to trombone. In 1923, he enrolled in the University of Colorado, but after a year, he dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles, where he joined Ben Pollack's band. He spent most of his time playing gigs and attending auditions. In 1928, Miller moved to New York, where he played session gigs and made orchestrations. At that time he studied with the Russian musician and mathematician Joseph Schillinger, whose star apprentice was George Gershwin.

Miller took Schillinger's instruction on orchestration of a practice exercise, which he developed into the song "Moonlight Serenade", making a small fortune with it. In 1934, Miller joined the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra for a year, then organized an American band for Ray Noble, and made his debut at the Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center. The special sound of his band was developed in Miller's orchestration by using the "crystal chorus" and other inventive ways of arrangement. Miller recorded his own band first time for Columbia Records on April 25, 1935. His instrumental "Solo Hop" reached the Top Ten in 1935, but he did not organize the real "Glenn Miller Orchestra" until March of 1937. In 1939, Miller and his new band got an engagement at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, NY, which was a major spot with a radio wire.

In 1939, he scored seventeen Top Ten hits, including such songs, as "Sunrise Serenade", "Moonlight Serenade", "Stairway to the Stars", "Moon Love", "Over the Rainbow", "Blue Orchids", "The Man With the Mandilon", and other popular songs, which he composed or orchestrated. Miller scored 31 Top Ten hits in the year 1940, and another 11 Top Ten hits in 1941. His number one hits included "Song of the Volga Boatmen", "You and I", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", from his first film, 'Sun Valley Serenade'. Miller worked with the vocalists Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle, and the Modernaires with Paula Kelly. On February 10, 1942, Miller was presented with the first ever "Gold record" for "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and scored another 11 Top Ten hits in 1942. That was the first full year of his country's participation in the Second World War. He organized a large dance band in the Army Air Force at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

From January 1943 to June 1944 the Glenn Miller Band made hundreds of live performances, "I Sustain the Wings" radio broadcasts, and scored another 10 Top Ten hits in the year 1943. Miller took his band to Britain in June 1944. There he performed for the allied troops and did radio shows. His last recording of 20 new songs was made weeks before his death; it was released only in 1995. Maj. Glenn Miller was seen boarding on a plane to Paris, where he was invited to perform for the allied troops and senior commanders of the allied armies. Later the plane on which he was supposed to be traveling was officially reported crashed on December 15, 1944, in the waters of the English Channel. In 1985, the British Ministry of Defence came up with explanation of Miller's disappearance, claiming that his plane was struck by a British bomb dropped in the waters by returning RAF pilots. No wreckage, remains, or IDs were found. Glenn Miller was officially declared dead in a plane crash on December 15, 1944.

His tombstone was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery in April of 1992, at Miller's daughter's request. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov Spouse (1) ( 6 October 1928 - 15 December 1944) (his death) (2 children) Trade Mark (1) Glenn Miller | American composer and musician | Britannica.com American composer and musician Alternative Title: Alton Glenn Miller Glenn Miller Charlie Parker Glenn Miller, original name in full Alton Glen Miller (born March 1, 1904, Clarinda, Iowa , U.S.—died Dec. 16, 1944, at sea en route from London to Paris), American big band leader, arranger, composer, and trombonist, considered the premier musical symbol of the World War II generation. Glenn Miller, c. 1940. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Miller began studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder, but he left to work as a musician.

He played for several bands before being hired as a trombonist with Ben Pollack’s orchestra in the mid-1920s. From 1928 to 1936, Miller worked as a freelance musician, contributing his arrangements and trombone playing to the bands of Red Nichols, the Dorsey brothers , Benny Goodman , Ray Noble, and Smith Ballew. In 1935 he studied with the music theorist Joseph Schillinger, who proved influential in Miller’s development of the instrumentation that was an important component in his later success. Miller formed his first band in 1937; it attracted little notice, but some of its recordings were admired by critics, especially Miller’s arrangement of “ I Got Rhythm , ” with its use of countermelody and multiple false endings. Miller disbanded his first orchestra in early 1938 and immediately assembled a new one. With this group Miller discovered the sound that was to bring him lasting fame. “A band ought to have a sound all of its own; it ought to have a personality,” he once stated.

His formula consisted of a clarinet playing the melody, doubled by a tenor saxophone playing an octave lower and other saxes in harmonic support. Jazz historian Gunther Schuller wrote, “It is hard to think of anyone with a sound quite so unique.” The new orchestra played ballrooms and casinos throughout the East, including several that hosted national radio broadcasts. Live appearances routinely broke attendance records. In late 1939, Miller got his own thrice-weekly radio show. The band was in constant demand for recording sessions, as well as movies ( Sun Valley Serenade in 1941 and Orchestra Wives in 1942). Miller’s first million-selling recording, his own composition , was “ Moonlight Serenade ” (1939). Other hits from the nation’s most popular big band included “ In the Mood, Glenn Miller, centre, performs with his orchestra in the movie Sun Valley Serenade. © Bettmann/Corbis Miller was a perfectionist, more interested in mass acceptance than critical praise, and less concerned with how close his music came to a jazz ideal than with how well it connected with the listener.

His hit songs define the swing era itself for many listeners, and they are among the best-loved songs of the period. Contributing to the success of the Miller band was tenor saxophonist-singer Tex Beneke , whose country-tinged vocals highlighted such numbers as “ Chattanooga Choo Choo ” and “ (I’ve Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo. ” Also notable was Wilbur Schwartz, whose lead lines on the clarinet were noted for purity of tone. Bobby Hackett was known as a jazz cornetist, although his style was considered too mellow for Miller’s brass section and he instead served as band guitarist; occasionally he got a cornet solo—his turn on “ A String of Pearls ” is perhaps the most celebrated instrumental solo on a Miller recording. Miller himself rarely played trombone solos (as on “ Little Brown Jug Methane Surge Worries Scientists Miller’s reign at the top of the popular music charts came relatively late in his career, and he stunned the music world by disbanding his orchestra and enlisting in the army in the fall of 1942.

