From 1939 until the plane carrying him to Paris disappeared over the English Channel in late 1944, Glenn Miller led the most accomplished and popular big band and played the most popular music of his time. His trademark big band sound—characterised by the lead clarinet playing an octave above the reed section and by his group’s precise ensemble playing—became indelibly linked to the grim cheerfulness of the World War II years.
Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa. His family moved several times, settling in Colorado in 1918. Miller completed nearly two years at the University of Colorado, then quit to pursue music as a career. The bandleader Ben Pollack hired Miller as arranger and trombonist in 1926 (around this same time Pollack also hired clarinettist Benny GOODMAN), and in 1928 Miller moved with Pollack to New York City. When Pollack hired trombonist Jack Teagarden, Miller left the band. He freelanced as arranger for the Dorsey Brothers and Red Nichols’s Five Pennies, and in Nichols’s orchestras for Broadway musicals (including GERSHWIN’S Girl Crazy and Strike Up the Band, 1930). Then, in 1935, he helped assemble an American orchestra for a series of stateside radio broadcasts by the U.K. bandleader Ray Noble and his New Mayfair Orchestra.
By 1937, Miller was so respected that he was able to form his own ensemble. He persisted even though its first few configurations were not successful, and he recorded sides for several companies until RCA signed him to its Bluebird label in 1938. By then, he had developed his own trademark ensemble sound of clarinet doubling the melody of the saxophones an octave higher. Thanks to a series of national radio broadcasts from prestigious clubs and hotels in New York and New Jersey, he steadily gained a place in the public’s affection.
From 1939 to 1942, Glenn Miller dominated popular music with reliable, robust ensemble playing of precise arrangements that retained genuine swing. His band, unlike those led by Benny Goodman and Fletcher HENDERSON, was never renowned for great soloists—the arrangements of songs with titles such as “Moonlight Serenade” (Miller’s composition and theme song), “Sunrise Serenade,” and “In the Mood,” were the true stars. During his heyday, he scored the industry’s first million-selling hit record since 1927 (“Chatanooga Choo-Choo”), and was featured in two films (Sun Valley Serenade in 1940 and Orchestra Wives in 1941).
In 1941, Miller began losing members of his band to military service, and in October 1942, he disbanded his group to enlist himself, even though he was too old to fight. He was made a captain of the Army Air Force Band and, for the second time in five years, assembled perhaps the most accomplished and popular band of its time. Miller and his band trained, performed, and were broadcast throughout the U.S., until he took the band to Britain in 1944 in preparation to tour Allied Europe. That December, Miller left London on a plane for Paris to make arrangements for the band’s coming performance there. His plane never landed. It was never found, and Miller was declared dead on December 15, 1944.
Miller and his bands played just about every form of pop music (dance music, vocal ballads, novelty numbers, popular period pieces) and played them well. They were simultaneously loved by millions and were perhaps the most skilled band of their time, a rare combination.
Chris Slawecki
SEE ALSO:
ARRANGERS; POPULAR MUSIC; SWING.
Polic, Edward F. The Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989);
Simon, George T. Glenn Miller & His Orchestra (New York: Da Capo Press, 1988).
Chesterfield Shows; Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band; Glenn Miller Gold Collection; The Glenn Miller Story (soundtrack); A Legendary Performer; The Nearness of You.