Big Band Bash

This is part two of our 100th birthday salute to Miss Peggy Lee. Last time, I played recordings from her early days in the 1940's. Today I'll be playing some assorted cuts off of her many albums from the 1950's and 1960's. Also I have a couple of clips from NPR. There is a lot of good music in this show. I hope you enjoy the music from one of the great vocalists as we celebrate her 100th birthday,...

May 26th 1920 was the birthday of Peggy Lee. She got her start singing with Benny Goodman's orchestra and went on to world wide fame. This is part one of a celebration of the music that Peggy recorded. This episode is mainly from the 1940's and next week will be selections from her many albums. We'll learn about her career on the show today as well. I hope you enjoy this look at the music of Peggy...

Our birthday salute continues this week with part two featuring Artie's performances on the Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands. In August 1942, Coca Cola entered into an agreement with the Blue Network to launch the revised Spotlight Bands series. The Blue Network was the former NBC Blue Network. The name of the program was changed to The Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands. The weeknight programs we...

May 23, 1910 is the birthday of the late Artie Shaw. To celebrate his birthday I have put together a show from a CD set that I have. In 1945, Artie appeared on the Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands five times. This set has all five shows on it. I really like this set because, in addition to a superb band, the sound is really good. So on part one we'll be hearing the first two shows with many of yo...

Greetings Everyone. Today's program is a show I recorded in 2013. I had to have some outpatient surgery this week and did not have time to produce a new show. So I have gone back into the Big Band Bash Archives and pulled out I show I did on Louis Armstrong. This features the Louis Armstrong Big Band and recordings he made between 1935 and 1946. There is a lot of the great Armstrong Trumpet in the...

The Casa Loma Orchestra was an American dance band active from 1929 to 1963. Until the rapid multiplication in the number of swing bands from 1935 on, the Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the top North American dance bands. I am continuing the Uncollected series this week with the Casa Loma Orchestra. The recordings in this set span the years of 1943 - 1946. There are some special guests recording w...

Ozzie Nelson led a big band from 1930 until 1944. He had a good musicians in the band and toured extensively during the 1930's. Today I am playing music from a series of records called "The Uncollected" The music was recorded between the years of 1940 - 1942. There is some good music in this set and we'll find out about Ozzie's career leading up to the beginning of the radio series. I hope you enj...

You must feel sorry for some great musicians when their birthday rolls around, because some of them share April 29th the same anniversary as Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, America’s greatest composer, born in Washington. D.C. in 1899. For almost a half-century, Ellington wrote music of the highest order of art that also appealed to the general public. On the program today we celebrate Duke's bir...

On the show today I am presenting two exceptional bands from the 1950's and 60's. I have some of these recordings and I have to say they are really good. We will be learning about Ralph Marterie and Sy Zentner and if you have never heard of them you are in for a treat. The first half features Ralph's band and he plays most of the trumpet solos and then in the second half we'll feature the big band...

Hello everyone. Today's program is part two of Chart Toppers of the 1930's and 40's. This was a show that I originally produced back in 2008. I kept all the music and redid some of the introductions. Also, the puzzler is back and it is a little challenging if I do say so. I hope I play some of your favorites on the show today. I hope everyone is well and safe. Remember, if you are practicing socia...

Chart Toppers is a show I did back in 2008. I have updated it and added in the Puzzler. These were the songs that were leading the charts back in the thirties and forties. This is a two cd set that i have and this is where the music comes from. Today's program is kind of a best of show with, i hope, many of your favorites. I didn't spend much time explaining the music as I do on some of the other...

Ted Heath led an exceptional Big Band in England after World War Two into the 1960's. He always had top notch musicians in his bands. I wanted to put together a show about Ted for quite a while and I hope you enjoy his recordings as much as I do. I'll be playing from two albums called Swing is King. I bought these albums early in my youth and have nearly worn them out they are that good. Thank you...