As he wrote on August 12, attempting to persuade officials of his usefulness, he wanted to “put a little more spring into the feet of our marching men and a little more joy into their hearts” as well as to modernize the band. To that end, and to raise millions of dollars for the war effort, he spent October 1942 to December 1944 leading the all-star Army Air Force Band, a 42-piece orchestra with a 19-piece swing band at its core. The band was made up of some of the best players from the classical and jazz fields, and its varied repertoire was well suited to Miller’s own ambitions as a leader and arranger. 70 years later, mystery of Glenn Miller's disappearance may be solved | CPR 70 years later, mystery of Glenn Miller's disappearance may be solved By Michael de Yoanna Jul 8, 2014 Audio: Dennis Spragg speaks with Ryan Warner Big band leader Glenn Miller went missing in 1944. (Photo: Courtesy of the University of Colorado Boulder Glenn Miller Archive) A researcher claims he can put to rest decades of conjecture surrounding the mysterious disappearance of big band leader Glenn Miller during World War II.

Long overlooked military documents indicate the small plane in which Miller was likely traveling when he disappeared in 1944 probably crashed in the English Channel after fuel intakes froze, according to Dennis Spragg, a senior consultant to the Glenn Miller Archive at the University of Colorado Boulder . “The icing took three forms: engine icing, carburetor icing and induction ice,” Spragg says. “And that’s the kind of ice that forms on the fuel tanks and fuel lines, feeding fuel to the engine.” Miller was born in Iowa and spent the latter part of his boyhood in Fort Morgan on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. There, he played high school football and honed his skills on the trombone. He attended the University of Colorado Boulder briefly before dropping out to pursue his music career. On the day he went missing, Dec. 15, 1944, Miller, an Army major, is believed to have boarded a UC-64A Norseman in Bedfordshire, England, as a passenger. The plane was bound for France, where Miller was planning a performance for Allied troops. Spragg has penned a book on the subject of Miller's disappearance, called "Resolved." It is set to be released later this year.

Spragg says the plane was flying low because of poor visibility. When fuel lines froze the engine stopped, giving the plane's pilot about eight seconds to react before it plunged into the water. Because the plane was constructed of mostly lightweight materials, it probably disintegrated on impact, killing those aboard instantly, Spragg says. Glenn Miller looks over music while leading the U.S. Army Air Forces band in Bedford, England. (Photo: Courtesy University of Colorado Boulder Glenn Miller Archive) Spragg cites military documents to back his claims, some of which have been in the public realm for decades, but were previously uninspected by Glenn Miller researchers, he says. In the late 1930s, Miller experienced widespread fame with hits like “Tuxedo Junction” and “Chatanooga Choo-Choo.” Even though Miller was in his late 30s and it was unlikely he would have been drafted for World War II, the band leader joined the Army. Spragg says Miller signed up partly out of patriotism and partly for practical reasons, including that Miller may have had a hard time keeping young musicians in the band because of the draft. As a major in the U.S.

Army Air Forces Band, Miller led musical shows broadcast from England and meant to boost troop morale. He also participated in counter-propaganda campaigns against the Nazis. In some recordings Miller speaks German, phonetically pronouncing words for a German audience. Such broadcasts, combined with Miller’s work alongside British actor David Niven, Spragg says, emboldened theorists to assert that Miller had been a spy for the Allies and perhaps assassinated. Some other entertainers, including dancer Josephine Baker, did covert work. Yet there’s no substantial proof that Niven, who served for a short time in an elite British military unit, worked as a spy with Miller, Spragg says. “There is a difference between broadcasting music or information to the enemy from England as opposed to being clandestine agents in the field running around the continent putting yourself at risk,” Spragg says. Another theory -- one that’s more widely accepted -- is that the plane Miller was flying in was destroyed by friendly fire. That theory was first proposed in the 1980s as intriguing evidence about the Norseman plane came to light.

It was discovered that 138 planes returning from an aborted Allies bombing raid disposed of their bombs over the English Channel, and the theory is that one hit Miller's plane, causing it to crash. Citing U.S. Army Air Force records, Spragg says the timing of when the planes were over the channel rules out that theory. More likely, he says, is that another plane was journeying across the channel at the time the bombers were returning. It appears to be a “case of mistaken identity” that the Norseman was in the area at the time. Miller never arrived at his destination and traces of the Norseman and its passengers were never found. Nine days later, BBC and CBS news reports stated that the plane and occupants, including Miller, were missing. Military officials had answers about engine ice problems provided in reports from the time, but those answers were not shared with the general public, Spragg says. He launched his investigation in 2009 at the behest of Miller’s son, Steven Davis Miller, who passed away in 2012. “Steve was pretty much fed up with having spent most of his adult life dealing with conspiracy theories,” Spragg says.

“And he said, ‘I trust you to take the ball on this thing and go with it and if you want to do it, will you please go, study this situation, go anywhere you need to go, open any files you need to open, ask for permission to go anywhere you can, but find out what really happened.’” Spragg will appear on PBS’ “History Detectives Special Investigations: The Disappearance of Glenn Miller” tonight, July 8, at 8 p.m. MDT. The Glenn Miller Story (1954) - Plot Summary - IMDb The Glenn Miller Story (1954) Plot Summary Showing all 2 plot summaries The unemployed trombone player Glenn Miller is always broken, chasing his sound to form his band and hocking his instrument in the pawn house to survive. When his friend Chummy MacGregor is hired to play in the band of Ben Pollack, the band-leader listens to one Glenn's composition and invites him to join his band. While traveling to New York, Glenn visits his former girlfriend Helen Berger, in Boulder, Colorado, and asks her to wait for him. Two years later he quits the band and proposes Helen that moves to New York to marry him.

