A Miller Named Glenn

Of all the Big Bands of the 1930s ‘40s and 50s. the one highest on my list of favorites was, hands down, Glenn Miller. He had a distinctive sound unlike any of his contemporary musicians. He was quoted as saying, “A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.”

Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa. Several years later, in North Platte, Nebraska, Glenn actually got his start in music when his father brought home a mandolin. In 1920 when he was 16, the boy added the money he made from milking cows and traded the mandolin for a trombone which became his constant companion and on which he practiced nearly every day. His mother was worried about him, however, and said, “It got to where Pop and I used to wonder if he’d ever amount to anything.”

In 1923, Glenn was 19. He entered the University of Colorado, but his main interest was in traveling to auditions and in playing in dance bands. Consequently, he failed three of his five courses and dropped out, concentrating on his career as a musician. He bounced around the Midwest, playing in several bands and finally arrived in Los Angeles with Ben Pollack’s group, that included Benny Goodman. Later, after arriving in New York City in 1928, Glenn sent for and married his college sweetheart, Helen Berger. For the next three years he earned his living as a free-lance trombonist and musical arranger. During those years, he played and recorded with several established bands, including Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman. While Glenn was with the Dorseys, several of their records included an up-and-coming crooner named Bing Crosby. Miller became the musical director for the Dorsey's in 1934. Still later, he helped to organize the Ray Noble orchestra.

By 1935, Glenn Miller recorded under his own name for the first time. His developing sound included six horns, a rhythm section and a string quartet. The songs: “Moonlight on the Ganges,” and “A Blues Serenade,” for Columbia Records, sold a mere few hundred platters. In 1937, Miller formed his own band, but after a couple of gigs in New Orleans and Dallas, and another in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and discouraged over the lack of success of his new band, he paid off the members, and returned to New York, depressed and broke, with no idea what the future held. During this time of discouragement, Glenn Miller developed the sound he had been looking for and in 1938, he organized the second Glenn Miller Orchestra which soon surpassed in popularity the other bands of the time. “Moonlight Serenade,” “In the Mood,” “Little Brown Jug,” “String of Pearls,” all became Miller standards and ultimately sold millions of copies. The band appeared in the first of two movies in 1941. The first, “Sun Valley Serenade” featured a song made especially for the film which became one of Miller’s most popular arrangements, “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,”along with another Miller standard, “Kalamazoo.” The second film: “Orchestra Wives.” The year ended with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the beginning of the war years.

Alton Glenn Miller reported for induction into the army on October 7, 1942. He was assigned to the Army Specialist Corps, and ultimately was commissioned as a captain, then later promoted to major. Several of his former band members joined him and he formed a military band like none other. In less than a year, the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band played over 800 performances, 500 radio broadcasts, and 300 personal appearances at concerts and dances. December 15, 1944, at the peak of the band’s popularity, Glenn Miller boarded a small transport plane in England for the flight to Paris, where the band would be stationed while on a six-week tour of Europe. He was never to be seen again. He was age 40.

In his book, “Glenn Miller & His Orchestra,” George Simon wrote: “His favorite author was Damon Runyon. His favorite book was the Bible. Spencer Tracy and Olivia DeHavilland were his favorite movie actor and actress. His big loves were trout fishing, playing baseball, listening to good music, sleeping late, and money. His favorite quotation was not from the Bible nor from Damon Runyon, but from Duke Ellington: ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing If it Ain’t Got that Swing!’”

And so, I’ll say it again for the first time, as Big Bands go, the Glenn Miller Orchestra was, and still is, my all-time favorite. Why? Well, maybe Glenn himself said it best: “A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.” Of all the bands I grew up with in that long ago Big Band era, Glenn Miller’s group sure had a sound all its own, and a distinctive personality, too. At least that’s as it occurs to this aging Big Band aficionado.