Everything about Glenn Miller totally explained
Alton Glenn Miller (
March 1 1904–
presumably December 15 1944), was an
American jazz musician and
band leader in the
swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from
1939 to
1942, leading one of the best known "
Big Bands". Miller's signature recordings include, "
In the Mood", "
Tuxedo Junction", "
Chattanooga Choo Choo", "
Moonlight Serenade", "
Little Brown Jug", and "
Pennsylvania 6-5000"
(External Link
). While travelling to entertain U.S. troops in
France during
World War II, Miller's plane
disappeared in bad weather. His body was never found.
Early life and career
Glenn Miller was born in
Clarinda, Iowa on
March 1 1904, the son of Mattie Lou (
née Cavender) and Lewis Elmer Miller. He went to grade school in
North Platte, Nebraska. In 1915, Miller's family moved to
Grant City, Missouri. Around this time, Miller was given his first trombone and then played in the town orchestra. In 1918, the Miller family moved again, this time to
Fort Morgan, Colorado where Glenn went to high school. During his senior year, Miller became very interested in a new style of music called "dance band music". Miller enjoyed this music so much that he and some classmates decided to start their own band. By the time Miller graduated from high school in 1921, he'd decided he wanted to become a professional musician.
In 1923, Miller entered the
University of Colorado where he joined
Sigma Nu Fraternity, but spent most of his time away from school, attending auditions and playing any gigs he could get, most notably with Boyd Senter's band in
Denver. He dropped out of school after failing three out of five classes one semester, and decided to concentrate on making a career as a professional
musician. He later studied the
Schillinger technique with Joseph Schillinger, who is credited with helping Miller create the "Miller sound", and under whose tutelage he himself composed what became his signature theme, "
Moonlight Serenade."
In 1926, Miller toured with several groups and landed a good spot in
Ben Pollack's group in
Los Angeles. During his stint with Pollack, Miller had the opportunity to write several musical arrangements of his own. In 1928, when the band arrived in
New York City, he sent for and married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. He was a member of
Red Nichols’s orchestra in 1930, and because of Nichols, played in the pit bands of two
Broadway shows,
Strike Up the Band and
Girl Crazy, his bandmates included
Benny Goodman and
Gene Krupa. "The consensus there was that Miller was no more than an average trombonist." Despite this, during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Miller managed to earn a living working as a freelance trombonist in several bands. In November of 1929, an original vocalist named Red McKenzie hired Glenn to play on two records that are now considered to be jazz classics: "Hello, Lola" and "If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight". "Not only were [thetwo songs Miller recorded] considered major musical items, but they also represented one of the major breakthroughs in blacks and whites playing together." [Simon55] Besides Glenn were clarinetist
Pee Wee Russell, guitarist
Eddie Condon, drummer
Gene Krupa and
Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone.
In the mid-1930s, Miller also worked as a trombonist and arranger in
The Dorsey Brothers ill-fated co-led orchestra. In 1935, he assembled an American orchestra for British bandleader
Ray Noble, developing the arrangement of lead
clarinet over four
saxophones that eventually became the sonic keynote of his own big band. Members of the Noble band included future bandleader Claude Thornhill, Bud Freeman and Charlie Spivak.
Glenn Miller compiled several
musical arrangements before forming his first band in 1937. The band failed to distinguish itself from the many others of the era, and eventually broke up.
Benny Goodman said in 1976, "In late 1937, before his band became popular, we were both playing in
Dallas. Glenn was pretty dejected and came to see me. He asked, 'What do you do? How do you make it?' I said, 'I don't know, Glenn. You just stay with it."
Success from 1938 to 1942
Discouraged, Miller returned to
New York. He realized that he needed to develop a unique sound, and decided to make the
clarinet play a melodic line with a
tenor saxophone on the same note, with three other saxophones harmonized within a single octave. George Simon discovered a saxophonist named Wilbur Schwartz for Glenn Miller. Miller hired Schwartz, but instead had him play the lead clarinet. "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." [Simon122] With this new sound combination, the Miller band found success. Miller wasn't the first to try this style, but he was the most successful at refining it and making it key to almost his entire repertoire.
In September 1938, the Miller band began making recordings for the
RCA Victor Bluebird Records subsidiary. 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. With the Glen Island date, the band began a huge rise in popularity. In 1939,
Time magazine noted: "Of the twelve to 24 discs in each of today's 300,000 U.S. jukeboxes, from two to six are usually Glenn Miller's." There were record-breaking recordings such as "Tuxedo Junction", which sold 115,000 copies in the first week. 1939's huge success culminated with the Miller band in concert at
Carnegie Hall on
October 6, with Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, and Fred Waring also the main attractions.
