Tagged: bigband

Anyone who came of age in the 1980s can instantly visualize one scene when hearing the name “Billy Vera and the Beaters”: Michael J. Fox and future wife Tracy Pollan slow dancing to “At This Moment” on the TV sitcom Family Ties. During the 1985-86 season, the song was used to summarize the turbulent romance between their characters; as a [...]

During the big band era, one of the most popular 'sweet' bands around (as opposed to cutting-edge 'hot' bands) was the outfit whose motto was: 'the music of yesterday and today, styled the Blue Barron way' . But the leader's name wasn't originally Blue Barron, and fronting a band - or performing in one, for that matter - wasn't a part of his earlier professional career. He had instead been behind the scenes, a manager of bands. Cleveland native Harry Friedland was a skilled violinist who played in a college band, but when he began [...]

One of my favorite posts on the GMC is titled The Curious Case Of Moonglow , and it explores how "Moonglow" - a fine song in its own right - somehow got attached to the theme from the 1955 film Picnic , and became a best-selling record. In fact, the resulting two-song medley was so popular that it became the unofficial standard, in many cases showing up even when the song title just shows "Moonglow." But on today's Fantastic Foursome, we're getting back to basics and featuring the original "Moonglow," a song [...]

As if having a hyphenated name wasn't unusual enough, a 1950s swing band known as the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra had a couple of other odd attributes. For one thing, the group reached its peak during the twilight of the big band era. It was also unusual for having dual bandleaders, but the real oddity was how they turned the orchestra into a unique musical experiment. Brooklyn-born Eddie Sauter and New Jersey native Bill Finegan were both consummate professionals, with backgrounds that included classical musical educations and decades of service in some of the biggest of the big [...]

In a recent post I mentioned that a trumpet solo in a classic movie had been dubbed by Manny Klein, a talented but relatively unknown trumpeter who deserves a little more attention. He had a fascinating and varied career, one that included not only playing conventionally, but also mastering something you seldom hear about - a piccolo trumpet, the smallest instrument in the trumpet family. Klein was a New Yorker who first began finding some career success during the early jazz age while working for bandleader [...]

His name sounds at least a little familiar to those of us who have been around a while, and it's a pretty good bet that you've heard a lot of his music through the years, but Ralph Marterie is not someone who comes to mind when you think of cutting-edge orchestral jazz. Nevertheless, he sold a lot of records as a bandleader because he was always focused on something that many of his contemporaries forgot - he knew what people liked. Marterie was born in Italy and was still a boy when [...]

Glenn Miller had a lot of fans in his heyday. Probably still does for that matter, even though he's been gone for a long time. But how many of those fans were so dedicated to his musical style that they'd end up leading their own band built around the Miller sound? That's what British trumpeter and bandleader Syd Lawrence did, so you could probably make a pretty good case for him being Glenn Miller's biggest fan - on at least one of them. A native of Chester, England, Syd Lawrence grew up enjoying the music of [...]

You would be hard-pressed to find a greater connection between a song and a performer than the one shared by the late Etta James and her classic "At Last." The song earned her a special Grammy Hall Of Fame award, and the feisty singer fiercely fought for her right to perform it even as her health deteriorated in her later years. But it might surprise you to hear that it was not a big seller for her originally. On the other hand, it was a huge hit for the guy who'd introduced it a couple of decades earlier - [...]

I've never really intended for the GMC to be a consistent source for obituaries of musical artists. In fact, there are a lot that don't show up here. But I do try to mark the passing of those performers who have been featured on earlier posts, and I also note some of those who haven't been spotlighted but might be future candidates. The former would apply to country singer Claude King, and the latter to songbird Fran Warren, both of whom died in the past week or so. Claude King, who died in Shreveport, Lousiana, [...]

One of the things I enjoy about reading biographies of entertainment legends is learning about the less famous people whose lives revolved around the stars, like the guy I ran across in a book about Dean Martin. An accomplished saxophonist who'd gotten his start in the early big band era, Dick Stabile was the musical director for Martin and Lewis at the height of their fame as a comedy team, and for many years also backed up Dino on some of his best records. Along the way he found time to have a pretty good career as a bandleader. [...]

