Two Bands I've Missed: Bob Chester and Teddy Powell

This week we will be listening to and learning about two bands that I've never recently covered before: Bob Chester and Teddy Powell. This is a rebroadcast of a show I produced back in 2012. Bob had a great band that was heavily influenced by Glenn Miller. Teddy's band had a great start in New York but had trouble sustaining that popularity outside of the Northeast. These are the original recordings by both bands.

Also, I want to celebrate Bob Chester's birthday. He was born on March 20, 1908.
Here is a picture of Bob and a little information on Bob from Wikipedia:

Chester's stepfather ran General Motors's Fisher Body Works. He began his career as a sideman under Irving Aaronson, Ben Bernie, and Ben Pollack. He formed his own group in Detroit in 1939, with a Glenn Miller-influenced sound. This band was unsuccessful in local engagements and quickly dissolved. He then put together a new band on the East Coast under the direction of Tommy Dorsey and with arrangements by David Rose. This ensemble fared much better, recording for Bluebird Records.
Chester's group, billed "The New Sensation of the Nation," had its own radio show on CBS briefly in the fall of 1939. The twenty-five-minute program aired from the Hotel van Cleve in Dayton, Ohio late on Thursday nights (actually 12:30 am Friday morning, Eastern Time); the September 21, 1939 edition can be heard on the famous One Day In Radio tapes, archived by Washington D.C. station WJSV.
Chester's Bluebird records have proved excellent sellers, both for retail dealers and coin phonograph operators such as "From Maine to California"; "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie"; "Madeliaine"; and two songs from "Banjo Eyes" - "Not a Care in the World" and "A Nickel to My Name".^[1]
Chester's orchestra included trumpeters Alec Fila, Nick Travis, and Conrad Gozzo, saxophonists Herbie Steward and Peanuts Hucko, drummer Irv Kluger, and trombonist Bill Harris. His female singers included Dodie O'Neill, Kathleen Lane, and Betty Bradley; among his male singers were Gene Howard, Bill Darnell, Joe Harris, Stu Brayton, Hall Stewart, Peter Marshall, and Bob Haymes.
The orchestra disbanded in the mid-1940s, due in part to the shrinking market for big band sound. Chester assembled another band for a short time in the early 1950s, but after it failed he retired from music and returned to Detroit to work for the rest of his life in auto manufacturing.


Here is a picture of Teddy Powell and some information on him from Wikipedia:

Teddy Powell (Teodoro Paolella) (March 1, 1905 in Oakland, California – November 17, 1993 in New York City) was an American jazz guitarist, composer and big band leader. Some of his compositions were under the pseudonym Freddy James.
Teddy spent several years with the Abe Lyman band where he also served as a vocalist, arranger and helped out on the business side of things.
Powell began playing violin when he was eight, picked up the banjo when he was fourteen and led his first band the following year. They stayed together until 1944.
His own band hired several highly regarded musicians formerly with the Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Casa Loma orchestras. The band made its début at New York's Famous Door nightclub.
Teddy's big band was very popular for a short time in 1939 while they were in New York. Irving Fazola, Pete Mondello, John Austin, Nick Caizza, Carmen Mastren, Ely Davis, Hugh Brown, S.J. Kramer, John Popa, Jerry Shane, Irwin Berken featured on his bands.
In 1941 the band lost all of its instruments in a fire at a nightclub in New Jersey.
Teddy Powell retired from band-leading in 1954 and formed a music publishing company in New York City sometime prior to 1960 and prospered. The principal company, among many, was Tee Pee Music Co.

I hope you enjoy the music this week from Bob Chester and Teddy Powell.

Glenn Miller Live Part Two

Welcome to Part Two of my Glenn Miller Birthday Salute. I finally recovered from my bad cold and my voice is now back to the way I used to sound. As you know, March 1, 1904 is the birthday of the late bandleader, Glenn Miller. In this second part,  I am continuing with these live broadcasts of the Miller Band from the Glen Island Casino which is located in New Rochelle New York. Bands started broadcasting from there in 1932 and the first band to achieve some popularity because of these broadcasts was the band of Ozzie Nelson. Since Glenn was just becoming a popular band in 1939 there are not a lot of his hit recordings. Instead we find many songs that Glenn never recorded commercially. On this show we have 4 fifteen minute remotes instead of two thirty minute remotes like we heard in part one. Here is part two of Glenn Miller broadcasting from the Glen Island Casino, located in New Rochelle, New York.

In other news Big Band Bash is now on TuneIn. You can go to TuneIn.com and search for Big Band Bash and listen to the podcast there at anytime. I am currently working on submitting BBB to Google Play. I tried earlier but they are a little fussy on the icons and graphics that go with the show. Stay tuned for more information and thank you for listening.

Under the Weather

Hello. I had intended to present Part 2 of Glenn Miller Live this week but I came down with a severe cold that affected my voice. So rather than subject everyone to my scratchy, cracking voice I pulled out an encore presentation of Big Band Bash to present this week. It is a program of three radio remotes. The bands are from Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller. I hope you enjoy it and I will be back next time with part number 2 of Glenn Miller Live as we remember his birthday. Hopefully my voice will be back to normal. Thank you for listening.

Glenn Miller Live - A Birthday Salute

To celebrate Glenn Miller's birthday I decided to do a two part show with some of his recordings from the Glen Island casino. Last year a did a four part series on Glenn in honor of his birthday which is March 1, 1904.  The recordings are from radio remotes starting in May of 1939.  here is little bit I found on Wikipedia on the Glen Island Casino:

The Glen Island Casino dining hall rose on the foundation of the Grand Cafe, one of the few structures remaining from Starin's park. The building opened into a series of balconies overlooking the Long Island Sound which made it an attractive dining and entertaining location.^[18] At the time, the term "casino" was not associated with legalized gambling but instead described "a public social place for entertainment." However, the nightspot was soon living up to the contemporary definition of its name. By 1930, when prohibition was marking its tenth year in the United States, Glen Island Casino was acquiring the reputation as being a speakeasy, yet at the same time the Casino had also begun to book up-and coming musicians for weekend dances. One of the first was Oswald George Nelson, better known as "Ozzie", who set the pace packing the 60-foot by 124-foot hall with throngs of young dancers. Accompanied by his wife, Harriet Hilliard, the Ozzie Nelson Orchestra gained national attention when it played the Casino's 1932 season.^[19]
The next summer the most influential white band in the United States during the early 1930s, the Casa Loma Orchestra, drew in the crowds and ushered in the Big Band era for the Casino. The performances at the Glen Island Casino were being heard nationwide. Situated on the Sound, the Casino's enormous ballroom was acoustically ideal for the crystal-clear radio transmissions.^[20]
Many artists made their name at the Casino, among them such notables as Glenn Miller,^[21] the Dorsey Brothers,^[22] Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, Larry Clinton, Les Brown and Doris Day, Charlie Spivak, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, Hal Mcintyre and Claude Thornhill.^[23]
After the Big Band Era's end, the Glen Island Casino was eventually converted to a restaurant and catering hall, which operates as part of the present-day county park—open to county residents only—on the site.

Here is a current picture of Glen Island Harbor Club (as it is now known):

I hope you'll tune in as we celebrate the birthday of the Late bandleader Glenn Miller.