Big Band Serenade

Air National Guard Show with Russ Morgan & Rosemary Clooney

Bargy's work for the Benson Orchestra established him as a triple-threat talent, and his services were soon sought out by other bands. In late 1921, after a falling out with Benson, Bargy left and formed his own orchestra, taking many members of the group with him. He disbanded a few years later and joined the band led by composer-saxophonist Isham Jones. In 1928, Bargy began a twelve-year associa...

During the 1930s Freddy Nagel operated a society orchestra in the Northwestern part of the United States. In the early 1940s Nagel reorganized his band and began to feature swing music. He also expanded his territory into the Midwest. In 1947 Nagel had a short-lived sustaining radio show on ABC, live from the Empire Room of the Palmer House in Chicago. Vocalists were Dick Baldwin and Jane Easton....

In this Universal-International musical featurette (U-I production number 8306)"Harry James and His Music Makers" (which is also the correct title and not "Harry James and the Music Makers", since the Music Makers was the name of his band and was also prefaced with "His"), the featured vocalist with the band is Gale Robbins, with dancers Alain & Ashton also featured. Musical numbers include "Chiri...

The tall, handsome Monroe, whose signature tune was "Racing With the Moon", was very popular in the 1940s and early 1950s. His band was heard every Sunday on the radio in America (under contract to Camel cigarettes) and played to full ballrooms everywhere they went. Some of the musicians who regularly toured with Monroe included guitarist 'Bucky Pizzarelli', saxophonist Adny Bagni, Bobby Nichols,...

Frederick Alfred (Freddy) Martin (December 9, 1906 – September 30, 1983) was an American bandleader and tenor saxophonist. Orchestra leader Freddie Martin was not a jazz musician and never tried to be. Martin was, however, probably the most respected tenor saxophonist of the dance band era. The warmth and richness of his tone impressed even the most ardent of jazz performers and earned him the adm...

Ben Bernie was a popular bandleader in the '20s-'30s and even into the '40s although he never picked up on the "swing" craze. He started out in Vaudeville but enjoyed greater success as a personable bandleader and the host of his own radio show from 1933 to 1937, amusing audiences with his trademark lingo and his opening, "Yowsah, Yowsah." His band appeared in several films, the best of which, Wak...

Dale Jones on CBS Remote Broadcast

Dubbed "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums. Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She worked with all the jazz greats,...

Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, (28 December 1903 Duquesne, Pennsylvania – 22 April 1983 in Oakland, California) was "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".

Dick Henry Jurgens (January 9, 1910 – October 5, 1995) was an American swing music bandleader, who enjoyed great popularity in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Dick Jurgens was born in Sacramento, California to Dietrich Heinrich Jurgens and Clara Matilda (Erath) Jurgens. Jurgens played in an orchestra in high school but was kicked out of the ensemble for playing pop music. In response, he formed hi...

Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (Yale, Oklahoma, December 23, 1929 - Amsterdam, Netherlands May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and singer. Specializing in relaxed, even melancholy music, Baker rose to prominence as a leading name in cool jazz in the 1950s. Baker's good looks and smoldering, intimate singing voice established him as a promising name in pop music as well. But his success wa...

Bob Connor Radio Broadcast From Fort Worth

Carroll Gibbons (January 4, 1903 - May 10, 1954) was an American-born musician, bandleader and composer who made his career primarily in Britain. He was born and raised in Clinton, Massachusetts. In his late teens he travelled to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1924 he returned to London with the brassless Boston Orchestra for an engagement at the Savoy Hotel in the Strand. He li...

Fletcher Henderson, a figure whose place in music history continues to arouse debate and critical discussion, occupied a unique position in the development of jazz. A classically trained pianist, he helped bridge the world of the formal written arrangement with the African-American art of improvisation, creating a new orchestral style in jazz known as "swing." The dominant exponent of the New York...

Big Band Serenade presents its New Years Show with Guy Lambardo Guy Lombardo was more than just an orchestra leader, he was an institution. Every New Year's Eve at the stroke of midnight millions of listeners from all across America would tune in, via radio and later television, to hear Lombardo and His Royal Canadians play their familiar theme song, ''Auld Lang Syne.'' Lombardo was the consummate...

Claude Thornhill (*August 10, 1909 at Terre Haute, Indiana † July 1, 1965, New York City) was an American pianist, arranger and bandleader. As a youth, he was recognized as an extraordinary talent and formed a traveling duo with Danny Polo, a musical prodigy on the clarinet and trumpet from nearby Clinton, Indiana. As a student at Garfield High School in Terre Haute, he played with several theater...

Bob Crosby is best remembered for the Dixieland band that bore his name during the 1930s and early 1940s. The Bob Crosby Orchestra, along with its combo side group, the Bob Cats, was considered one of the greatest jazz bands of all time. The orchestra was actually led by sax player Gil Rodin, however. Crosby himself was simply the front man, chosen for his personality, looks, and famous last name.

Camel Caravan was a musical variety radio program, sponsored by Camel cigarettes, that aired on NBC and CBS from 1933 to 1954. Various vocalists, musicians and comedy acts were heard during the 21 years this show was on the air, including such talents as Benny Goodman, Georgia Gibbs, Anita O'Day and Vaughn Monroe. It debuted December 7, 1933, on CBS as a showcase for Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Or...

The Artie Shaw Band from a radio remote broadcast from the Summer Terrace at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Roof in Boston. The Artie Shaw Orchestra of 1938-1939 was the best band he ever assembled. Shaw did many big band remotes, and he was also often heard from the Blue Room of New York's Hotel Lincoln. It was the location of his only regular radio series as headliner. Sponsored by Old Gold cigarettes,...

Big Band Serenade presents Randy Skretvedt's Show Forward Into The Past for Thanksgiving. Randy has a collection of over 30,000 discs of music from 1888 through the early '50s (a disc being anything from a single-sided 78 to a CD with 28 songs on it!) and have virtually the whole run of dance-band records from the 1920s through the early '40s, plus novelty, comedy, big band, western swing, blues,...

Paul Ash was the leader of orchestras that primarilly played in movie theatres throughout the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. He worked in the Chicago's McVickers Theatre and Oriental Theatre, the Paramount Theatre in Brooklyn and Manhattan as well as the Granada Theatre in San Francisco during which time his records were released under the name of Paul Ash and his Granada Orchestra.

Big Band Serenade presents The Sounds of Great Big Band Music From 1935

Big Band Serenade presents Big Band Music from the 1920s and 1930s   ******* Please Take Our Survey ******

Big Band Serenade presents Art Mooney and His Orchestra featuring His Life and Music   ******* Please Take Our Survey ******