Glenn Miller

Glenn Miller attained his status as America's foremost bandleader only toward the later stages of his professional life, enjoying a comparatively short period of supremacy that spanned roughly three and a half years beginning in spring 1939 and ending in fall 1942. Throughout those years he commanded the popular-music landscape completely, and long afterward he remained the swing era's most lasting personality, as reissues of his catalog earned gold-record recognition fully four decades following his death. He cultivated a signature texture featuring a clarinet in the upper register delivering the main line, reinforced by saxophones sounding an octave beneath, and this approach yielded a string of enduring swing standards. Jazz enthusiasts often regard his output with reserve because his tightly drilled ensemble left scant room for spontaneous improvisation, yet he elevated the commercial swing idiom to a degree of refinement and broad acceptance it had never reached before and would not recapture after his sudden death.

Born to Lewis Elmer and Mattie Lou Cavender Miller, he spent his childhood in several Midwestern towns. He started on mandolin before taking up a brass instrument. After the family settled in Grant City, Missouri, in 1915, he entered the local band and adopted the trombone. By 1918 they had relocated to Fort Morgan, Colorado, where he performed in the high-school ensemble and received his diploma in May 1921. He promptly enlisted with the Boyd Senter orchestra, only to withdraw and enroll at the University of Colorado in January 1923. One year later he abandoned his studies and headed to Los Angeles, joining Ben Pollack's group. In summer 1928 he departed Pollack and established himself in New York as a freelance musician and arranger. When Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey launched the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra in spring 1934, he joined as trombonist and arranger, staying nearly twelve months. He next assembled an American unit for British leader Ray Noble, which opened at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. During this period he also pursued formal study in theory and composition under Joseph Schillinger.

Miller launched his own recording career at Columbia Records on 25 April 1935 with an ad-hoc ensemble drawn from Noble's ranks; the instrumental "Solo Hop" climbed into the Top Ten that summer. Not until 1937 did he form a permanent road band, this time under contract to Brunswick Records. The venture faltered, prompting him to dissolve it early in 1938. He reassembled the group a few months later and moved to RCA Victor's budget Bluebird label. Success remained elusive until summer 1939, when an engagement at the Glen Island Casino in New Rochelle, New York, supplied nationwide radio exposure. By then he had already reached the charts with the Top Ten entry "Sunrise Serenade"; its B-side, "Moonlight Serenade," soon proved even stronger. "Wishing (Will Make It So)," sung by Ray Eberle, attained number one in June. In all, Miller amassed seventeen Top Ten hits during 1939, among them the number-one records "Stairway to the Stars," "Moon Love," "Over the Rainbow," and "Blue Orchids," all featuring Ray Eberle, plus "The Man With the Mandolin" with Marion Hutton.

Recording triumphs opened further doors. He became the featured attraction on the thrice-weekly Chesterfield Supper Club radio program beginning in December 1939 and commenced a series of extended runs at the Café Rouge in New York's Hotel Pennsylvania the following January, with occasional appearances at the Paramount Theatre. In 1940 he placed thirty-one titles in the Top Ten—more than three times the tally of runner-up Tommy Dorsey—reaching number one with "Careless," "When You Wish Upon a Star," "Imagination," "Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)," and "Blueberry Hill" (all sung by Ray Eberle); "The Woodpecker Song" (Marion Hutton); and the instrumentals "In the Mood" and "Tuxedo Junction," both later enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Eleven additional Top Ten entries in 1941 again placed him atop the year's recording artists. His number-one successes included "Song of the Volga Boatmen," "You and I" (Ray Eberle), "Chattanooga Choo Choo" from the film Sun Valley Serenade (Tex Beneke and the Modernaires with Paula Kelly), and "Elmer's Tune" (Ray Eberle and the Modernaires). The pattern persisted into 1942, yielding another eleven Top Ten hits and a third consecutive year as the leading recording artist, with chart-toppers "A String of Pearls," "Moonlight Cocktail" (Ray Eberle and the Modernaires), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)," and "(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo" (the last two sung by Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton, and the Modernaires). "Kalamazoo" appeared in his second motion picture, Orchestra Wives.

American entry into World War II curtailed Miller's reign. After extended discussions he accepted an officer's commission in the Army Air Forces on 10 September 1942; seventeen days later he gave his final performance with the civilian band and then disbanded it. He subsequently formed a military ensemble that entertained at bases and war-bond events while hosting the weekly radio program Sustain the Wings. Two further Top Ten hits appeared in 1943, among them the number-one "That Old Black Magic" (Skip Nelson and the Modernaires). In June 1944 he transported his unit to Great Britain for continued troop concerts and broadcasts. While preparing to proceed to Paris, the aircraft carrying him vanished over the English Channel; he was forty.

Glenn Miller, a collection of 78-rpm discs, ascended to the summit of the fledgling album charts in May 1945 and became the year's best-selling LP. After the war the Glenn Miller Orchestra was revived as a ghost band under Tex Beneke's direction. In October 1947 Glenn Miller Masterpieces, Vol. 2 reached number one. A partly dramatized screen biography, The Glenn Miller Story, starring James Stewart, appeared in February 1954; its Decca soundtrack album of re-recordings, lacking Miller himself, topped the charts in March. RCA Victor responded with the ten-inch LP Selections from the Glenn Miller Story, which hit number one in May (reissued as a twelve-inch disc with revised contents in 1956 and certified gold in 1961). In 1962 RCA Victor issued Glenn Miller Plays Selections from the Glenn Miller Story and Other Hits, carrying the same program as the 1956 edition; it earned gold status in 1968. After parting with Beneke, the Miller estate engaged former band member Ray McKinley in 1956 to assemble another ghost orchestra, which has continued to record and tour under successive directors. In 1959 RCA Victor released the triple-LP For the First Time … of previously unreleased performances, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Performance by a Dance Band. Reissues of Miller's original masters have sold steadily over the decades. The double-LP A Memorial 1944–1969, issued in October 1969, attained gold in 1986; Pure Gold, released in March 1975, went gold in 1984. In 1989 Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers incorporated Miller's "In the Mood" into their gold single "Swing the Mood." Although RCA Victor remains the principal archive for Miller material and continues to repackage it, additional labels have contributed airchecks and miscellaneous recordings, resulting in an ever-expanding catalog.