After the success of "Moonlight Serenade", Glenn Miller's band becomes worldwide known and Glenn and Helen and their two children have a very comfortable life. Duting the World War II, Glenn enlists in the army and travels to Europe to increase the moral of the allied troops. In the Christmas of 1944, he travels from London to Paris for a concert to be broadcast; however his plane is never found in the tragic flight. Glenn Miller Orchestra – Gary Tole right January 2011 – December 2011 Destiny explains one part of Gary Tole’s stellar career as a trombonist, band-leader and educator. In a family of dedicated musicians, his calling was more or less a fait accompli. Destiny, however, doesn’t account for any musician’s continued success in a very challenging and capricious business. Gary is certain his good fortune can be credited to the humble philosophy held and taught by his parents: in short, “Keep your eye on the ball.” Since he is a baseball fanatic as well as an A-list musician, the advice was easily understood. Gary was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA.

After attending Duquesne Auniversity, Gary Traveled on the road for four years playing first trombone with the Glenn Miller Orchestra directed by Jimmy Henderson. In 1978, Tole made his permanent residence in Souther California. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, Gary was hired to play first trombone with the Harry James Orchestra and performed on Harry’s last recording. Another great opportunity opened and Gary was now performing with the Les Brown band of Renown and recording television shows with legendary entertainer Bob Hope. On stage as well as recording, Gary’s smooth but dynamic style placed him in constant demand with such stars as Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Mathis, Bernadette Peters, Kenny Rogers, Rita Moreno, Meilissa Manchester, James Ingram, Peter Cetera, and Phil Collins. He has been seen and heard on numerous television programs backing great performers such as Diana Ross, Sammy Davis, Pia Zadora, Sheena Easton, Peabo Bryson, The Pointer Sisters, and many more. Gary has also spent numerous hours in the recording studios doing record sessions, TV film, jingles, and major motion picture sound tracks.

Gary has had a long and illustrious career in the big band world including performances with the orchestras of Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Ray McKinley, Tex Beneke, Stan Kenton, Ray Anthony, Benny Goodman, Xavier Cugat, Woody Herman, Louis Bellson, Bill Holman, Bob Florence, Buddy Childers and many more. In addition to trombone, Gary also plays bass trombone and euphonium. As an active clinician for Yamaha, Gary participates in music education programs as a judge for jazz festivals, band and orchestra festivals, private teaching of the low brass instruments, and has traveled throughout the country conducting various clinics. Having a sharp eye for perfection, in 1984, Gary started his own entertainment production company Gary Tole Music Productions, Inc. From weddings of Hollywood ’s elite to fund raisers at LA’s top hotels to corporate events internationally, Gary Tole has done it all.

Gary has accomplished what seems economically and socially impossible in the new century also: his own sixteen piece ensemble, Legends of Swing, has become one of the world’s most sought after Big Bands, in heavy demand nationally and internationally for its white-hot tributes to icons like Glenn Miller, Stan Kenton, The Dorsey Brothers and Benny Goodman. In 2007, Legends of Swing released its second recording, the multiple-Grammy nominated One Kettle For Count (Summit Records). Grammy nominated award categories included Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, Best Instrumental Composition, and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). Events Armstrong | Basie | Ellington | Fitzgerald | Goodman | Hawkins | Henderson | Holiday | Miller | Waller | Young LOUIS ARMSTRONG (1901-1971) Trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong was the first jazz musician to combine musical brilliance with a cultivated public persona as entertainer (bandleader, film actor, comic). His virtuoisity as a soloist led to abandonment of the previous standard practice in jazz of concentrating on individual instruments' relation to the group as a whole, and to increased importance of solos.

Armstrong established the rhythmic approach to improvisation which became known as "swinging," and which led to swing as a specific genre of jazz. In the 1936 book Swing That Music, Armstrong discussed his personal experiences in jazz, as well as the evolution of jazz and the transition from jazz to swing. Top COUNT BASIE (1904-1984) Renowned pianist, composer, and big band leader William "Count" Basie studied piano as a child with his mother, and was later influenced by James P. Johnson and mentored by Fats Waller. A vaudeville accompanist, Basie settled in Kansas City in 1927 when he found himself there without enough money for fare back east. There, Basie played with the Bennie Moten band, and he became the band's leader upon Moten's death in 1935. The band included saxophonist Lester Young, trumpeter Buck Clayton, and trumpeter-composer Thad Jones. By 1936, Basie's band was playing regular gigs at the Reno Club, from which there were many late-night radio broadcasts, often reaching as far as Chicago.

Jazz critic and producer John Hammond heard one of these broadcasts and travelled to Kansas City to write about the band for Down Beat and to arrange a contract with the MCA talent agency. Count Basie's band's work at Decca (1937-1939) and at Columbia (1939-1946) constitute some of the best-loved swing ever recorded: "One O'Clock Jump," "Jumpin' at the Woodside," "Taxi War Dance," "Miss Thing," "Lester Leaps In," etc. The Count Basie band was known for playing with the tightness and versatility of a smaller group, and for experimenting with innovative new rhythms which would inspire the transition into bebop. Basie's orchestra disbanded in 1950. The subsequent band Basie formed in 1952 relied less heavily on the improvisational power of soloists, and more on the organizational power of arrangers. Top DUKE ELLINGTON (1899-1974) An influential pioneer of the big band form. Composer, bandleader, and pianist Ellington brought prestige to jazz and, particularly, swing.

