SOME OF THE GREAT BANDS
- Glen Gray
Glen Gray's Casa Loma
Orchestra in the early 1930s was known for soft romantic music. Starting
in the mid 1930s Gray brought about a major change in his music. The
audiences were awe struck when the orchestra started playing music that was
later to be known as, Swing and the Big Band sound. The people loved
this new style that was interspersed with the bands usual mellow songs.
- Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington had
been playing music known as Jazz and the Big Band sounds for ten years prior
to these mid 1930s when all other musical groups had just started to
change. He played at the famous, but segregated, "Cotton Club" for
years. During songs his style was to feature individual band members for
solo instrumentals. His exotic music known as, "Jungle Music"; at that
time fit perfectly into our country's high-energy
environment. "Sophisticated Lady" was a classic Ellington song.
Duke wrote an opera named "Black, Brown, and Beige", and presented it at
Carnegie Hall in 1943.
Benny Goodman
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Benny
Goodman started with the "Original Goodman Quartet," and was on a radio show
called, "Let's Dance." From there he became known as the "King of
Swing"
with his innovations and renditions of so many musical scores. Goodman
inspired thousands of youngsters to take up playing an instrument and was
instrumental in getting the first Blacks ever to appear on stage with a white
orchestra. We can thank him for that as the people danced to the famous,
"Stompin' at the Savoy". Carnegie Hall honored him for his many
contributions in the field of music. From Quartet to Carnegie Hall --
What more can be said!
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Benny |
Glenn Miller
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Glenn Miller, in 1937
started his own band. In 1941, Miller and his band were off to
Hollywood. They recorded "Chattanooga Choo Choo." WWII was
starting about this time and it took a big toll on many bands. Glenn
disbanded his orchestra and accepted a commission in the United States Army
Air Force. His new, all soldier, orchestra broadcast coast to coast in
the USA, and later playing for GIs fighting in Western Europe. The music
of his band was easily the most popular of all the big bands and the romantic,
"Moonlight Serenade," brought a tug at the heartstrings of all who heard
it. Miller's plane went down over the English Channel in 1944. He
was declared missing in action (MIA).
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Glenn |
Harry James
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Harry |
Bandleader Ben Pollack heard Harry James playing in a local
Texas bar and asked him to join his band. James went with Pollack until
1936 then he joined up with Benny Goodman. James starred in Goodman's
recordings of "Sing, Sing, Sing" and "One O'Clock Jump." At the age of
twenty Harry James went solo with his own band. James discovered Frank
Sinatra in 1939, helping him at the start of his career and they became
close friends. James also appeared in movies using his own band. |
The end of 1941 rated
the James band the best in the country. The band's success was assured
by Harry James' ability to exceed the audience's expectations, especially with
those beautiful ballads and James could get the band to swing at the right
tempos for the dancers. His band also used strings to great effect.
In the spring of
1942 Harry James and his band played at the Paramount Theatre in New York,
which caused traffic jams and riots that all the newspapers wrote front page
articles about. The crowds began lining up in the early hours of the
morning, and policemen had to be called in to control the mostly young
crowd.
The end of 1941 rated
the James band the best in the country. The band's success was assured
by Harry James' ability to exceed the audience's expectations, especially with
those beautiful ballads and James could get the band to swing at the right
tempos for the dancers. His band also used strings to great effect.
In the spring of
1942 Harry James and his band played at the Paramount Theatre in New York,
which caused traffic jams and riots that all the newspapers wrote front page
articles about. The crowds began lining up in the early hours of the
morning, and policemen had to be called in to control the mostly young
crowd.
On July 5, 1943 Harry
James married Betty Grable -- the number one pin-up girl at the time.
See Betty and
Other Pin-Up Girls
At the end of 1946 he
disbanded, but the next year he started another band - this time without all
the strings. This new band had the original drive that made the Harry
James band so successful earlier. Another reason was because he had the
musicians who wanted to play, so he couldn't resist.
Tommy Dorsey
Known as the
Sentimental Gentlemen of Swing, Tommy was the younger of the two Dorsey
Brothers. In 1934, the brothers officially formed the Dorsey Brothers
Orchestra, of which Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby were both members. A
year later Tommy formed his own orchestra and it soon became the top band in
the country, a title it held through most of the swing era. The
orchestra is considered the greatest dance band of all time and was second to
none when it came to ballads.
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Tommy |
Artie Shaw
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Artie |
Shaw
could scarcely have known that within a short time he would make a hit record
of a song called "Begin the Beguine." Shortly before that he had hired Billie
Holiday as his band vocalist (the first white bandleader to employ a black
female singer as a full-time member of his band), and within a year after the
release of Beguine, the Artie Shaw Orchestra was earning as much as $60,000
weekly -- a figure that would nowadays amount to more than $600,000 a
week! The song you are listening to is
"Begin The Beguine." |
The breakthrough of
his first major hit record catapulted him into the rank of top bandleader of
the day and he was dubbed the new "King of Swing." Today, Shaw's recording of
"Begin the Beguine" still sells in the tens of thousands and has become one of
the best-selling records in history.
Shortly after the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, the unpredictable Shaw quit the music business and
enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942. He had his basic training then was
allowed to form a touring band called the ‘Rangers’ to play for the troops
overseas. The band played all over the Pacific Theater through dangerous
war zones. They played for service people in airplane hangers, jungles
and on the deck’s of ships. When torpedoes were moving in the sea around
them, the men took their battle stations and did their jobs.
Count ‘William’ Basie
Count Basie had a
thirteen-piece orchestra by 1937 and was one of the leading bands. He
was an exciting piano player and in the early days was known as the "Jump
King," because of his restless driving rhythm. When the big band fad was
almost over he reduced the orchestras size to eight and toured until a few
years before his death. In 1981 he was honored at the Kennedy Center for
being the master that he was and contributing so much to jazz and the
popularity of the Big Band rhythms. Find More
Information about Count Basie
Ella Fitzgerald
Jazz singing in the
1930s was lead by Ella Fitzgerald, Mildred Bailey, Ivie Anderson and Billie
Holiday. The amazing voice of Ella Fitzgerald contributed sentimental
ballads and a jazz style known as bebop or bop. She did what was called ‘scat’ singing,
which was using her voice as a musical
instrument. This became her signature. She led her own band and toured
with Norman Granz's band playing at "Jazz at the Philharmonic" group. At that
time this group was trying to promote racial equality among its listeners. She
was the "First Lady of Song" to thousands.
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Ella |
Frank
Sinatra Baby Blue Eyes -- Singer
Count Basie
And Photos
Duke Ellington
and Louis Armstrong -- Classic Jazz
Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth
and Jane Russell -- Pin-Up Girls
Return to the "Big
Band Era and Swing"
