Big Band Bash

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...

This week we continue with Part Two of a show called Artie Shaw Revisited. Since I ran out of time last week on producing segment three of the Jerry Atkins collection, I wanted to honor a request I received for some music from Artie Shaw and his orchestra. Next week, I hope to have the third show from Jerry's collection completed, but until then, I hope you enjoy some great music and interview seg...

Hello everyone. Since I ran out of time for part three of the Jerry Atkins Collection, I am going to play a show that I produced in 2015. I had a request to play some Artie Shaw so I hope you will enjoy this two part show I called Artie Shaw revisited. I put this show together back in 2015 and it has a lot of your Artie Shaw favorites plus a few interview excepts from Artie himself. Please visit t...

Hello everyone. On this week's show I am going to wrap up Songs of the 1920's. We'll conclude the alphabet and then I'll present some odds and ends. This was a fun series to research and present. The 1920's was a time for great music from some of the best composers in America. Next time I'll have some new shows that I think you'll enjoy. Please visit this podcast at http://bigbandbashfm.blogspot.c...

This week continues our look at the songs composed in the 1920s. We start with the letter N and go down to the Letter T. The puzzler is back this week so I hope you have your thinking caps on. Next week we'll conclude our series with the last part of the alphabet along with some odds and ends. I hope you enjoy the music from the big bands as they play the Songs of the 1920s. Please visit this podc...

Welcome back to this four part series on songs of the 1920s. Today we cover songs from that decade that begin with the letter "E" and go all the way down to "M". I broke my rule for this series by playing two songs on the show recorded by Artie Shaw. I had already recorded the introductions when I discovered I did this but I am sure you won't mind because it is one of his best sides. I hope you en...

The 1920s were a decade filled with original songs by some of the leading composers of the era. I found a list of many of the popular songs composed in the 1920s and thought it would be fun to listen to those songs as recorded by the big bands of the thirties and forties. Each show for the next four weeks is filled with all of those great songs composed in the 1920s. I did have one rule for myself...

This week wraps of the set from Time Life records set The Swing Era 1941-1942 Part 2. There is some fantastic music in this set and some of the songs we'll be hearing include Blue Flame, Benny Rides Again, Chattanooga Choo Choo, The Mole, Well Git It and many others. These were some of the most popular songs from those two years. As usual I tried to play the original version rather than the recrea...

The months right before and after the beginning of World War 2 had some great music from the big bands. The Time-Life set we are playing from today features many of those songs. We'll be hearing from the bands of Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and many others. As usual I am following the playlist from this set but instead of playing the recreations I am presenting the original recording...

Hello and welcome to another episode of Big Band Bash. This is a rerun of a holiday show that I produced a few years ago for a Fourth of July rememberance. This was one of the first Fourth of July programs that I have done in the many years of hosting and producing Big Band Bash. I hope everyone has a safe holiday and for the listeners from other countries I hope you enjoy the music. Please visit...

This week I am going to continue with Part Two of Songs of Summer. There are some different versions of songs with summer in the title.  I mistakenly picked the same song twice. Luckily it is by two different bands so I included it in the show. I hope wherever you are it is cool because for the last week it has been very hot here in Texas. I hope you enjoy part two of Songs of Summer by the big ba...

Listening to a live big band is a thrilling experience. Back in the 1930's and 40's before the advent of television, people were often able to hear their favorite bands playing on the radio. Many of these performances were recorded and I am fortunate to have several in my collection. Our first and third remote today is from the Victory Parade of Spotllight Bands program. From that series I have pe...

This is part 2 of our look at another volume in Time Life records ambitious project called "The Swing Era". It was a ten volume set with three records included in each volume. Today we turn to the years of 1940-1941. The songs were rerecorded by the bands of Billy May and Glen Gray. I have this set and thought instead of hearing the recreations that it would be interesting to hear the originals. S...

1940 - 1941 were good years for the big bands as they were full of great music. For the next two weeks I am going to be playing another program from the Time-Life series, "The Swing Era". This was a really good series presented in two year segments. Each set came with three records and a nice book telling about the music in the set. This is a rerun of a show I produced back in 2015. Due to some fa...

Hello and welcome to part two of my cover song program. I have picked out eight more popular songs of which we'll listen to the original and then we'll hear the cover version. I enjoyed listening to the comparisons. Some of them are quite different. Some of the originals are The Dipsy Doodle, My Blue Heaven, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, What's New and others. I hope you enjoy this program of cov...

In the music world, a cover or cover song is a recording of a popular song by another band. Usually the band rearranges the song in a different style. On this Part One of two we are going to be listening to covers of some of the popular songs from the swing era. I will play the original and then after that the cover by a different band. There are some interesting and nicely done covers on our show...

April 29, 1899 is the birthday of the late Duke Ellington. Duke was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a big band from 1923 through the rest of his life. I have put together a show from recordings and remotes as we celebrate his birthday with some of the many famous songs that he composed. I hope you enjoy this salute to one of the greatest big band leaders in music history. Please visit...

I hope you'll join me as I present a show about Spring Songs. I haven't produced a show about Spring songs on Big Band Bash so I thought I would try to find songs with either Spring in the title or the months of spring. It was a fun show to produce as there were lots of songs and lots of different artists. The puzzler is back so I hope you enjoy the big bands and their versions of the many songs o...