Big Band Bash

August 21st is the birthday of pianist and bandleader William Basie better know as the Count. I checked to see if I had done a birthday salute to him in the past and surprisingly I had not. So I hope you'll tune in and listen to some early Basie recordings from 1936 and 1937 as we learn about the career of one of the greatest of Big Band Leaders, Count Basie. The early 1936 band that the Count led...

Irving Berlin was one of the most prolific composers in the history of American popular song. Starting with Alexander's Ragtime Band he composed hundreds of songs that performers are still singing today. I have gone through my big band collection and pulled out many of his songs performed by various bands. I regret that I ran out of time and didn't get to play a few of my favorites. But we'll hear...

June Christy passed away on June 21, 1990. Since I didn't have a chance to remember her passing at that time I would like to do that on the today's program. I titled the program today, "June Christy Revisited" because I have already dedicated a show to her in the past. I thought we would play a few of those great Kenton sides and a few songs from the forties that she recorded on her own. We'll als...

For a change of pace on this week's show, I'll be presenting a show I did about ten years ago called Big Band Alphabet. We'll be listening to song titles starting with the letter "A" and going to "Q" as I didn't have time to go all the way to "Z". It is a mixed and varied show and I hope I play a song or two from your favorite leaders from the Big Band era. I put together another show on our radio...

Last week on Big Band Bash, I started a two part series from a set from Smithsonian Collections called Big Band Jazz: From the Beginnings to the Fifties. This was a six vinyl album set or a 4 CD set produced by jazz critics and historians Martin Williams and Gunther Schuller. It is not available anymore which is why I wanted to play some of the recordings from this set. Today we will continue with...

Today we start a two part series that was put together from Smithsonian Collections. This set is no longer available but it is called Big Band Jazz: From the Beginnings to the Fifties. It was originally released as a six vinyl album set and then re-released on 4 CDs. In 1973, Smithsonian Collections released "The History of Classic Jazz". Compiled by jazz essayist and historian Martin Williams, th...

This episode of Big Band Bash comes from the BBB vault. Originally produced and broadcast in 2014, this show was a tribute to the late Trigger Alpert who had passed away in Dec 2013. Trigger was an outstanding bassist who played with the Glenn Miller civilian orchestra as well as the Army Air Force Orchestra. Since Trigger did not record much under his own name, I have brought together many of the...

This coming Thursday is the Fourth of July which for us in the United States is celebrated as a day of independence. I don't have a lot of patriotic songs in my collection that I haven't presented at one time or another. So to celebrate July 4th I thought I would present some radio programs that Major Glenn Miller was in charge of. They are called "I Sustain The Wings" and were broadcast in 1944 i...

I am a great fan of the songs and music that comprise the Great American Songbook and I hope you, the listeners, are too. Rodgers, Kern, Berlin, Mercer, Ellington and Porter wrote some of the most endearing songs that make me want to hear them time and again. About a year ago I did a show called the Big Bands play Richard Rodgers. On the show today I have pulled out some of those classic melodies...

Duke Ellington is one of my favorite composers, bandleaders and jazz icons. I have been collecting Ellington music for a long while first on vinyl albums then on cd's and now mp3s. Since I have a pretty extensive collection I can share his music with my listeners. Duke passed away on May 24th 1974 so I am a few weeks late with this program. I always like to remember Duke either on his birthday or...

For part two of our Doris Day tribute, I am going to wind up with some of the great Les Brown recordings and then play a few of her own recordings and then wind up with a radio remote from 09-20-1945 on the One Night Stand program. It is a program featuring Les Brown with Doris Day on the vocals. Doris is featured on two or three numbers and Brown band is in top form. I didn't do much announcing o...

Doris Day - whenever I hear her name I think of the many movies she starred in. But she was a very gifted vocalist whose first hits were made while she was a member of the Les Brown Orchestra. We lost Doris a few weeks ago, she was 97 years old. But thankfully we have the many recordings she made throughout her career. On this program, part one of two, I'll be featuring many of the songs that Dori...

Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces. In 1941, the Mutual Radio Network had the idea of broadcasting Swing Bands remotely from various halls around the country. Coca Cola was sold on the idea, and the first edition of Spotlight Bands was broadcast just days before Pearl Harbor. Patriotism is front and...

This is a show that I produced shortly after the passing of Patty Andrews and Paul Tanner. Paul was the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra at the time of his death. Patty was of the singing Andrews Sisters. I pulled this show out of the Big Band Bash archives as I did not have time to produce a new show for this week. This show contains a radio remote featuring the Andrews Sisters...

On Big Band Bash this week we will continue with part 2 of the "Music of World War 2". Some of the artists we'll be hearing from today are Bing Crosby, Tommy Dorsey, Kay Kyser, Nat King Cole, Freddy Martin, Jimmy Dorsey, and Charlie Spivak. These were the songs that our men in the service were listening to as they headed into battle. World War 2 changed the big bands. During this time there were r...

A few months ago I had a request to do a program on the music of World War II. I did a program on this several years ago so I went into the Big Band Bash vault and pulled out this two part program. Produced in 2011, this program has some great songs from the years of 1940 to 1945. This was before I started the Big Band puzzler so that will be back soon. I hope you enjoy this nostalgic look at some...

Jimmy McHugh was an American composer. One of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s to the 1950s, he is credited with over 500 songs. One of the most important songwriting partners McHugh had was lyricist Dorothy Fields, with whom he wrote "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" (1928), "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1930), and "I'm in the Mood for Love" (1935). We will be taking a look at...

The Bandleaders from the swing era led an exciting life or so I thought. Living their lives on the road was a perilous existence. Some died in car crashes while other developed illnesses while they were still young. Today's program focuses on bandleaders who passed from the scene much too soon. We'll be learning about Hal Kemp, Bennie Moten, Jan Savitt, Bunny Berigan, and others as we play a coupl...

Freddy Martin was an American bandleader and tenor saxophonist. He led a band for many years in the 1930's but his real success came in 1941 with an arrangement from the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Bb Minor. Martin recorded the piece instrumentally, but soon lyrics were put in and it was re-cut as "Tonight We Love" with Clyde Rogers' vocal – becoming his biggest hit. Ru...

Randy Brooks was a phenomenal musician. At the age of 12, he was the winner in a competition of 2000 young trumpet aspirants. Two years later, he was asked to join Rudy Vallee's popular radio show. There Randy dazzled audiences with his superb classical trumpet solos. His real fame began when he joined the world famous Les Brown orchestra. When he started his own band, he set a long-run record at...

Today's show is a look at two bandleaders from the swing era that were named Jan. Jan Garber was known as "The Idol of the Airwaves" in his heyday of the 1920s and 1930s, playing jazz in the vein of his contemporaries. Jan Savitt was known as "The Stokowski of Swing", from having played violin in Stokowski's orchestra, was an American bandleader, musical arranger, and violinist. He was one of the...

This week I am going to pay a tribute to the late Fran Warren. She was born and passed away on the same day, March 4th. She was born as Frances Wolfe to a Jewish family in the borough of the Bronx, in New York City. After some time on a chorus line at New York's Roxy Theater, she auditioned with the big band of Duke Ellington at age 16; though she never made it onto Ellington's band, she soon beca...

My thanks go out to listener Karl Wingruber for his suggestion to do a show on Louise Tobin since she turned 100 years old back in November. I tracked down as many of her recordings as I could find and had fun doing it. She sang with Benny Goodman in 1939 and also with Will Bradley and various other bands. While married to Harry James she brought Frank Sinatra to his attention whom James eventuall...

Every year at this time I like to play some of the recordings from the Benny Goodman 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert. This was an important concert because it was the first time a jazz or swing band appeared there. I have done shows in the past but the concert was a couple of hours long so I always had to leave some songs out. Today's show features some of the songs I left out. Since I prepared this sh...

David Goldin established Radio Yesteryear in 1965 as a mail order company offering tapes of classic radio broadcasts to collectors. In 1970, after much success in packaging these materials for release by other record labels, he created Radiola Records as the first label devoted to reissuing radio broadcasts. Radiola, and its sister label Sandy Hook Records, went on to issue more than 300 releases...