Big Band Bash

Hello Everyone. Today's show has a lot of variety in it. While going through my collection I noticed that there were lots of song titles that had the word blue in it. So I pulled out many different songs but they all contain the word blue. Sone of the songs use it as a color and others use it as a feeling. I hope you enjoy this potpourri of songs with the word blue. Please visit this podcast at ht...

Hello everyone and Happy Memorial Day weekend. This is a repeat of a show I did last year. I wanted to do something special as we observe Memorial Day so I hope you enjoy this encore presentation from last year. In May and Early June there are three important dates that people living in the United States observe. May 8th is VE (or Victory in Europe ) Day, The last Monday of the Month is Memorial D...

Hello Everyone. After a four week break, I am back with some new shows. This first show is a potpourri of moon songs. I noticed that lots of big band recordings have the word moon in the title so I set about finding as many as I could to fill up a program with. There are many of your favorite big bands in this hour and all have a Moon recording. I hope you enjoy this show which I call Moon tunes. ...

Hello everyone. This week's show is the last encore presentation. I produced a ten week series back in 2021 call This is The Best of where I picked ten different bands and played their biggest hits. For the next four weeks I am going to take a break and work on some new shows so I thought I would rerun a few shows from that series. Today we will be playing some of the many hit sides that Duke Elli...

Hello everyone. This week's show is another encore presentation. I produced a ten week series back in 2021 call This is The Best of where I picked ten different bands and played their biggest hits. For the next four weeks I am going to take a break and work on some new shows so I thought I would rerun a few shows from that series. Today we will be playing some of the many hit sides that Jimmie Lun...

Hello everyone. This week's show is another encore presentation. I produced a ten week series back in 2021 call This is The Best of where I picked ten different bands and played their biggest hits. For the next four weeks I am going to take a break and work on some new shows so I thought I would rerun a few shows from that series. Today we will be playing some of the many hit sides that Harry Jame...

Hello everyone. This week's show is an encore presentation. I produced a ten week series back in 2021 call This is The Best of where I picked ten different bands and played their biggest hits. For the next four weeks I am going to take a break and work on some new shows so I thought I would rerun a few shows from that series. Today we will be playing some of the many hit sides that Tommy Dorsey re...

Well, we finally made it. This is the final part of The Complete RCA Victor Recordings of Glenn Miller. All of these songs were recorded between the years of 1938 and 1942. There are many of Glenn's biggest hits on this show.  It was shortly after the last recordings that Glenn broke up his band and enlisted in the Army. Next week I will have some different bands and different shows. It has been a...

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...