From 1939 to 1942, Miller's band was featured three times a week during a broadcast for
Chesterfield cigarettes. On
February 10 1942, RCA Victor presented Miller with the first
gold record for "
Chattanooga Choo-Choo". In 2004, Glenn Miller orchestra bassist Herman "Trigger" Alpert explained the band's success: "Miller had America's music pulse.[...] He knew what would please the listeners."
Although Miller had massive popularity, many jazz critics of the time had their misgivings, believing that the band's endless rehearsals and "letter-perfect playing" diminished excitement and feeling from performances. They also felt that Miller's brand of swing shifted popular music away from the "hot" jazz bands of Benny Goodman and
Count Basie towards commercial novelty instrumentals and vocal numbers. Miller was often criticized for being too commercial. His answer to the criticism was, "I don't want a jazz band". In an article written by Gary Giddins for
The New Yorker in 2004, Giddins felt that these early critics erred in denigrating Glenn Miller's music, and that the popular opinion of the time should hold greater sway. The article states: "Miller exuded little warmth on or off the bandstand, but once the band struck up its theme, audiences were done for: throats clutched, eyes softened. Can any other record match "Moonlight Serenade" for its ability to induce a Pavlovian slaver in so many for so long?"
The Army Air Force Band 1942-1944
In 1942, at the peak of his civilian career, Miller decided he could better serve those in uniform by joining the war effort. At 38 years old, Miller was too old to be drafted, and first volunteered for the
Navy but was told that they didn’t need his services. [Simon309-310] Miller then wrote to the Army’s Brigadier General Charles Young on
August 12 1942. Miller persuaded the
Army to accept him so he could in his own words, "be placed in charge of a modernized army band." [Simon312] After being accepted in the Army, Glenn’s civilian band played their last concert in
Passaic, New Jersey on
September 27 1942. Miller's striking innovations and his adaptations of Sousa marches for the AAF band prompted
Time magazine to claim that he'd rankled traditionalists in the field of Army music and had desecrated the March King. The magazine also criticized Miller's injection of casual enjoyment into the disciplined cadences of military music, stating that the Army was 'swinging its hips instead of its feet.'" But by the time of Miller's death, opinion had changed. General Jimmy Doolittle
(External Link) said, “[...]next to a letter from home, that organization was the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations.”
(External Link)
Disappearance
On
December 15,
1944, Miller, now a
major, was to fly from the United Kingdom to
Paris,
France, to play for the soldiers who recently had
liberated Paris. His plane departed from
RAF Twinwood Farm, in
Clapham,
Bedfordshire, but disappeared over the
English Channel and was never found. Miller's disappearance remains a mystery; neither his remains nor the wreckage of his plane (a single-engine
Noorduyn Norseman UC-64, USAAF Tail Number 44-70285) was ever recovered from the water. In 1985, British diver Clive Ward discovered a Noorduyn Norseman off the coast of Northern France. His findings were not verified and contained no clues about what happened.
Since Miller's disappearance more than sixty years ago, there have been many theories about what happened. Buddy DeFranco, one of the leaders of the post-war Glenn Miller orchestra, told biographer
George T. Simon of the many theories of Miller's disappearance that were told to him while he was leading the band in the 1970s. DeFranco said "If I were to believe all those stories, there would have been about twelve thousand four hundred and fifty eight people there at the field in England seeing him off on that last flight!"
It is now thought that Miller's plane was bombed accidentally by
Royal Air Force aircraft over the
English Channel after an abortive air raid on
Germany. One hundred and thirty-eight Lancaster bombers, short on fuel, were jettisoning approximately 100,000 incendiaries in a designated area before landing, per standing orders. The logbooks of Royal Air Force navigator Fred Shaw record that a small single-engined monoplane was seen spiralling out of control and crashed into the water. If this was indeed Miller's plane, then the RAF crews jettisoning ordnance to facilitate safe landing conditions couldn't have been to blame for Miller's plane's straying into their designated drop zone.
Miller's surname resides on the 'Wall of Missing' at the
Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial. A monument stone was also placed in
Grove Street Cemetery in
New Haven, Connecticut next to the campus of
Yale University.
Ghost Bands 1946 to the Present
The Miller estate authorized an official Glenn Miller "ghost band" in 1946. This band was led by
Tex Beneke, former lead saxophonist and singer for the civilian band. It had a make up similar to the Army Air Force Band: it had a large string section. The orchestra's official public début was at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway where it opened for a three week engagement on
January 24, 1946. Henry Mancini was the band's pianist and one of the arrangers.
(External Link) This ghost band played to very large audiences all across the U.S., including a few dates at the
Hollywood Palladium, where the original Miller band played in 1941. Even as the big band era faded, Tex Beneke and the Glenn Miller Orchestra played to a record-breaking crowd of 6,750 dancers at the Hollywood Palladium.