He has been referred to as America's greatest composer in any genre. His fifty years as orchestra leader left thousands of compositions, ranging in size and scope from standards to extended suites. Ellington's study of classical piano began at age seven, and his middle-class parents encouraged him to pursue it as a career. A year after beginning to play professionally, at seventeen, however, Ellington turned away from the classical style. Having been captivated by ragtime as a teenager, Ellington began to play jazz exclusively. In the early 1930s, Ellington's exotic "jungle style" captivated white audiences at the New York Cotton Club. As his career progressed, Ellington turned more and more towards concert, rather than nightclub or dance-hall settings. His stylistic innovation of grouping instruments from different sections of the band broke from the swing standard of pitting one instrument against another, and resulted in rich, unique sounds. In the 1950s, the tecnological move to the LP, which allowed extended play of twenty-five to thirty minutes per side, released the restriction of time, and Ellington started writing extended pieces. Among these was the Such Sweet Thunder suite, inspired by Shakespearean themes.

Ellington's songs "Mood Indigo," "Solitude," "In A Sentimental Mood," and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" remain pop standards. The fact that he also created film scores, operas, ballets, Broadway shows, church music, and symphony orchestras contributed to Ellington's own prestige, and to that of the jazz and swing genres as a whole. Top BENNY GOODMAN (1909-1986) Goodman's pioneering work as a clarinetist and orchestra leader earned him the title "King of Swing." He was crucial in inspiring the movement of jazz from the margins to the mainstream. To many, the popularity he achieved, particularly with white audiences following a famed performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935, signified the official beginning of the "Swing Era." By 1937, Goodman's performances were complete with screaming fans and ecstatic, jitterbugging bobby-soxers rushing the stage. In 1935, Goodman helmed the first interracial popular jazz band: the Benny Goodman Trio, with drummer Gene Krupa and pianist Teddy Wilson.

This was one of many small groups in which Goodman played, in addition to his big band. This small-group swing inspired a return to the traditional jazz heritage of smaller performance groups. Goodman thus indirectly inspired the genesis of post-Swing modern jazz, a style he did not favor. As a clarinet soloist Goodman received praise for technical cleanliness. Notorious for perfectionism, he was purportedly a difficult boss as bandleader. The "King of Swing" was immortalized in the 1955 biopic The Benny Goodman Story. Top BILLIE HOLIDAY (1915-1959) Influenced by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday is considered one of jazz's greatest vocalists. Her improvisational genius left its mark on popular standards, and she introduced the memorable "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child." Holiday's father was a guitar and banjo player in Fletcher Henderson's band, and she entered the world of professional music as a teenager, signing with Columbia Records in 1933. Holiday had received no formal musical training, but quickly proved she could hold her own with swing's best.

Her first recordings were with the bands of Benny Goodman and Count Basie, and she toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw in 1937 and 1938. Earning the nickname "Lady Day," Holiday attained great popularity in the New York club scene during the 1940s. Her post-war Decca recordings, epitomized by the hit "Lover Man," were extremely successful. However, struggles with heroin addiction led to a certain unevenness in quality, particularly by the 1950s, when Holiday recorded with Verve Records. In 1959, Billie Holiday died of a kidney ailment. Top GLENN MILLER (1904-1944) An enormously popular trombonist, composer, arranger and bandleader, Miller's music has come to serve as a sort of shorthand for the perseverant American spirit in the years leading up to, and during, World War II. The Glenn Miller Band was known for its romantic ballads on one hand, and for jubilant, energetic hard swing on the other.

After a brief period of study at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Miller joined the Ben Pollack orchestra in California in 1924. Following a decade of steady work, in 1937 the ambitious Miller formed the first of several bands which would mark his meteoric rise. After the failure of this band, one formed a year later signed with Victor Records and recorded "Moonlight Serenade," which exhibited the characteristic strong clarinet of Miller's work. With success at Long Island dance hall Glen Island Casino, Miller's band rose in popularity throughout 1939, achieving a huge hit with "In the Mood" in 1940. Miller appeared in two of the most successful big-band centered Hollywood films: Sun Valley Serenade (1941) and Orchestra Wives (1942). In 1942, Miller gave up his position as leader of America's most popular swing band in order to serve the war effort. After a standard stint in the Army Air Force, Miller became leader of the band at the Technical Training Command at Yale University. In June 1944, this band was transferred to England, where it played dances, concerts, broadcasts, and recording sessions daily.

Once France was liberated, the Air Force band was to transfer to Paris. The band arrived there for a Christmas broadcast, but Miller himself never made it, his small plane having been lost in the English Channel on December 15. Miller's posthumous popularity was enormous. In 1953, a saccharine biopic The Glenn Miller Story, achieved great success. Miller's brand of swing remains a window, for many, onto a uniquely American spirit and exuberance during a particularly trying time. Some critics question the Glenn Miller Band's place in the jazz canon, arguing that its style is at times far removed from the jazz tradition. Nevertheless, the superbly complex structure of Miller's swing pop standards gains praise as uncommon for popular music. Top FATS WALLER (1904-1943) A brilliant stride pianist and composer ("Honeysuckle Rose," "Ain't Misbehavin'"), Julliard-trained Fats Waller attained significant commercial success. Many believe, however, that this popularity occurred at the expense of full artistic freedom. Waller cultivated a slapstick comic persona; his humorous vocals appealed to a mainstream audience which may not have been willing to recognize Waller's true artistic abilities.

Although Waller's minister father had expected his son to devote his life to religion, Waller began work as an organist at age 15. He studied with James P. Johnson, who proved a great influence. Soon after his first recordings in 1922, other jazz and blues artists took note of Waller's great composition skill and began recording versions of his songs. Waller's immense popularity led to touring success on the West Coast and in Europe during the 1930s. He also appeared in successful films, most notably 1943's Stormy Weather. The stress of legal battles over alimony contributed to Waller's abrupt death of pneumonia at age 38. Top LESTER YOUNG (1909-1959) A product of the Kansas City Jazz scene of the mid-1930s, Lester Young broke onto the national scene as a member of Count Basie's band.

