Big Band Bash

Well, we are getting close to the end of this six week series on the Complete RCA Victor Recordings of Glenn Miller. The songs from today's show come from the year of 1941. I have a mixture of some of Glenn's big hits along with some lesser known recordings. I hope you enjoy the selections on the show today. We will wind up the series next week with the final recordings and some that i missed or d...

This episode continues the series The Complete RCA Victor Recordings of Glenn Miller. This is Part Four from the years of 1940 - 1941. Glenn's band was really hitting it's stride then. In addition to starring in two motion pictures. Also, his band was the first to be awarded a gold record, presented by RCA Victor, for sales of 1.2 million copies. There are a few songs in this set that are not as w...

Today I am going to continue with part three of the Complete RCA Victor Recordings of Glenn Miller. This was a nine double album set or a thirteen CD set. I have all these recordings in my library so as we progress in chronological fashion we'll be plying some of his well known recordings and some of the lesser known ones. I am also taking a biographical look at Glenn's career and we are now up to...

Today I am going to continue with part two of the Complete RCA Victor Recordings of Glenn Miller. This was a nine double album set or a thirteen CD set. I have all these recordings in my library so as we progress in chronological fashion we'll be plying some of his well known recordings and some of the lesser known ones. I am also taking a biographical look at Glenn's career. For all the Glenn Mil...

March 01, 1904 is the birthday of the late Glenn Miller. To celebrate his birthday, we are going to start a six part series called The Complete Victor Recordings of Glenn Miller. There are thirteen double record sets in the series so I am going to combine 2 sets per show. I will omit set thirteen as it contains outtakes and unissued recordings. Glenn's second band produced all their recordings for...

This is the final part of our celebration of Black History Month. Today we will highlight the band led by Jimmie Lunceford and in the second half, I have some assorted selections to play. I have really enjoyed putting together this series and today I have pulled out many of the major hits by the Lunceford Orchestra. Some of the assorted cuts include songs from Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Teddy...

Welcome to part three of our celebration of Black Hiistory Month. Today we will be looking at and listening to two bands that were led by African-American Bandleaders. In the first half, we will present some music from Erskine Hawkins and then in the second half music from Duke Ellington. Erskine Hawkins, although not a household name today, had a few big hits during his career and I think I have...

Welcome to part two of our celebration of Black History Month. For this year's celebration I elected to split each show into two parts and highlight two African-American bands from the big band era. Today we pay a salute to the bands of Benny Carter and Count Basie. Benny was an outstanding alto sax and trumpet player as well as being a great arranger and composer. We'll hear a few of his hits and...

February is Black History Month and for our celebration this month I am taking the four Saturdays and splitting them into two parts and presenting two bands and band leaders per show. Today, I am going to feature the bands of Chick Webb and Andy Kirk. Chick had a very exciting band and was a mainstay at the Savoy Ballroom. Andy Kirk comes out of Kansas City and had several hits and was popular in...

This is the final episode of the Complete RCA Victor Recordings of Benny Goodman. I am going to start with a few numbers from Volume Six and then most of the recordings are from Volume Seven during the year of 1938 and we'll wind up with a few recordings from Volume Eight in the year of 1939. Volume Eight was mainly unissued recordings and retakes. Also, I have an interview that the author of the...

We continue our look at the music in the eight volume set from RCA records of the complete Victor recordings of Benny Goodman. This week we start volume five and get into volume six. Martha Tilton is still the featured vocalist but gradually there are sideman changes in the orchestra. Gene Krupa leaves in March of 1938 to start his own orchestra and then there are a few other changes. The music, h...

On Part Three of the Complete RCA Victor recordings of Benny Goodman, we start with the last recording that Helen Ward sang with the band. Benny used a few substitutes while he was looking for Helen's replacement so we'll hear a number by each of those vocalists. Then at the end of the program I have included the first couple of numbers that Martha Tilton recorded with the band. Also, it was durin...

