Big Band Bash

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...

This week is a continuation of our look at the career of the late Stan Kenton. Stan's birthday is December 15th, 1911 so this seemed like a good time to go back and listen to some of the many exciting recordings he made for Capitol Records in the 1940's. Since this Mosaic Records set has a very informative booklet, I tried to give the dates and arrangers for each song. The Big Band Bash puzzler is...

This week on Big Band Bash I will be presenting a two part show on the music and career of the late Stan Kenton. Stan's birthday was on December 15th so I thought now would be a good time to listen to some of those great, early recordings he made for Capitol Records in the 1940's. The music on the show comes from an out of print Mosaic Records Company set called "The Complete Capitol Studio Record...

With the Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, I wanted to put together a show for that day as I have never produced a Thanksgiving show before. It turned out a little more difficult than I thought. I could only find one song in my collection that had the title "Thanksgiving". I'm not sure why there were not more results because there are songs written about other holidays. So not to be deterred...

Song pluggers back in the 1920's used to promote songs from just about everyone trying to get their songs played whether they were good or bad. One composer who's songs were always good and made it into many Broadway shows was the late Jerome Kern.  Today's show features the music of Jerome Kern as played by many assorted big bands. We'll be hearing from many of your favorite bands as we learn a l...

Last week I started part 1 of a collection by Columbia Special Products called Great Vocalists of the Big Band Era. This is a six vinyl album set that I found in our station's record library. This set is no longer available but it had a lot of those nice songs from the 30's and 40's. These are the original recordings. This week we continue with part 2. I hope you enjoy the music in this set. Thank...

Great Vocalists of the Big Band Era is a 6 LP set that I found while combing through our record library. This set is no longer available but it has a lot a varied songs and artists in it so a few months back I started digitizing the albums. Digitizing is a process by which the vinyl albums are recorded into a computer and then cleaned up by removing noise and clicks and pops. For the most part the...

Hal McIntyre was an American saxophonist, clarinetist, and bandleader. Glenn Miller heard him play and drafted him as a founding member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, where he played from 1937 to 1941. Miller encouraged McIntyre to start his own group and starting in 1941 he put together his band where they played many major ballrooms throughout the United States, and played overseas for troops du...

Hello everyone. This week is a continuation of the two part series I started last week on the Dorsey brothers. This was a show I produces several years ago and am rebroadcasting. There are many of your favorite Dorsey hits and the Puzzler is back. I am in the process of producing some new shows and hope to start presenting them next week. Until then, thank you for your continued listening and supp...

Hello everyone. I apologize for missing last week and for being a little late with this week's podcast. My mother fell ill two weeks ago and passed away earlier th is week. Since I haven't had much time to produce a new show, I have gone back into the collection and pulled out two shows that I did on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. There is a lot a good music in these shows. We'll being this week with a l...

From the Big Band Bash archives comes this show that I did back in 2012. It is a little rough as I was still learning how to produce BBB. There were many great songs that premiered in 1937 and I picked out some of them on this show as well as some interesting things that was going on in the world at that time. Some of the songs on today's show include Goodnight My Love, Once In A While, It's Delov...

Last week I started a two part birthday salute to the late Count Basie. This week I am going to continue with more early recordings from 1936 - 1939. In addition, I discovered that singer Jimmy Rushing, who was a member of Count Basie's band from 1935 - 1948, celebrates a birthday on August 26. So for the last half of the show we'll hear some of the recordings he made with the Basie band as well a...