Earning the nickname "Pres" (or "Prez") after Billie Holiday called him the "president of tenor saxophonists," Young's unique improvisational style left its mark on swing and inspired such modern jazz musicians as Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, and John Coltrane. His style was characterized by a "swinging" lightness of texture, a relaxed divergence from many of the swing orchestrations of the 1930s. Young's most influential work includes "Taxi War Dance," "D.B. Blues," and "Lester Leaps In." 8/19/2001 • American History Half a century after his mysterious wartime disappearance, the big-band leader and composer who gave America “Moonlight Serenade,” “String of Pearls,” and “In the Mood” endures as the musical symbol of an entire generation. Spring, 1994: It is the fiftieth anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, and the air is filled with speeches, prayers, and remembrance. And one thing else. Everywhere, it seems, there is the music of the Glenn Miller Band of the 1940s.

On the evening of May 30, 1994, a group of snowy-haired celebrants–some dressed in vintage World War II uniforms–fills the floor of London’s Royal Albert Hall to dance to Miller’s “In the Mood.” On June 5, a crowd of two thousand, which includes Her Majesty The Queen Mother, listens to the very same tune played by a U.S. Air Force contingent in Portsmouth. That same day at a military cemetery near Cambridge, where U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks, the band also plays Miller’s tunes. On June 6, aboard the Queen Elizabeth II, celebrities that include Bob Hope, Walter Cronkite, and Sir John Mills are serenaded by Miller’s music. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic at Arlington National Cemetery, some four thousand people gather for prayers and speeches–and Miller songs played by an Army band. And in Sainte-Mère-Eglise, the first French town liberated by the Allies, “In the Mood” echoes across the landscape from loudspeakers. Miller’s music was so pervasive at the anniversary observances that one reporter, Louis J.

Salome of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, looking over the estimated forty thousand veterans at Normandy, dubbed them “the Glenn Miller generation.” What was it about this music and the band that created it that made the Miller sound the aural symbol of an era? Of all the musical aggregations of the “Big Band Era,” how did the group that recorded such hits as “In the Mood,” “String of Pearls,” “Tuxedo Junction,” “Little Brown Jug,” “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” and “Moonlight Serenade” achieve such lasting recognition? Big Bands (generally speaking, those comprised of ten or more musicians) had been around for more than a decade before Benny Goodman and his group caught the fancy of Depression-weary America in 1935 and set it swinging. One could, perhaps, date the Big-Band Era as far back as 1924, when Paul Whiteman’s already well-known orchestra debuted George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in a concert at New York’s Aeolian Hall and gave jazz a respectability that it had not previously enjoyed.

With the door now opened, jazz bands such as the great Duke Ellington’s began to find their way into the mainstream of the American music scene. Their music–progressive, creative, and exciting–reflected the fast-paced “Roaring Twenties.” The stock market crash of 1929 and the sweeping economic depression that followed changed the nation’s mood. Americans, anxious to escape the realities of the Great Depression, turned to slower, more romantic music. “Sweet” bands such as those led by Guy Lombardo, Hal Kemp, and Eddy Duchin became popular. Glen Gray and the Casa Loma orchestra developed a following, especially among college students, with a semi-swing sound that foreshadowed the Big Band band era. And by 1934, the Dorsey brothers–Tommy and Jimmy–and Benny Goodman had assembled their bands. But the craze that made swing by far America’s most popular form of music effectively began with the astonishing breakthrough of Goodman’s band at the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood in August 1935. Suddenly, the youth of the United States had found a new sound, one that contained elements of jazz and yet was different.

To many listeners, jazz and swing were the same, but most fans found swing [easier], more listenable, and more suitable for dancing, which was very important to the young people of the day. Jazz fans tend to think of their music as art meant for listening only. Some bands, like Goodman’s, drove pretty fast and were jazz-oriented, but others (often more successful) played what was known as “sweet” music. In fact, by the 1940s, Big Bands were cleanly separated, like Italian sausage, into two categories–“sweet” and “hot.” But style had to be accompanied by exposure, and one of the reasons that the Big Bands ruled was their accessibility. One could hear the sounds in a range of ways, and few of them involved spending a great deal of money. Radio disk jockeys–“platter spinners”–were few. More common were live radio broadcasts of the bands, either from studios or ballrooms. The major radio networks saturated the air waves with the sound. In 1939, for example, NBC was presenting the music of no less than forty-nine bands, and CBS had twenty-one.

Nor was it necessary to attend a night club to hear these ensembles live (although even that was not unaffordable for middle-class listeners; the weekday cover charge to see Glenn Miller at the Cafe Rouge of [New York’s] Hotel Pennsylvania was seventy-five cents). The most prominent Big Bands usually spent the winter at such a big-city hotel, but during the rest of the year, they were on the road night after night, taking their shows to dozens of smaller communities. Occasionally, a Big Band was thrown in for the price of admission between shows at a big-city movie theater; these bands were not an afterthought, but the attraction that brought patrons to see the movie. Hollywood films also played a role in disseminating the big-band sound. Movie studios rushed to sign up the hot ensembles of the day, as directors churned out a succession of mediocre motion pictures, in which the image of the musicians, characterized in films by phony “jive” talk, bore little resemblance to true life.

Despite their generally poor quality, however, these movies offered viewers (and preserved for posterity) the performances of such bands as those of Goodman, the Dorsey brothers, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Sammy Kaye, Woody Herman, and, of course, Glenn Miller. Although not as [pervasive] [prominent] then as they are today, recordings too boosted the accessibility of the Big Bands. In 1939, record sales totaled $50 million (up from $10 million seven years earlier), and eighty-five percent of these sales were of swing music. By 1940 sales were $70 million, and a year later they soared to $100 million. The jukebox became a fixture in restaurants and saloons around 1934, and by the time the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, there were some three to four hundred thousand machines in the United States, most of them dispensing the music of the Big Bands. And the most popular of them all was the Glenn Miller band; in the 1940s, poll after poll consistently placed the Miller band first.

