World was in the mood for a moonlight
serenade on the "Chattanooga Choo Choo"
Having just made it through the "Roaring Twenties, "Dust Bowl," the Great Depression, Prohibition and being launched into World War II, must have been quite the ride for those folks at the time. Imagine ... one day your are in high school in Fort Morgan, Colo., playing a little football and maybe making music on the weekends. And just a few short years later, you are an international sensation, Gold Records, a military icon, and a symbol and hero of American virtue.
"Glenn Miller is Fort Morgan High School's most famous graduate. His recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" sold over 1,200,000 copies before RCA awarded him the first gold record in history," says information from the city of Fort Morgan.
"Glenn Miller joined the high school football team as a left end in the fall of 1919. The Maroons won the Northern Colorado Football Conference in 1920, and Glenn was named the Best Left End in Colorado," says city info.
"Meanwhile, Elmer Wells, his band and orchestra director, was having Glenn sit in with his own dance band, The Wells of Music, which played around Morgan County on weekends. This influenced Glenn to start his own dance band, the Mick-Miller Melody Five. By now, the desire to play trombone and to arrange music for his band was so great, he decided to make music his lifetime career. That spark of inspiration kindled by Elmer Wells eventually caused Glenn to organize and lead the most popular band of all of the big band era - The Glenn Miller Orchestra. "
In 1942, Miller volunteered to join the U.S. military to entertain troops during World War II, ending up with the U.S. Army Air Forces. On December 15, 1944, while flying to Paris, Miller's aircraft disappeared in bad weather over the English Channel. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal.
He then enrolled at the University of Colorado, where he spent his time outside of class playing in fellow student Holly Moyer’s band. He left college in 1923 to devote his full attention to his career as a musician and arranger.
Joining Ben Pollack’s band, Miller went to Los Angeles, to Chicago, and eventually to New York in early 1928, where he married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. After leaving Pollack, Miller joined Smith Ballew’s orchestra, then the newly formed Dorsey Brothers band.
He finally decided to launch his own band in January 1937. At the end of the year, he disbanded it, discouraged and in debt. With financial help, he tried again the following spring. This time he had the players he wanted to go with his gifts as an arranger, and he developed a clarinet-led reed section and created what came to be known as the “Miller sound.”
In 1938, Miller signed with Victor’s Bluebird label. “Little Brown Jug,” “In the Mood” and his signature “Moonlight Serenade” played from jukeboxes and on radios across the country.
By the fall of 1939, the Glenn Miller Orchestra was the nation’s hottest attraction.
“Tuxedo Junction” and “A String of Pearls” reached No. 1 on the top-sellers chart, and Miller was awarded the first-ever gold record in 1942 for selling more than one million copies of “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
"With the onset of World War II, Miller, at 37, was determined to take part in the war effort. Entering the Army in October 1942, he molded the nation’s most popular service band. That U.S. Air Force Band went to England in the summer of 1944, entertaining troops at 71 concerts in five months. On the afternoon of December 15, while flying from the south of England to newly liberated Paris to lead a concert to be broadcast on Christmas, the small plane carrying Major Glenn Miller disappeared over the English Channel, ending a brilliant and influential career in American popular music," according to Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
He studied the Schillinger system with Joseph Schillinger, under whose tutelage he composed what became his signature theme, "Moonlight Serenade". In 1926, Miller toured with several groups, landing a good spot in Ben Pollack's group in Los Angeles. He also played for Victor Young, which allowed him to be mentored by other professional musicians. In the beginning, he was the main trombone soloist of the band, but when Jack Teagarden joined Pollack's band in 1928, Miller found that his solos were cut drastically. He realized that his future was in arranging and composing.
He had a songbook published in Chicago in 1928 entitled Glenn Miller's 125 Jazz Breaks for Trombone by the Melrose Brothers. During his time with Pollack, he wrote several arrangements. He wrote his first composition, "Room 1411", with Benny Goodman, and Brunswick Records released it as a 78 rpm record under the name "Benny Goodman's Boys".
In 1928, when the band arrived in New York City, he sent for and married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. He was a member of Red Nichols's orchestra in 1930, and because of Nichols, he played in the pit bands of two Broadway shows, Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy. The band included Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa.
