Alton Glenn Miller hated the name his parents, Louis and Mattie Lou Miller, gave him at birth on March 1, 1904 in Clarinda, Iowa. He preferred to be called “Glenn” and by the time he disappeared in 1944 his name was synonymous with big band music.
Miller’s work ethic and high musical standards fashioned him into this country’s most popular band leader. His compatriots were other struggling musicians whose names would become the foundation stones of “the big band era.” Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw were friends and colleagues.
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According to George T. Simon, author of “Glenn Miller and His Orchestra,” Glenn was a complex individual that expected much of his musicians and of himself. “Though always deeply dedicated to the public’s understanding and appreciation of his music, he allowed only a few privileged friends the opportunity to understand and appreciate the man who had created it,” said Simon.
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In 1928 he married Helen Burger, whom he’d met while they were both students at the University of Colorado. Simon credits Helen with being able to “recognize Glenn’s various and varying moods and knowing how to deal with them without ever deflating his ego. She was a master of tact and diplomacy, and especially good at explaining Glenn and his actions to others, but without ever demeaning her husband.”
His first band dispersed by the end of 1937 but the next year Glenn reorganized and, with new personnel formed what Simon referred to as a “new reed sound that was to set it (the band) apart from all the others.” For the next 3 years the Glenn Miller Band played anywhere music fans gathered. They also recorded for Victor Studios, broadcast radio shows and starred in movies.
However, with the United States entry into World War II Glenn became convinced that the band should be doing something to improve the morale of young recruits. It was his desire to start a military band which he eventually did by organizing the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band. By June, 1944 the band was headed for England where they played live concerts and broadcast musical shows to the troops over the Allied Expeditionary Forces network.
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According to Simon “everywhere the band went, it was greeted with immense enthusiasm. The G.I.’s reacted to its appearances with just the sort of wild cheering and yelling that Glenn had expected. Starved for real live music and “the touch of home” that Glenn kept talking about, they stomped their feet and clapped their hands and let out long, loud yells where ever they gathered.”
Then in December, 1944 the band was to fly from England to Paris to perform. Glenn decided to go to France a day early. On December 15, he climbed into a single-engine, nine-seater airplane called a C-64 Norseman with two other people, the pilot Flight Officer Johnny Morgan and Lieutenant Colonel Norman F. Baesell. The weather was near freezing with overcast conditions but Morgan, an experienced flier was sure the flight over the English Channel could be negotiated. Don Haynes, Miller’s personal assistant saw them off from a small airfield outside Bedford, England. His last remembrance of that departure was that he told his boss, “Happy Landings and Good Luck. I’ll see you in Paris tomorrow.” To which Glenn replied, “Thanks, Haynsie. We may need it.”
The Glenn Miller Sound is still played by orchestras and bands around the world; a lasting tribute and testimony to the greatest band-leader showman in the history of music. Now ‘Bugle Boy’ can be added to that long list of those still playing his tunes as… the only Glenn Miller musical in the world!
Source: https://t-tees.com
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