It set attendance records almost everywhere it went, and by 1943 there were more than five hundred Glenn Miller fan clubs across the United States and Canada. In 1940 alone, Miller recorded forty-five songs that made it onto the top-seller[s] charts–a figure neither Elvis Presley nor the Beatles ever matched–and it was estimated that one out of three nickels put into jukeboxes went to play a Miller record. Alton Glenn Miller–he detested his first name and quickly dropped it–was born on March 1, 1904 in Clarinda, Iowa. When Glenn was five, the family moved to Tryon, Nebraska, where they lived for five years in a sod house. After a brief stay in North Platte, [Nebraska], the Millers relocated to Grant City, Missouri in 1915, and then, three years later, to Fort Morgan, Colorado, where Glenn attended high school.

Glenn’s mother played the organ, and as soon as their boys were old enough, she and her husband supplied them with musical instruments–a cornet for older brother Deane and a mandolin for Glenn.*[ 1 ] Before long Glenn had swapped his instrument for one of the brass variety, and, as his mother once told an interviewer, “He just played on that horn all the time. It got to where Pop and I used to wonder if he’d ever amount to anything.” An outstanding high school athlete, Glenn was an avid basketball player and an all-state football end. His ambition, however, was to become a professional baseball player. A picture from Glenn’s high school days shows a rugged, broad-shouldered six-footer with large hands[–a good-looking guy, save for his overlarge head and his long, wide ears]. Glen played trombone in the school band, and although no one seems to have thought of him as an exceptional musician, he took his music more seriously than he did any sport. After graduating in 1921 he delayed going to college in order to take a job in a band organized by a saxophone and clarinet player named Boyd Senter.

In January 1923, Miller entered the University of Colorado, where he seems to have spent most of his time playing in a popular campus band. At the year’s end, he dropped out of school to set upon the risky career of a full-time musician. Glenn got his first big break in Los Angeles when he was hired to play in, and arrange for, the Ben Pollack band. A pioneer in expanding the small ensemble (usually of five to seven musicians) characteristic of 1920s jazz into the full-fledged Big Band, Pollack had an ear for good musicians. Over the years he hired not only Miller, but also the fine Chicago cornetist Jimmy McPartland; trumpeter Charlie Spivak, who went on to form his own Big Band in 1940; Benny Goodman; trumpeter Harry James; and a trombone player who was obviously Miller’s superior–the bluesy Jack Teagarden from Texas. Although jazz always remained his first love, Miller himself was never a good enough instrumentalist to be a great jazz musician.

Benny Goodman once said that Glenn “was a pedestrian trombone player and he knew it.” When Teagarden joined the Pollack band, Glenn saw the handwriting on the wall and determined to concentrate on arranging, an art for which he had a rare talent and which he had been studying with the esteemed teacher Joseph Schillinger. Certain that his arranging assignments and occasional playing would provide a measure of financial security, he wired Helen Burger, the girl he had met in college, and proposed that she come to New York to marry him. They were wed on October 6, 1928. It was a most successful marriage. Said one of Glenn’s friends: “The greatest thing that ever happened to Glenn Miller was Helen Miller.” During the next few years, Miller arranged for Paul Ash, Red Nichols, and several lesser-known band leaders. He also filled in on the trombone with established bands and found himself playing in the orchestra pit for Broadway productions. In 1934 he was the first musician hired, both for his musicianship and his skills as an arranger, by the Dorseys when they formed their first band. Glenn’s association with the Dorseys lasted only a few months.

Late in 1934 British band leader Ray Noble arrived in the United States to try his hand at wooing American audiences, who had heard and bought recordings that his “orchestra”–in reality an assemblage of musicians from other ensembles–had made in England. Anxious to cash in on the popularity of his records, Noble hired Glenn away from the squabbling brothers and gave him his first experience at organizing a Big Band. The group Miller put together included some of the finest musicians of the day, and for a time the Noble Orchestra drew crowds to the Rainbow Room atop New York’s RCA Building. It was while with the Noble Orchestra that Glenn got his first opportunity to stand before a Big Band as leader. It was an experience he was eager to turn into a permanent situation. So in 1936 he decided to take the chance and begin recruiting musicians for a group of his own. It was a huge gamble, but one to which he brought estimable assets–his solid track record as an arranger and his shrewd commercial sense of what the public would welcome.

He was also a very organized person; arranger Rolly Bundock called him “the General MacArthur of the music business.” The Glenn Miller Band played its first engagement in May, 1937 at the Hotel New Yorker. The band went to Boston and then to New Orleans, where it was a huge success (though not financially; Miller himself was taking home a little less than six dollars a week). After that, it was all downhill, and the group could not earn enough to cover expenses. To compound Miller’s woes, his wife had an operation that made it impossible for her to have children (years later the couple adopted a boy and a girl). Following a New Year’s Eve engagement, Glenn broke the news to the band members that he had decided to call it quits. The band played its last date on January 2, 1938. It had been, if nothing else, a learning experience. Jazz has never been the most popular form of music in the United States, and the one thing Glenn liked even more than jazz was success. He had no pretensions of being too artistic to be popular. If he were to start another band, Miller vowed, it would not be for the fans, not the musicians.

Too many of his players had been “prima donnas,” he felt, who were interested in satisfying their musical souls by blowing far-out riffs whether or not the kids were following them. No, his new band, when it came, would have showmanship and a commercial sweetness. It would have a “sound.” His instincts didn’t fail him. The distinctive Miller sound–a clarinet lead supported by four saxophones–had come to him while he was still with the Noble orchestra, but he had not really put it to the test with his first band. Now it would become his signature. By March 1938 the second Glenn Miller Orchestra was in place. Miller had made some crucial additions–especially vocalists. The mainstays of the band were “girl singer” Marion Hutton, “boy singer” Ray Eberle, Gorden “Tex” Beneke, and a male quartet known as the Modernaires. Hutton, the sister of actress/singer Betty Hutton, was only seventeen when she joined the group.

