Be what you are, wherever you are
A trumpeter and singer whom I sincerely admire, Jim Quakenbush, once responded to my question, "What are you going to do today," with, "Well, does a bird wake up and wonder what to do? No, it's gotta be a bird today. The only question is, where?" Jim is a guy who knows who and what he is. The only question in his mind is, "Where am I going to play today?"
I think Jim shares this trait, this conviction of self, with Glenn Miller. Glenn was riding a wave of success in the early 40s. His band was phenomenally successful, and he was making incredible amounts of money. Glenn Miller was a consummate professional, a college-educated, formally-trained musician, by now deeply experienced in both trombone performance and arranging. And he had spent the last three years at the top of the Swing heap, reaping the rewards of his hard work and good luck.
But life was changing; talented musicians were being plucked from his band by the Draft, and The War dominated the American landscape. So, late in 1942, Glenn walked away from all the commercial success, disbanded his outfit, and enlisted in the Army. The 36-year-old bandleader had already been turned down by the Navy, where his services were "not required." But Miller had a vision much more suited to the US Army. He saw himself in charge of what he called a "modernized Army band," with himself writing updated, modern arrangements of the traditional Army marching repertoire. After a few meetings and some negotiations, he received the blessing of the brass, who commissioned him as a Captain and sent him to training with the Army Air Corps at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a community liaison in Special Services, and, in his off hours, gigged locally on trombone, playing on base and in town. After being transferred to New Haven, Connecticut, Miller assembled his Army Air Corps Band, populated by the finest sidemen in the band business, all of whom were swept into his band by the same Draft that once robbed it.
Now ask yourself, Why? Why would a successful guy like Glenn Miller, too old to have to worry about getting drafted, mind you, why would this guy chuck it all and enlist? Not because he thought he'd be a great jeep jockey or gunner's mate. Like a bird knows it's a bird, Glenn Miller knew he was a musician, and he was answering the question, "Where?" He was a musician, yes. to the core. And he decided he'd be a musician in the Army.
In 1943 and 44, the Army Air Force band played thousands of concerts, performances and shows for service personnel and the civilian public. One of the band's most powerful outlets was the NBC Radio series, I Sustain the Wings, broadcast live from coast to coast on Sunday evenings. NBC archived the dress rehearsals and the broadcasts on 16-inch glass-based transcription discs. These rare and incredibly fragile master recordings are the original source material for most of what we can now hear of this historic band. We will open the show with a representative sampling of these jazzy gems on this week's In the Mood. You will be impressed with both the sound quality of these performances and with the ingenuity and creativity of Miller's fresh arrangements of Army classics. And of course, it's all magnificently executed by an all-star band of America's best players of Draft age who were not 4-F.
Hour 2 begins with about 20 minutes from the outstanding band of Jimmie Lunceford. Much of the Lunceford we have on file here happens to be on original 78 rpm shellac singles from the mid-30s to the early 40s. So, we will press Big Bertha into service; she's our 1935 RCA Type 70-A Transcription Turntable here in the World's Greatest Record Library. I'm always pleasantly surprised at how good these 10-inch original singles can sound.
Jimmie Lunceford was the first public school band director in the Memphis school system, having earned his degrees at Fisk University. He started his first band with his student musicians and kept them working together long enough to get really good. It took a couple of years, but they were starting to land some pretty good gigs. Their big break came when they were booked into the famous Cotton Club, following in the footsteps of their idols Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Imagine being a kid trumpeter from Memphis like Tommy Stevenson, sticking with your high school band directer for a few years and winding up playing the Cotton Club!
The Lunceford band was one of the most exciting of the Era, and their saxophone section was legendary, executing complex killer-diller arrangements with thrilling precision. Most of the arrangements were written by guys in the band, mainly pianist Ed Wilcox and trumpeter Sy Oliver. Tommy Dorsey thought enough of Oliver that he summoned him to his hotel room one morning and, while Dorsey shaved in the bathroom sink, he offered to double Oliver's salary if he'd join his band. Sy's response was, "When do I start, boss?" We've selected some delightful sides by this seminal band for this week's show. And we've taken the utmost care to preserve the original sound of these historic recordings. Some of these records are approaching 75 years of age, but I think you'll be pleased with what you hear.
Besides our Swingin' Spotlight features on the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band in Hour 1 and the Jimmie Lunceford orchestra in Hour 2, this week's In the Mood offers appearances from the best of the Big Bands of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, including Larry Clinton, Vaughn Monroe, an example of Sy Oliver's work with Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Christian with Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Harry James, Hal Kemp and others. We'll also hear from some of the great singers of the Swing Era, such as Eddy Howard, Lena Horne, the Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald and more.
How do we do it? How can we bring you this top flight entertainment week after week at absolutely no expense to you, the listener? Simple. We just put the show together and send it out to the radio stations. They take care of everything else, I really don't know how it works. But if you like hearing In the Mood, please contact the station you listen to and let them know you're listening. It couldn't hurt!
Thanks for reading all this drool! Please feel free to leave us a comment or request, either here or on our Facebook Page. Call someone you care about, and listen to the show with them! It's a great way to combat cabin fever. And old folks will especially like this music! Be kind to one another this week, and Keep Swingin', my friends!
Scott
No comments:
Post a Comment