big band, disco east midlands, music forties, music recordings, sinatra records, wedding, Glenn Miller swing, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, big band disco east midlands

Alton Glenn Miller, was an American jazz musician and bandleader 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." During World War II, while traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France, his plane disappeared in bad weather. His body was never found.

Miller's signature recordings including, among others, "In the Mood", "Tuxedo Junction", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "Moonlight Serenade", "Sun Valley Jump", "String of Pearls", "Little Brown Jug", "Pennsylvania 6-5000" (named for the phone number of his New York hotel residence) are still familiar refrains, even to generations born decades after Miller disappeared.

Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa on March 1, 1904. Later, his family moved to North Platte, Nebraska during his childhood, and he started his musical career when his father brought home a mandolin. As soon as possible, he traded the instrument for an old horn, which he practiced diligently.

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 Nola' and 'One Hour'. The session is also historic for its integration of both black and white musicians in the studio. Besides Glenn were clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa and Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone. Glenn always felt that these two sides with 'The Mound City Blue Blowers' represented his best-recorded trombone work.

In the mid-1930s Miller also worked as a trombonist and arranger in the Dorsey Brothers ill-fated co-led orchestra. "[Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey] were constantly squabbling, and the subject was always music." 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.