She was not, by her own admission, the greatest of vocalists (saxophonist Al Klink used to joke that “the mike is out of tune tonight”), but she had enormous warmth and appeal. Eberle, whose older brother, Bob Eberly with a “y,” sang for Jimmy Dorsey, was, like Hutton, a performer whose looks surpassed his vocal ability. At first a favorite of Glenn’s, he and Miller had a falling out that lead to his leaving the band in 1942. Hired for the band as a tenor saxophonist, Beneke quickly proved himself a valuable singer, ideal for some of the jazzier numbers and novelty tunes. He lent his voice on such songs as “I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo.” *[ 1 ] Younger brother Herb eventually took up the trumpet; he became a professional musician and bandleader, too, although a much less successful one. The Modernaires joined Miller in 1941. One of them, Chuck Goldstein, developed a way of singing a harmony high above the others, giving the group an unmistakable sound.

“Some people,” he once remarked, “thought we had a girl with us.” Glenn drove his band with a perfectionist zeal that made it–to the exasperation of many of his musicians–by far the most precise, the most rehearsed band of the time. He managed to combine a bit of jazz, a large dose of swing, a healthy dollop of showmanship, and a sprinkling of hokum. And it worked. In March 1939, Miller contracted to play for the summer season at the celebrated Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York. This was a coveted date–not for the money, but for the exposure over the air waves; the band broadcast from the Casino ten times a week, reaching thousands of listeners. Following that engagement, they went from sellout to sellout. In Hershey, Pennsylvania, it broke the attendance record set by the Guy Lombardo Orchestra eight years before, and in Syracuse, New York, it played for the biggest audience ever gathered for a dance. Meanwhile, the band made one hit record after another, including “Little Brown Jug,” “In the Mood,” and “Moonlight Serenade,” which became Miller’s theme song.

In December the band was hired for a thrice weekly CBS national radio program sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes, and its national reputation was solidified. A poll taken in the summer of 1940 put the Glenn Miller band number one by a huge margin, almost doubling the votes of the runner-up, Tommy Dorsey. Hollywood soon beckoned, and Miller traveled to California to make two movies for Twentieth-Century Fox, Sun Valley Serenade (1941) and Orchestra Wives (1942). As examples of cinematic art, these films are forgettable, but they are priceless as a record of the Miller band in its prime. In numbers like “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Serenade in Blue,” and “I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo,” the players demonstrate their showmanship, flapping their mutes, standing for solos, and flashing their choreographed pumping of trombone slides. Miller himself comes off as a credible and likeable actor. By the time Orchestra Wives was filmed, the United States was at war, and the draft was beginning to siphon off Miller’s musicians.

At age thirty-eight, he was not subject to being called up, but he thought he could help the war effort. His idea was to reform military music, to update it to a style that the troops would enjoy. Glenn first offered his services to the U.S. Navy, but was turned down. So on August 12, 1942 he wrote to Brigadier General Charles D. Young, expressing his desire to “do something concrete in the way of setting up a plan that would enable our music to reach our servicemen here and abroad with some degree of regularity [and thereby] help considerably to ease some of the difficulties of army life.” General Young immediately accepted his offer. The band played their last Chesterfield show on September 24, and Glenn reported for induction on October 7, 1942. Now a captain in the Air Corps, Glenn met resistance from what he called “goddamn idiot officers” who liked the marches of John Philip Sousa just fine and saw no need for swing in the military.

Eventually, however, Miller was named Director of Bands Training for the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command and authorized to organize a band at Yale University, which had become a training area for cadets. Miller proceeded to collect as many first-rate musicians as possible; some were from his group, many came from other bands. He also added a string section, getting many players from the country’s best symphony orchestras. The outfit, officially known as the 418th Army Air Forces Band, was activated on March 20, 1943, with permanent station at Yale. The band managed to combine traditional military duties–playing at retreat parades and at review formations on the Yale Green–with performing at dances, open houses, parties, and luncheons, and on radio, over which Miller’s musicians broadcast I Sustain the Wings, a series designed to boost Air Force recruitment. Much was made at the time of the band’s use of traditional jazz tunes such as “St. Louis Blues” in march tempo, as a kind of swinging march. The military brass, fearful of scandalizing traditionalists, took pains to point out that such innovation never occurred during retreat or review, but only as the band was marching to and from these ceremonies.

On July 28, Miller’s new swinging military band made its debut in the Yale Bowl. Time magazine reported at the time that “Oldtime, long-haired U.S. Army bandmasters had the horrors,” but the group was a smash with the troops. It presented an original spectacle: two drummers with full swing band kits and two string bass players–perched atop two jeeps that wheeled along slowly with the marching musicians–provided the rhythm. Despite the misgivings of traditionalists, the band was a hit. Its appearances at bond drives were so successful that Glenn began to fear that he and his musicians might be kept stateside instead of being sent overseas to boast troop morale. Finally, in the spring of 1944 the AAF orchestra got its orders to go to England. They arrived in time to experience the German V-I buzz bombs that fell on London, killing almost five thousand people.

