One Record at a Time
Glenn Miller had been in there swinging for years. He'd been part of the Jazz Scene almost from the very beginning. Glenn was 12 years old when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band made the first jazz records in 1917. He was already a beginner trombone student. And as Glenn matured both musically and personally, so did jazz.
By 1924, jazz was starting to take shape as a musical genre with legs under it This was also the year that Glenn Miller decided to drop out of college and get into the music business as his full-time pursuit. Within a few years, the trombone-playing arranger was quite busy indeed, putting together bands and combos for record dates, dances and radio shows. He saw the music itself developing rapidly. He also saw the dance craze reaching peak velocity. Literally hundreds of dance bands were flourishing across the country. And by 1935, Glenn Miller wanted a piece of the action.
A new band has to get a lot of things right. It also has to have some good luck. Glenn's first three bands, in 1935, 1937 and 1938, were not able to put it all together. But Glenn learned important lessons with each attempt. By this time, Glenn had amassed a wide support network, encompassing players, other bandleaders, agents, publicists, financial backers, music publishers, theater, ballroom and hotel operators, radio producers, record executives and A & R men.
But the final piece of the puzzle didn't fall into place until 1939. You can build the greatest support and distribution network in the world, but it all goes for naught without the product. Until 1939, Glenn;s bands had been missing that one element that would set it apart from all the rest: a signature sound. Glenn finally achieved that in spades when he hit on what came to be known as The Miller Sound. It was a sound that was tailor-made for dancing, with lush ballads and swingy pop tunes set forth by a shimmering reed section arranged with Willie Smith playing lead clarinet on top. Duke Ellington was leading the way with improvisational jazz at the time, and Glenn wisely wrote into his new arrangements plenty of solo opportunities for his talented sidemen, especially Tex Beneke on tenor sax and trumpeters Bobby Hackett, Clyde Hurley and Dale McMickle. Once Glenn had satisfactorily codified the Miller Sound, he brought on arrangers Bill Finegan and Billy May to add their trademark touches.
And then there were the singers. Ray Eberle (brother of Jimmy Dorsey's popular boy singer Bob Eberly), was part of the band from the beginning. He was joined by Paula Kelly, Marion Hutton and the Modernaires. And of course, there was also Tex Beneke, who sang most of the band's novelty numbers.
We will enjoy some of the Miller band's most memorable sides to begin the show this week, including PEnnsylvania 6-5000, Glenn's original arrangement of the Johnson Rag, and a picture-perfect delivery of A String of Pearls from a live radio broadcast. We might even break down and play our show's alma mater for good measure.
We begin Hour 2 this week with a loving listen to some seldom-heard swingers from the Benny Goodman Sextet. This chamber jazz group has its roots in the free-swinging jazz combos of the 1920s...but with an always-fresh coat of polish from Goodman and his ever-changing array of sidemen.
I think it's interesting to note that, after the Sextet's first recording session in October of 1939, Benny began tinkering with the lineup of musicians almost immediately. First he changed pianists. Then drummers. Then, he began experimenting with different combinations of instruments. The result was that the Sextet had a perennially fresh sound, always benefiting from the synergy created by combining different musicians.
We will spend the first 20 minutes or so of Hour 2 enjoying a playlist of Sextet numbers that we have never played on the show until this week. And I think our selections will shed some new light on the remarkable franchise that was the Benny Goodman Sextet. The audio quality is particularly satisfying, I think, because we have bypassed Columbia's mid-1980s reissues of these masters, going back to the label's first LP reissues from the early 1950s on the Columbia Six-Eye label. These releases were processed with a fatter, richer sound that I personally find much more satisfying. I hope you will agree. In any case, the material itself is compelling and revealing in its own right, regardless of compression ratios or EQ curves.
In addition to our Swingin' Spotlight features on Glenn Miller and the Benny Goodman Sextet, this week's In the Mood brings you a generous swerving of the best of the Big Bands of the 1930s, 40s and 50s. We'll hear solid swingers from Tommy Dorsey, the Gene Krupa band, Ella Fitzgerald, and Big Joe Williams with Count Basie. We'll hear vocal classics from Bing and Gary Crosby, the Ink Spots, Frankie Laine and Billie Holiday. Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra will make a couple of appearances, as will Benny Goodman and his Big band.
Yes, it'll be a lip-smacking tasty treat for every Big Band fan, so please invite a friend to listen to the show with you this week. And if you know a young player or band student, make it your business to be certain that they hear this show. They'll thank you for it, I promise.
As always, feel free to leave us a request or comment here or on our Facebook Page. Be good to one another this week, and above all, Keep Swinging!
Scott
No comments:
Post a Comment