It would be difficult to find a song with a more unusual history of success than the swing era classic, "And The Angels Sing." Originating as an instrumental with a Jewish klezmer-style segment, it would later have lyrics added and become a hit record for a famous big band, while at the same time turning into a signature song for both a vocalist and a trumpeter. It would also be the inspiration for a Hollywood musical that - oddly enough - did not include the song. Trumpeter Ziggy Elman (b. Harry Aaron [...]

The United States Army Band has been the premier musical organization of the U.S. Army since 1922 when Army Chief of Staff General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing directed that it be formed to emulate the premier European military bands he had heard during the First World War. The Band has been known as “Pershing’s Own” ever since. The Band provides musical support for US leadership, including all branches of government and for a spectrum of national and international events in support of public diplomacy, community and international relations, recruiting [...]

Vince Long in Montana owns the Paper Tape Archives , a collection of radio program recordings created by a Montana man from the late '40s into the '50s. It was a time when big band performances were broadcast across the country on long waves from swanky hotels, night clubs, dance halls, restaurants, and even skyscraper rooftops. Paper Tape Archives shares those recordings, and Mr. Long writes: Just as the amateur photographer uses the camera to capture that visual moment in time which holds a special meaning, the home recorder has used various audio [...]

I've decided to formalize a type of post that has already shown up a number of times on the GMC, and by formalize I mean that I'm going to give it a name and add it to the 'categories' tab in the left column (like I did a while back for Fantastic Foursomes). It's the kind of piece that focuses mostly on the story behind a particular song, rather than just presenting a bio of a specific performer. A couple of examples from the past would be That Scandalous Song and [...]

Something a little different on today's Fantastic Foursome. I'm still giving you four different versions of a song and asking for you to vote for your favorite, but I'll tell you right up front that I'll be voting for Nat King Cole. His rendition of "The Very Thought Of You" is one of my all time favorites. The song was written by bandleader Ray Noble in 1934, and it probably wouldn't surprise you to hear that one of the first hit records of the song featured his band and its star vocalist [...]

I'm pretty sure that legendary clarinetist Benny Goodman didn't require his life-long friends to be virtuosos of his caliber, but at least one of them was just that. Pianist/composer Mel Powell might not have been quite as famous as Benny but he was every bit as talented, and over the course of their long careers they would find ways to work together again and again. It all really started in the mid-1930s when young Bronx-born Melvin Epstein, who was studying to become a classical pianist but was starting to become more interested in jazz, found himself at a [...]

I think we're due for another Fantastic Foursome and I've picked one of my favorite songs, offering four versions of it and giving folks the chance to vote. (Wouldn't be much point in choosing one I didn't like.) The incredibly prolific Victor Young wrote it for a spooky 1944 movie called The Uninvited , which starred Ray Milland and also 'introduced' Gail Russell in her first adult role. She played Stella - the subject of our song, "Stella By Starlight." A couple of years later, it was given lyrics by Ned Washington and the song was [...]

lianne la havas - age (jools holland hootenanny 2012) a year on and this gem still brings a huge smile to my face! throw in the fact that the awesome lianne got jools holland's house band to back her up (he's on piano yo!) and it's easily one of the highlights from jool's year end hootenanny. file under yaaay! http://feeds.feedburner.com/Wo ngiesMusicWorld

The recent death of jazz icon Dave Brubeck was marked by a ton of articles (including one on the GMC) and many of them mentioned that he was part of the West Coast jazz movement. Although I think he transcended any kind of label, I thought I'd dig a little deeper into that style of music by featuring someone considered to be a pioneer in West Coast jazz - bandleader Abe Lyman - who also made his mark by composing a jazz standard, "I Cried For You." West Coast jazz [...]

For some reason, Christmas seems to have really taken the ol' GMC by surprise this year. Usually I post one or two holiday-themed pieces in the days leading up to the big day, but I guess I've just fallen asleep this time around. Maybe I can remedy that by featuring something really different - scat-singing pioneer Leo Watson, who once performed a very different kind of "Jingle Bells." A Kansas City native, Watson began his career in the 1920s by working his way up through a number of bands as a drummer and sometimes-trombonist. But the [...]