Feeling responsible for the safety of his men, Miller persuaded the military brass to move his unit to Bedford, a village some fifty miles north of the British capital and out then of the reach of the bombs.*[ 2 ] On the day after the men had vacated their London quarters, a buzz bomb fell a few feet from the building, blowing away its entire front and leaving the place in ruins. Always the organizer, Glenn spun off sub-units from the full band, which was now known as the American Band of the Supreme Allied Command, to perform different types of music on four radio series. Strings With Wings featured a full string section headed by George Ockner; The Swing Shift, a seventeen-piece danceband led by Ray McKinley; Uptown Hall, a seven-piece jazz ensemble under Mel Powell; and A Soldier and a Song, crooner Johnny Desmond accompanied by the full band.*[ 3 ] *[ 2 ] It wasn’t long before the Germans unleashed their V-2 bombs, which rendered Bedford as much a target for their strikes as London. *[ 3 ] Fifth unit two pianos These units instituted a backbreaking schedule of radio broadcasts and concerts.

Miller was on the air thirteen times a week, and his musicians performed seventy-one live concerts during their five-and-a-half month stay in England, leading General Jimmy Doolittle to remark that “Next to a letter from home, Captain Miller, your organization is the greatest morale builder in the [European Theater of Operations]. By the time they returned to the United States and were deactivated in January 1946, the band’s members had played an estimated three hundred personal appearances on the continent before more than 600,000 people in slightly less than a year. While still in England, much of the band’s travel was in their own C-47 air bus. One band member estimated that they spent some six hundred hours in the air, often enduring close calls when pilots had difficulty finding air strips in the dark. Miller, who disliked flying and whose ears would ring in the unpressurized cabin, considered the plane second-rate. Promoted to major in August 1944, Glenn, was becoming restless; he wanted to get his band to France so they could play for the men marching on Germany.

With his health poor and his morale low, he seemed to be developing a touch of fatalism, at one point saying that he believed that he would never see his wife and child again.*[ 4 ] “I’ve had a feeling for a long time now,” he said, “that one of those buzz bombs has my name on it.” Then, on November 15, he got the go-ahead he wanted to take his musicians to the continent. At first, band manager Don Haynes was scheduled to fly to Paris ahead of the musicians to make preparations, but at the last minute Miller, characteristically impatient, decided to go himself. On December 13, one day before his planned departure, the weather was so bad that no military aircraft were making the channel crossing. The following day, however, Haynes ran into a friend, Lieutenant Colonel Norman F. Baesell, who was going to Paris on December 15 in a general’s private plane. He invited Miller along. As takeoff time approached, rain, poor visibility, and a low ceiling continued to hamper flight schedules. Word was, however, that the weather was clearing over the continent and the plane would be allowed to leave England.

As Miller looked at the nine-passenger C-64 Norseman, he was dubious. First, he noted that there was only one motor; Baesell countered that one had been enough for Charles Lindbergh when he flew the Atlantic alone in 1927. Then, after he took his seat he said, “Hey, where the hell are the parachutes?” To which Baesell retorted, “What’s the matter, Miller, do you want to live forever?” When the band arrived in Paris three days later, Miller was not there to meet them. Obviously something had gone wrong. For days the musicians hoped that Miller would somehow turn up, but eventually the truth had to be faced. Glenn was officially reported missing on December 23. For years afterward, speculation about Miller’s fate centered on the bad weather and the plane’s lack of de-icing equipment. In late December 1985, however, two former members of a Royal Air Force bomber crew came forward with a story that provides the likeliest explanation of the accident that will probably ever surface.

They had been aboard one of some 150 Lancaster bombers returning from an aborted raid on Germany on December 15, 1944. Following standard procedure, the crew jettisoned their bombs near Beachy Head on the southern coast of England. But as the bombs exploded, the gunner reportedly saw a Norseman below them fall into the sea, apparently downed by the shock waves. A check of the records at Britain’s Ministry of Defense subsequently confirmed the aborted raid and the return of the Lancasters. Miller, in other words, may have been a victim of that grim military occurrence, “friendly fire.” Shortly before his death, Glenn had outlined his postwar plans. He would mark his return to the United States with a concert at New York’s Paramount Theater and then work only six months out of the year, spending the rest of the time raising oranges at his California ranch, “Tuxedo Junction.” Miller had no way of knowing it, but the Big Band Era was quickly drawing to a close. A strike by the musicians’ union against the record companies that lasted from August 1942 until September 1943 kept the bands out of the recording studios.

Although the union eventually got what it wanted, the strike dealt a severe blow to the Big Bands. Singers, who had been able to record with choral backup, had gained popularity and were in demand for radio performances. The new vogue for romantic singers, initiated by Frank Sinatra after he left the Tommy Dorsey band in 1943, brought vocalists like Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Patti Page, and Jo Stafford to the fore. By the end of 1946, eight of the nation’s top bands had dissolved. As big-band veteran John Best once recalled, “I was on the road with Benny Goodman, and he was guaranteed $3,000 a night. Tommy Dorsey was getting $4,000. Suddenly one night, the total take was just $700.” Radio disk jockeys were proliferating, rendering it unnecessary for stations to air live music. Also, a wartime twenty-percent amusement tax on nightclub checks continued into peacetime, with a predictable decline in business. Most crucial of all, tastes changed. As jazz moved into the era of bebop, fans rarely turned to Big Bands to hear their kind of music. And yet Miller’s music survived.

It weathered the period of neglect, and even aversion, that inevitably envelops the recently fashionable. But now you can hear it in television commercials or dance to it in clubs and at weddings. Even fifty years after Miller’s death, to listen to his band’s biggest hits is to be struck by their huge familiarity. These were not just songs of their day, but of the century. They are an indispensable part of American popular music. *[ 4 ] He never did see his second adopted child New York writer Joseph Gustaitis is a frequent contributor to American History magazine. For more on Glenn Miller , his band, and his music see Glenn Miller & His Orchestra by George T. Simon (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974); Moonlight Serenade: A Bio-discography of the Glenn Miller Civilian Band by John Flower (Arlington House, 1972), and The Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band: Sustineo Alas/I Sustain the Wings by Edward F. Polic (Scarecrow Press, 1989).

Question: Band leader Glenn Miller also played which instrument?
Answer: Trombone