This week we continue our look at the recordings made by Benny Goodman for the RCA Victor label. We start with some songs from Volume Two and move into Volume Three. I also continue with my look at the career of Benny Goodman. Thia show also introduces the Goodman Quartet with the addition of vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Most of these songs were recorded in 1936. There are a lot of favorites for a...

Benny Goodman's orchestra was the first big band that I ever listened to. Another big band show that I listen to just did a five week series on the life and music of Benny Goodman tracing his recordings from the earliest to the last ones. I wanted to do a series on Benny but I didn't want to duplicate what David Miller did on his show Swinging Down the Lane. Luckily, I have in my collection a seri...

There are many popular Holiday songs through the years, but the 1930's through the 1950's produced many of them. We will take a look at why this was and enjoy some unique Holiday songs from this period on Part Two of Holiday Songs on the Radio. I want to take this opportunity to wish each and everyone of you a Happy holiday season. Be safe and enjoy yourselves this year. Seasons greetings everyone...

I would like to celebrate the holidays with a program I call Holiday Favorites and the Radio. Imagine you have been transported back in time to the 1940's and are in your living room or den or bedroom listening to the radio. These are some of the holiday songs you might have heard. In addition to the songs from back then, I would like to give a little history on the importance of radio from that e...

We continue this week with the second part of the Time-Life Swing Era volume 1942-1944. I first discovered this series when I made a trip to the local library and found a couple volumes in the set. They were on vinyl lps and so I checked them out and transferred them to cassette (kudos to anyone who remembers cassette players and vinyl lps). After I started working at our radio station, someone do...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Welcome to this encore presentation from the Time-Life series, "The Swing Era". Today we return with the volume from the years of 1942-1944. These were the war years but there were still some great recordings made. As I have done in previous shows from the Time-Life series I am playing the original recordings. We'll be hearing from Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Good...

This week concludes the Great Big Band Singers set from Reader's Digest. I have picked one song from each singer in the set to play. It is sad that this set is no longer available but I have seen it listed on Ebay. If you are a fan of the big band singers you might want to see if you can buy it there. The puzzler is back this week. I hope you enjoy the songs and singers on this program. Please vis...

This week's show is a continuation of the series The Great Big Band Singers that I started last week. Some new vocalists make their way into the show: Dick Haymes, Bob Eberle, Helen O'Connell, June Christy and Peggy Lee. This is a great set which unfortunately is no longer available. In addition to the featured singers I will be reading from the booklet that came with the set. Also, the big band p...

Reader's Digest records has put out many collections of Big Bands in the past. One that I have in my collection is called The Great Big Band Singers. I found that when I started to play these CDs that the songs were not the same old songs associated with the singers but different versions. For example, there are live reordings and lesser known recordings in addition to the hits. I hope you enjoy t...

Halloween will be in a few days and so to do something different on the program this week, I have picked out some songs that are scary or eerie sounding or have a scary word in the title. And to make things a little fun I put in a different sounding background to get us in the mood for Halloween. This is the first show I have produced with a Halloween flavor so I hope you enjoy this little bit of...

This week I am going to conclude our look at the V-Disc Program by playing some more songs from the Time-Life four disc set on the V-Disc program. Since I read from two internet sites that told about the V-Disc program on parts one and two, I am not going to do much discussion other than to announce the various songs. As usual the Puzzler will be back. I hope you enjoy this collection of songs as...

This week we continue our look at the World War Two recording program known as V-Discs. We are playing from a collection of 4 cds from Time-Life Records. This is a great set which has many varied performers. Some of the V-Discs we will be listening to include Kay Starr, Jimmie Lunceford, Red Norvo, Bea Waid, Slim Gallaird, and others. I also have another short history of V-Discs from another sourc...

This week I am going start a three part series on the V-Disc program. I have done shows on V-Discs before but they were recorded long ago and I thought I would like to revisit these recordings. The songs from this series come from a four disc set from Time-Life Records. I will also tell about the history of this unique program. Many of the songs in this series I have not presented before. I hope y...