"Glenn Miller joined the high school football team as a left end in the fall of 1919. The Maroons won the Northern Colorado Football Conference in 1920, and Glenn was named the Best Left End in Colorado," says city info.
"Meanwhile, Elmer Wells, his band and orchestra director, was having Glenn sit in with his own dance band, The Wells of Music, which played around Morgan County on weekends. This influenced Glenn to start his own dance band, the Mick-Miller Melody Five. By now, the desire to play trombone and to arrange music for his band was so great, he decided to make music his lifetime career. That spark of inspiration kindled by Elmer Wells eventually caused Glenn to organize and lead the most popular band of all of the big band era - The Glenn Miller Orchestra. "
In 1942, Miller volunteered to join the U.S. military to entertain troops during World War II, ending up with the U.S. Army Air Forces. On December 15, 1944, while flying to Paris, Miller's aircraft disappeared in bad weather over the English Channel. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal.
Glenn Miller was born on March 1, 1904, in Clarinda, Iowa. His family was poor, moving often during his childhood, first to Nebraska, and then to Fort Morgan, Colorado. Miller studied music during high school, and soon after graduating in 1921, he took his first professional job in the Denver area, with Boyd Senter’s popular orchestra, according to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame
He then enrolled at the University of Colorado, where he spent his time outside of class playing in fellow student Holly Moyer’s band. He left college in 1923 to devote his full attention to his career as a musician and arranger.
Joining Ben Pollack’s band, Miller went to Los Angeles, to Chicago, and eventually to New York in early 1928, where he married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. After leaving Pollack, Miller joined Smith Ballew’s orchestra, then the newly formed Dorsey Brothers band.
In 1938, Miller signed with Victor’s Bluebird label. “Little Brown Jug,” “In the Mood” and his signature “Moonlight Serenade” played from jukeboxes and on radios across the country.
By the fall of 1939, the Glenn Miller Orchestra was the nation’s hottest attraction.
“Tuxedo Junction” and “A String of Pearls” reached No. 1 on the top-sellers chart, and Miller was awarded the first-ever gold record in 1942 for selling more than one million copies of “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
"With the onset of World War II, Miller, at 37, was determined to take part in the war effort. Entering the Army in October 1942, he molded the nation’s most popular service band. That U.S. Air Force Band went to England in the summer of 1944, entertaining troops at 71 concerts in five months. On the afternoon of December 15, while flying from the south of England to newly liberated Paris to lead a concert to be broadcast on Christmas, the small plane carrying Major Glenn Miller disappeared over the English Channel, ending a brilliant and influential career in American popular music," according to Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
In 1923, Miller entered the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he joined Sigma Nu fraternity. He spent most of his time away from school, attending auditions and playing any gigs he could get, including with Boyd Senter's band in Denver. After failing three out of five classes, he dropped out of school to pursue a career in music.
He studied the Schillinger system with Joseph Schillinger, under whose tutelage he composed what became his signature theme, "Moonlight Serenade". In 1926, Miller toured with several groups, landing a good spot in Ben Pollack's group in Los Angeles. He also played for Victor Young, which allowed him to be mentored by other professional musicians. In the beginning, he was the main trombone soloist of the band, but when Jack Teagarden joined Pollack's band in 1928, Miller found that his solos were cut drastically. He realized that his future was in arranging and composing.
He had a songbook published in Chicago in 1928 entitled Glenn Miller's 125 Jazz Breaks for Trombone by the Melrose Brothers. During his time with Pollack, he wrote several arrangements. He wrote his first composition, "Room 1411", with Benny Goodman, and Brunswick Records released it as a 78 rpm record under the name "Benny Goodman's Boys".
In 1928, when the band arrived in New York City, he sent for and married his college sweetheart, Helen Burger. He was a member of Red Nichols's orchestra in 1930, and because of Nichols, he played in the pit bands of two Broadway shows, Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy. The band included Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa.
In 1942, at the peak of his civilian career, Miller decided to join the war effort, forsaking an income of $15,000 to $20,000 per week in civilian life (equivalent to $238,000 to $317,000 per week in 2020), including a home in Tenafly, New Jersey.
