Jazz during the War
By the time the United States entered World War II, swing had become America’s overwhelmingly favorite style of jazz. Benny Goodman’s successful 1935 broadcasts from the Palomar Ballroom had drawn national attention to the emerging sound of swing. It took a while for more conservative viewers to accustom themselves to the energetic “jitterbugging”—the swing dance style that accompanied the new sound. Soon, however, swing-dancing could be found at every turn.
By the time the United States entered World War II, swing had become America’s overwhelmingly favorite style of jazz. Benny Goodman’s successful 1935 broadcasts from the Palomar Ballroom had drawn national attention to the emerging sound of swing. It took a while for more conservative viewers to accustom themselves to the energetic “jitterbugging”—the swing dance style that accompanied the new sound. Soon, however, swing-dancing could be found at every turn.
The jitterbug soon spread overseas, to the delight of younger dancers. As bases were set up in Great Britain to house the arriving U.S. troops, swing came with them. Like almost anything new, some Americans found jitterbug dancing to be shocking, as did some people in other countries.
A Swing Hero
Glenn Miller was an Iowa-born trombonist who established his own big band in 1937. His first two years as a bandleader were a struggle; the next six, however, were glorious. The breakthrough came when his band was chosen to play at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York, during the summer of 1939. Radio broadcasts carried his shows nationally, and people quickly fell in love with the smooth sound of Miller’s arrangements. For the next four years, “the Glenn Miller Orchestra was the most popular dance band in the world, breaking records for both record sales and concert attendance”; the band released 23 recordings over those years that all reached Number One on the charts.51 Miller’s biggest hits included the band’s “theme” song “Moonlight Serenade” (1939), “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” (1941), and, of course, “In the Mood” (1939; Listening Example 9). [To watch the Glenn Miller Orchestra perform “In the Mood,” visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vOUYry_5Nw.]
Glenn Miller was an Iowa-born trombonist who established his own big band in 1937. His first two years as a bandleader were a struggle; the next six, however, were glorious. The breakthrough came when his band was chosen to play at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York, during the summer of 1939. Radio broadcasts carried his shows nationally, and people quickly fell in love with the smooth sound of Miller’s arrangements. For the next four years, “the Glenn Miller Orchestra was the most popular dance band in the world, breaking records for both record sales and concert attendance”; the band released 23 recordings over those years that all reached Number One on the charts.51 Miller’s biggest hits included the band’s “theme” song “Moonlight Serenade” (1939), “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” (1941), and, of course, “In the Mood” (1939; Listening Example 9). [To watch the Glenn Miller Orchestra perform “In the Mood,” visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vOUYry_5Nw.]
To the shock of many, Miller dissolved the group in October 1942 and joined the U.S. Army as a captain. In 1943 he transferred to the Army Air Force, where he assembled a new dance band to perform for the troops. Miller’s band was scheduled to play a 1944 Christmas Day concert in Paris. Miller left England in a small plane on December 15 with two other military personnel. Three days later, his band members arrived in Paris, expecting to find Miller waiting for them; only then did they learn that he had never arrived. No trace of Miller’s plane was ever found, and the sad news was announced to the world on December 24.52 Many different theories have been proposed over the past seventy years to explain Miller’s disappearance. [To see an episode of the PBS series “History Detectives: Special Investigations” devoted to Glenn Miller, visit http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/the-disappearance-of-glenn-miller/.]
Although “In the Mood” was recorded at the Glen Island Casino (in a session supervised by RCA Victor’s Leonard Joy) before the United States entered the war, the piece remained an overwhelming favorite all through the war years. In 1940, it stayed on the Billboard chart for 28 weeks and held the number one position for thirteen weeks, thereby becoming the biggest hit record of the swing era. Historian Larry Starr believes that it is probably the most well-known swing recording today.
Joe Garland (1903–77) had arranged “In the Mood” for another group in 1938, but he didn’t compose the famous blues riff (played by the saxophones at 0:11). There are several recordings from the 1930s that use the familiar riff, but Garland was the first to copyright it. Various bands performed his version of “In the Mood” in 1938. When Garland offered the tune to Miller, Miller thought it had “possibilities.” But, he needed to trim it down substantially; Garland’s version was far longer than a 78-rpm disc could accommodate. One of the trombonists in the band, Paul Tanner (1917–2013), remembered the 1939 rehearsal in which Miller developed his arrangement:
He would say, “In here we’re gonna put a trumpet solo...and we’re gonna have the two saxophones have a little battle in there”...and it kept getting softer and softer until Glenn would give the drummer a [cue] and he would hit the cowbell and then we would know that the next time we were to come on very loud....And this was all Glenn’s doing.
That “fade-out gimmick” became almost as famous as the saxophone riff. But, of course, once you know Miller’s arrangement, those fades become familiar and comfortable.