(External Link) By 1949, economics dictated that the string section be dropped.
This band recorded for
RCA Victor, just as the original Miller band did. Beneke was struggling with how to expand the Miller sound and also how to achieve success under his own name. What began as the "Glenn Miller Orchestra Under the Direction of Tex Beneke" finally became "The Tex Beneke Orchestra". By 1950, Beneke and the Miller estate parted ways. The break was acrimonious and Beneke isn't currently listed by the Miller estate as a former leader of the Glenn Miller orchestra.
When Glenn Miller was alive, various bandleaders like Bob Chester imitated his style. By the early 1950s, various bands were again copying the Miller style of clarinet led reeds and muted trumpets, notably
Ralph Flanagan,
Jerry Gray, and
Ray Anthony. This, coupled with the success of
The Glenn Miller Story (1953)
(External Link), led the Miller estate to ask
Ray McKinley to lead a new ghost band. This 1956 band is the original version of the current ghost band that still tours the United States today. The official Glenn Miller orchestra for the United States is currently under the direction of Larry O'Brien.
(External Link) The officially sanctioned Glenn Miller Orchestra for the United Kingdom has toured and recorded with great success under the leadership of Ray McVay
(External Link).The official Glenn Miller Orchestra for Europe has been led by Wil Salden since 1990.
(External Link)
The Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band's legacy has carried on with the
Airmen of Note, a band within the United States Air Force. This band was created in 1950 from smaller groups within the Bolling Air Force Base in Washington D.C. and continues to play jazz music for the Air Force community and the general public.
(External Link)
Legacy
In 1953,
Anthony Mann directed
The Glenn Miller Story for
Universal Pictures starring James Stewart and June Allyson
(External Link). The fictionalized biographical film was a popular success. Miller's mother said of the movie that actor
James Stewart 'wasn't as good looking as my son'.
Glenn Miller's widow, Helen, died in 1966. Herb Miller, Glenn Miller's brother, led his own band in the United States and England until the late 1980s. Herb's son, John continues the tradition leading a band playing mainly Glenn Miller style music.
In 2002, the Glenn Miller Museum opened to the public at the former
RAF Twinwood Farm, in
Clapham, Bedfordshire, England.
In 2003, Miller posthumously received the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
The entire output of cigarette sponsored radio programs Glenn Miller did between 1939 and 1942 were recorded by the Glenn Miller organization on
acetate discs. In the 1950s and afterwards, RCA-Victor distributed many of these on long playing albums and compact discs. A sizeable representation of the recording output by the band is almost always in circulation by Sony/BMG Music and the Universal Music Group, the successor labels to RCA-Victor, Bluebird, Columbia and Decca. Glenn Miller remains one of the most famous and recognizable names of the big band era of 1935 to 1945.
Selected Discography
- The Nearness of You - with Ray Eberle
- Yester Thoughts - with Ray Eberle
- Moonlight Serenade
- Wishing (Will Make It So)
- Sunrise Serenade
- Runnin' Wild
- Stairway to the Stars
- Moon Love
- Pennsylvania 6-5000
- I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo
- Tuxedo Junction
- String of Pearls
- Over the Rainbow
- My Isle of Golden Dreams
- In the Mood
- Indian Summer
- Gaucho Serenade
- When You Wish Upon a Star
- Say "Si Si" (Para Vigo Me Voy)
- Stardust
- Fools Rush In
- Danny Boy
- Imagination
Selected band alumni
Many of the Miller musicians went on to studio and touring careers in Hollywood and New York after
World War II:
Billy May, a trumpeter and an arranger for the civilian band [Simon231-255], became a much-coveted arranger and studio orchestra leader, going on to work with Frank Sinatra(External Link), Rosemary Clooney(External Link), Anita O'Day(External Link), and Bing Crosby(External Link), among other singers of the post-war era.
Cornetist Bobby Hackett soloed on "A String of Pearls", with Miller in 1941(External Link). His reputation only ascended in the years after. Hackett went on to work with Jackie Gleason and Dizzy Gillespie.
Norman Leyden from the Army Air Force Band(External Link) later became a noted arranger in New York, who composed arrangements for Sarah Vaughan, among other artists. His long career culminated with his highly regarded work for the Oregon Symphony, now (as of 2004) as Laureate Associate Conductor.
Johnny Desmond(External Link) also from the Army Air Force Band, became a popular singer in the 1950s, and appeared on Broadway in the 1960s in Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand.
Kay Starr became one of the most popular singers of the post-war period; she got her start with Glenn Miller in 1939 recording two sides, "Baby Me" and "Love With a Capital You".Further Information
Get more info on 'Glenn Miller'.
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