Big Band Bash

Because we celebrated our nation's birthday this week, I went back to the Big Band Bash archives to pull out a show I recorded back in 2011. I think it is an interesting show and doesn't feature any one band. It was a show I did on some of the famous ballrooms that the big bands played at. Some of them were quite famous and a few are still around today. I have quite a few air checks in my collecti...

1939 was a great year for the Count Basie orchestra. This was the last year of their three year contract with Decca records where they would record many of their hits. He still had Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Jimmy Rushing and other original members in the band. He also had a great female vocalist in the band named Helen Humes. I have been listening to the Count Basie band since I was a teenage as...

Ray Anthony has led a big band for many years starting in the late 1940's. He played trumpet in the original Glenn Miller orchestra and after the war started his own band. He has had a lot of first class musicians play in his band throughout the years. On the show today I found a remote which was part of the One Night Stand series. It was recorded at the Hollywood Palladium in the early 1950's. Th...

Richard Rodgers was an American composer of music, with over 900 songs and 43 Broadway musicals, leaving a legacy as one of the most significant composers of 20th century American music. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. His music has been recorded by many different artists throughout the last century and into this one. On th...

In 1934 the Chick Webb orchestra was looking for a new singer. They hired a very young girl who had no big band singing experience. She developed into one of the greatest jazz singers in the world. On the show today I am going to be playing from a Mosaic records collection that feature all the recordings that Ella Fitzgerald made with the Chick Webb orchestra from 1934 to 1941. This is a fabulous...

When a band records a song that was made popular by another band the second band is said to be covering that song by the first band. For example when Benny Goodman recorded Frenesi that is a cover since it was a hit by Artie Shaw. Covers were very common in the big band years and I pulled out several that I found in my collection. There were many more available but I think you'll find it interesti...

Will Bradley along with drummer Ray McKinley led a very exciting band from 1939 to 1942. The Bradley band became well known for boogie-woogie, particularly its hit record, "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" In 1942, McKinley departed to form his own band. Bradley hired trumpeter Shorty Rogers and drummer Shelly Manne, but many members wound up in the military due to the draft, and the band dissolve...

April 29, 1899 was the birthday of the pianist, composer and big band leader Duke Ellington. I've gone back into the Big Band Bash vault and pulled out a program featuring other bands playing Duke's music in honor of his birthday. It is interesting to hear songs that Ellington composed played by other bands. I produced this program about six years ago and haven't listened to it since then. I hope...

This week's show is part two of the Time-Life Swing Era set, "The Postwar Years". We are winding down this great set as there are only a few more volumes in the series. On the show today we will be hearing the bands of Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Nat King Cole and others. After World War Two ended the big bands became less popular and vocalists seemed to gain in popular...

This week I am going back to another set in the Time Life series "The Swing Era". Today's show is called "The Postwar Years" and features songs from the years after World War II. There are only a couple more volumes in this set and the producers of the series stopped using individual years and lumped several years together. So today, we'll be hearing from the bands of Tommy Dorsey, Stan Kenton, Le...

One of the most popular songs from the 1940's was Sentimental Journey. The band that recorded it was Les Brown's and the vocalist was a young Doris Day. Doris recently celebrated her 96th birthday. In order to celebrate her birthday I referenced a box set that I have called "Doris Day 1947-1950". Included in this set are many of the recordings she made for Columbia records when she was starting ou...

The first song I ever heard Miss Peggy Lee sing with a big band was "Why Don't You Do Right" when I was back in college. I have been trying to do right ever since by listening to as much of her music as I could. I haven't produced a show on Peggy Lee so I wanted to go back and listen to some of those great recordings she made with Benny Goodman's band and on her own. She had a very long career so...

Our show this week is a look at bandleader Erskine Hawkins. He is mostly known as the composer of the hit Tuxedo Junction. But in addition to composing, he was a fine trumpet player and a well liked and respected bandleader. Some of the band's hits include Tippin' In, After Hours and Bicycle Bounce. His nickname was "The 20th Century Gabriel" which some of the music critics of the day did not like...

This week we are continuing with Big Bands Live Part 2. The music comes from a CD set called Big bands live. Each CD had 5 or 6 selections from different bands recorded live while they were appearing on location. I produced these two shows about nine years ago so if the introductions sound a little strange that's why. But introductions aside, there is some really nice recordings in this set and lu...

This week I am going back to the first of a couple of programs I produced several years ago. The music comes from a CD set called Big bands live. Each CD had five or six selections from different bands recorded live while they were appearing on location. I produced these two shows about nine years ago so if the introductions sound a little strange that's why. But introductions aside, there is some...

This week I'm continuing with a listener's request from a few months ago. He wanted me to do a few shows on some of the Big Band arrangers. A few months ago I did a show on Sy Oliver and today we are focusing on Eddie Sauter. Eddie wrote some fantastic arrangements for Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Ray McKinley and a few others. Sometimes Eddie's arrangements were too sophisticated and Benny would al...

On February 11, 2018 Vic Damone passed away. Vic was one of the great vocalists from the late 1940's on who sang songs from the great American Songbook. To remember Vic on the show today, I thought I would play some of his early hit records and then a few songs from a live performance at Basin Street East which was in New York City. The great vocalists are quickly passing away but at least we can...

In all the time I have been producing Big Band Bash, I have never done a program on the late Mary Lou Williams. It is always a challenge coming up with ideas for new programs. I try not to repeat myself so it was surprising to me that I had never done a program on Mary Lou. She was an exceptional pianist, arranger and composer. I learned a lot about her career and hope you will enjoy this look at...

This week I am following up with Part 2 of the Time-Life series, "The Swing Era", with the second half from the years of 1944-1945. I had so much fun tracking down the originals in this series. As I have done in previous shows from the Time-Life series I am playing the original recordings and following along with the playlist from this set. We'll be hearing from Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Go...

This week we return to the Time-Life series, "The Swing Era", with the volume from the years of 1944-1945. These were still 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 Goodman, Gene Krupa, Les Brown and more. There are a few more...

George Gershwin has always been one of my favorite composers. I thought it would be fun to learn about his career as we listen to different bands playing his music. Some of the bands we'll be hearing include Artie Shaw, Benny Carter, Larry Clinton, Stan Kenton and Jimmy Dorsey. I hope you enjoy this look at one of America's great composers, George Gershwin. Please visit this podcast at http://bigb...

As we begin the new year, I would like to honor a listener's request. He asked me to do a couple of shows on the big band arrangers. So today we are going to be listening to some of those fantastic arrangments by Sy Oliver. During the Big band era, Sy spent his career with two bands, Jimmie Lunceford and Tommy Dorsey. I decided to play a lot of the hits of Sy's from those two bands. So we start to...

Well, the New Year is upon us. Every year for the past several years I have usually played a special big band show called 1945 - 1946 New Year's Dancing Party. I ran this last year and it is still available. I didn't want to run this again so I am going to repeat a show from 2014. Back in November, Hoagy Carmichael had a birthday. Since there were other things going on, I missed doing a show on hi...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years everyone. Welcome to Part 2 of my 1940's Christmas Traditions show. Last time in between the music I read some holiday traditions started in the 1940's. On the show today, I am going to be reading some Stocking Stuffers from the Associated Press. Stocking Stuffers is a series produced by the Associated Press that consists of about 50 segments on various holiday...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone. This is part one of a program I call 1940's Christmas Traditions Part 1. Many of the ways we celebrate Christmas were started in the 1940's so I thought it would be interesting to learn how some of these traditions started. I am going to start the show with a segment from Franklyn D. Roosevelt's 1940 lighting of the Christmas tree speech and then we'll...