Today, I would like to tell you about the Glenn Miller Band.
The Glenn Miller Band performing "Moonlight Serenade"
Once this band struck up it’s theme, audiences were done for: throats clutched, eyes softened.
How did Glenn Mill get this unique sound?
After several failed bands, Miller realized that he needed to develop a unique sound. He 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 T. 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.”
With this new sound combination, Glenn Miller found a way to differentiate his band’s style from the many bands that existed in the late thirties. Miller talked about his style in the May, 1939 issue of Metronome magazine.
“You’ll notice today some bands use the same trick on every introduction; others repeat the same musical phrase as a modulation into a vocal … We’re fortunate in that our style doesn’t limit us to stereotyped intros, modulations, first choruses, endings or even trick rhythms. The fifth sax, playing clarinet most of the time, lets you know whose band you’re listening to. And that’s about all there is to it.”
In September 1938, the Miller band began making recordings for the RCA Victor. Charlie “Cy” Shribman, a prominent East Coast businessman, began financing the band.
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. From 1939 to 1942, Miller’s band was featured three times a week during a quarter-hour broadcast for Chesterfield cigarettes on CBS, first with the Andrews Sisters and then on its own.
DOWNLOAD ONE OF GLENN MILLER’S RADIO SHOWS HERE FROM THE ARCHIVE.ORG.
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This program aired LIVE on the radio from the Glen Island Casino on May 17th, 1939, “beside the waters of Long Island Sound”.
Glen Island Casino
These are the sort of things that I listen to at night when I’m by myself. Especially when the weather is nice, I can open on the windows and let the night air in. It’s really magical!
The songs;
After the band’s intro theme (to some cheering from the crowd), they perform ‘At Sundown’. You can *hear* the gin-soaked party atmosphere in every note.
Next, is the ‘heart-throb’ vocals of Ray Eberle performing “And The Angels Sing“. Afterward, Marion Hutton sings ”The Chestnut Tree: (‘Neath The Spreading Chestnut Tree)” with cute fanfare.
Glenn Miller himself gets on the radio and speaks briefly before striking up “Sunrise Serenade”.
The band’s version ”King Porter Stomp” was nice, but I think that Benny Goodman did it better. After that, Marion Hutton sings the extremely sentimental “I Want My Share of Love”.
Ray Eberle returns to sing an older song “Stairway to the Stars (Park Avenue Fantasy)”.
The band ends the night’s broadcast with ”Runnin’ Wild”.