At 38, Miller was too old to be drafted and first volunteered for the Navy, but was told that they did not need his services. Miller then wrote to Army Brigadier General Charles Young. He persuaded the U. S. Army to accept him so he could, in his own words, "be placed in charge of a modernized Army band".
Miller's civilian band played its last concert in Passaic, New Jersey, on September 27, 1942, with the last song played by the Miller civilian band being "Jukebox Saturday Night"—featuring an appearance by Harry James on trumpet. His patriotic intention of entertaining the Allied Forces earned him the rank of captain, and he was soon promoted to major by August 1944.
Miller reported at Omaha on Oct. 8, 1942, to the Seventh Service Command as a captain in the Army Specialist Corps. Miller was soon transferred to the Army Air Forces. Captain Glenn Miller served initially as assistant special services officer for the Army Air Forces Southeast Training Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1942. He played trombone with the Rhythmaires, a 15-piece dance band, in both Montgomery and in service clubs and recreation halls on Maxwell.
Miller reported at Omaha on Oct. 8, 1942, to the Seventh Service Command as a captain in the Army Specialist Corps. Miller was soon transferred to the Army Air Forces. Captain Glenn Miller served initially as assistant special services officer for the Army Air Forces Southeast Training Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1942. He played trombone with the Rhythmaires, a 15-piece dance band, in both Montgomery and in service clubs and recreation halls on Maxwell.
Miller also appeared on both WAPI (Birmingham, Alabama) and WSFA radio (Montgomery), promoting the activities of civil service women aircraft mechanics employed at Maxwell. At Maxwell, Miller was helped by saxophonist Gerald "Jerry" Yelverton, a veteran of Miller's prewar orchestra. Miller, playing initially with Yelverton's local band, measured the impact of his modernizing concepts on a small scale and quickly and efficiently made adaptations that were used in his famous 418th AAF band in 1943 and 1944.
Miller initially formed a large marching band that was to be the core of a network of service orchestras. His attempts at modernizing military music were met with some resistance from tradition-minded career officers, but Miller's fame and support from other senior leaders allowed him to continue.
Miller initially formed a large marching band that was to be the core of a network of service orchestras. His attempts at modernizing military music were met with some resistance from tradition-minded career officers, but Miller's fame and support from other senior leaders allowed him to continue.
Miller's arrangement of "St. Louis Blues March," combined blues and jazz with the traditional military march. Miller's weekly radio broadcast I Sustain the Wings, for which he co-wrote the eponymous theme song, moved from New Haven to New York City and was very popular.
Soon he had permission for to form his 50-piece Army Air Force Band and take it to England in the summer of 1944, where he gave 800 performances. In England, now Major Miller cut a series of records at EMI-owned Abbey Road Studios. The recordings the AAF band made in 1944 at Abbey Road were propaganda broadcasts for the Office of War Information. Many songs are sung in German by Johnny Desmond, and Glenn Miller speaks in German about the war effort.
Before Miller disappeared, his music was used by World War II AFN radio broadcasting for entertainment and morale, as well as counter-propaganda to denounce fascist oppression in Europe. His broadcasts included short playlets that dramatized the Four Freedoms promulgated by the Roosevelt administration, summarizing the official goals of the Allies; they equated American music with free expression and American culture.
"America means freedom and there's no expression of freedom quite so sincere as music," he said in one radio address.
Miller-led AAF Orchestra also recorded songs with American singer Dinah Shore at the Abbey Road studios and were the last recordings made by the band while being led by Miller. They were stored with HMV/EMI for 50 years, and not released until their European copyright expired in 1994.
Miller-led AAF Orchestra also recorded songs with American singer Dinah Shore at the Abbey Road studios and were the last recordings made by the band while being led by Miller. They were stored with HMV/EMI for 50 years, and not released until their European copyright expired in 1994.
In summarizing Miller's military career, General Jimmy Doolittle said, "next to a letter from home, that organization was the greatest morale builder in the European Theater of Operations."
Glenn Miller's First Gold Record (click link below, to view)
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