This week I am going to present two radio remotes from the Hollywood Palladium by Tex Beneke and the Glenn Miller Orchestra from 1946. The Miller estate authorized an official Glenn Miller "ghost band" in 1946. This band was led by Tex Beneke who as time went on had more prominence in the band's identity. It had a make up similar to Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band, having a large string section...

On today's show, I am going to shine the spotlight on vocalist Jo Stafford. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. I'll be playing some of the hits she had with Tommy Dorsey as well as some she had as a so...

We continue this week with part 2 of On Location. These were recordings of the bands as they were out on tour playing for the public. Today we will be hearing from three bands: Harry James. Woody Herman, and Artie Shaw. This is a great set with the bands playing some of their hits as well as some new songs. Artie's set is from December 23, 1938 from New York and it is filled with Artie's great cla...

During the era of the big bands, a radio broadcast was a very important way of getting the public to hear your band. Many of these broadcasts were recorded by fans and then were passed down and sometimes they ended up in the hands of record companies. The recordings on today's show were recorded when the bands were appearing on location. We'll be hearing the bands of Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Le...

Black History Month Part 3 continues with a look at the music and career of the late Nat King Cole. A fantastic pianist, Nat found his biggest fame as a singer of popular songs. I picked Nat for our focus because I haven't presented a show on him in quite some time. In fact a lot of the introductions I copied from a program I did on Nat from 2008. The Big Band Bash puzzler is back this week so I h...

Black History Month continues this week with a look at the music and career of one of the most influential female vocalists in jazz Billie Holiday.  Billie led a short and tragic life but the music she left behind is still being played and remembered. I'll be playing an assortment of her music as well as taking a look at her career. Also, the Big Band Bash puzzler is back so I hope you'll tune in...

This week I am going to begin our celebration of Black History Month with a look at the popular vocal group the Mills Brothers.  They were a fascinating group from their beginnings until the 1980's when some of the brothers started to pass away. I'll have several of their hits and as usual the Big Band Bash Puzzler is back. I'll have a few more artists in the weeks to come that I haven't featured...

This week is a continuation of our birthday salute to bandleader Ray Anthony. Ray turned 98 years of age on this past January 22nd. For the show today, I chose four different cds recorded by the Anthony band and picked songs that I thought were appropriate for the big band era. The big band puzzler is back this week also. I hope you'll tune in and listen to some great music by Ray Anthony as we wi...

Ray Anthony was born on January 20th 1922 and he is celebrating his 98th birthday.  That makes him the oldest surviving member of the original Glenn Miller orchestra. This week and next I'll be playing a lot of Ray's big band recordings as we celebrate his birthday.  On the show today, I have some songs from a 1953 broadcast where Ray's special guests were Helen O'Connell and Bob Eberle. Also, I h...

This week I am continuing with part two of our look at the 1942 magazine All-American Bandleaders. My father brought several old magazines home for me when I was in high school. I had them packed away in my closet and came across them recently. I scanned this issue in to the computer and made a PDF file of it. You can download a copy of it by going to my blog: http://bigbandbashfm.blogspot.com/ an...

All American Bandleaders was a celebrity / fan magazine about 1940's bands and vocalists. I found one of these magazines from April 1942 that I had packed away in a closet. Each page was a little feature or story on a different bandleader. Since the magazine was 36 pages with hardly any advertisements I thought it would be fun to go through from the beginning to the end and play as many of the ban...

The disappearance of Glenn Miller 75 years ago has been the subject of many theories over the years. We will take a look at some of the theories and listen to some more of those great sides recorded by Glenn and the Army Air Force orchestra. Also, I have a live radio program from July of 1944 which is a little different than his I Sustain The Wings series. I hope you'll find something enjoyable in...

On December 15, 1944 Glenn Miller got into an airplane with the pilot and another passenger. He was headed to Paris to make arrangements for a Christmas Day concert and also to see about moving his Army Air Force Orchestra over there. The weather was not good when the plane took off. It was cold and foggy two conditions not suitable for air travel. The plane left at 2:00pm and the three air travel...