Larry Clinton

On the show this week we will be learning about and listening to the music of the late Larry Clinton. Larry was trumpet player who was also a gifted arranger and composer. Along with vocalist Bea Wain, his band was one of the most popular of the late 1930's. Some of his originals include, A Study in Brown, The Dipsy Doodle and My Reverie. Clinton's band was predominantly a recording group that also played college proms and hotel ballrooms. Larry broke his band up when World war II began. He resumed his band, after serving as a pilot during WW2, in 1945. These are the original recordings by Clinton orchestra.  Here is a little biography that I found on Wikipedia:

Clinton was born in Brooklyn, New York. He became a versatile musician, playing trumpet, trombone, and clarinet. While in his twenties, he became a prolific arranger for dance orchestras; bandleaders Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Glen Gray, Louis Armstrong, and Bunny Berigan all used Larry Clinton charts.

His first stint as a bandleader was from 1937 to 1941, and he recorded a string of hits for Victor Records. The Clinton band's repertoire was split between pop tunes of the day ("I Double Dare You," "Summer Souvenirs," etc.), ambitious instrumentals penned by Clinton (the most popular, "A Study in Brown," begat four sequels in different "colors"), and swing adaptations of classical compositions. This last category swept the industry, and orchestras everywhere were "swinging the classics" by adding pop lyrics to melodies by Debussy and Tchaikovsky. His version of Debussy’s "Reverie", with vocalist Bea Wain, was particularly popular. Entitled "My Reverie", his version peaked at #1 on Billboard's Record Buying Guide in 1938.

Clinton's band was predominantly a recording group that also played college proms and hotel ballrooms. On the strength of Clinton's record hit "The Dipsy Doodle," Vitaphone and Paramount Pictures signed the band to star in three 10-minute theatrical films. All were filmed in New York.
In 1941 Clinton and his band appeared in six short musical films, designed for then-popular "movie jukeboxes." (The films were ultimately released as Soundies in 1943.) This was one of his last jobs as a bandleader; he quit the music business upon the outbreak of World War II, and joined the United States Army Air Forces. A rated pilot, he rose to the rank of captain, was stationed with the Air Transport Command in Calcutta and China during Hump airlift, and was a flight instructor with the 1343rd Base Unit.
He resumed his musical career and enjoyed further success as a bandleader from 1948 to 1950. He remained active in the music business – often leading a studio band for pop singers like Barry Frank – until 1961. He died in 1985 in Tucson, Arizona, at the age of 75.

I hope you enjoy this look at the music of Larry Clinton.

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.

Posting Mistake and Chick Webb

Well I'm back for a record breaking two weeks in a row. I had a little mishap with the podcast. Lat week I thought I was uploading the show on Jimmie Lunceford but it turned out to be this week's show on Chick Webb. I discovered it a few days ago and replaced it with the correct show. This week's show is on Chick Webb and is a show I produced a few years ago.

Here is a little biography of Chick Webb I found on Allmusic.com, it was written by Richard S. Ginell.

Chick Webb represented the triumph of the human spirit in jazz and life. Hunchbacked, small in stature, almost a dwarf with a large face and broad shoulders, Webb fought off congenital tuberculosis of the spine in order to become one of the most competitive drummers and bandleaders of the big band era. Perched high upon a platform, he used custom-made pedals, goose-neck cymbal holders, a 28-inch bass drum and a wide variety of other percussion instruments to create thundering solos of a complexity and energy that paved the way for Buddy Rich (who studied Webb intensely) and Louie Bellson. Alas, Webb did not get a fair shake on records; Decca's primitive recording techniques could not adequately capture his spectacular technique and wide dynamic range. He could not read music, but that didn't stop him either, for he memorized each arrangement flawlessly. Although his band did not become as influential and revered in the long run as some of its contemporaries, it nevertheless was feared in its time for its battles of the bands in Harlem's Savoy Ballroom; a famous encounter with the high-flying Benny Goodman outfit at its peak (with Gene Krupa in the drummer's chair) left the latter band drained and defeated.







William Henry Webb bought his first set of drums with his earnings as a newsboy, and he began playing in bands on pleasure boats. After moving to New York in 1925, he led bands in various clubs before settling in for long regular runs at the Savoy beginning in 1931. Although Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges played with the band early on, the Webb band was oddly short on major soloists during its heyday from the mid-'30s onward; the young alto sax player Louis Jordan made the biggest impression after leaving the band. But the band made up for it with a crisp ensemble sound, Webb's disciplined, ferociously driving drum pyrotechnics, trumpeter Taft Jordan's impressions of Louis Armstrong, and most of all, a series of strong compositions and charts by Edgar Sampson ("Blue Lou" and "Stomping at the Savoy" among them). In 1935, Webb hired the teenaged Ella Fitzgerald after she won a talent contest at the Apollo Theater, became her legal guardian, and rebuilt his show around the singer, who provided him with his biggest hit record, "A Tisket-A-Tasket," in 1938. The band's fame continued to grow, fueled by its reputation as a giant-killer in the Savoy battles and a continuous string of Decca 78s that featured such irresistible numbers as "T'aint What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)" and the B-side of "Tasket," "Liza." But Webb's precarious health began to give way, and after a major operation in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, he died (his last words reportedly were, "I'm sorry, I've got to go."). After Webb's death, Fitzgerald fronted the band until it finally broke up in 1942.

I hope you enjoy the music. Thanks for listening and remember you can sign up for the Big Band Bash podcast on ITunes or go here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/bigbandbash/BigBandBash312.mp3 for the direct download link.

I'm Back, Black History Month and Jimmie Lunceford

Hello All. Since I publish my podcast Big Band Bash and in the documentation I say tune in at  bigbandbashfm.blogspot.com I thought it would probably be good if I actually updated the bog and let readers know what is happening with Big Band Bash.

I have been publishing the podcast every weekend and have been getting more and more downloads and emails every week. Thank You all for listening and writing. When I switched over to Libsyn for the frst few months I was getting, maybe, 2,000 downloads a month. But slowly the downloads have been climbing and last month saw a record 6,669 downloads. That is amazing to me since Big Band music is not that popular. I love creating the podcast and listening to the music as I'm putting it together.

Well, today I am going to start Black History Month with a show I did a few years ago on the band of Jimmie Lunceford.  Here is the direct link to the podcast: http://traffic.libsyn.com/bigbandbash/BigBandBash315.mp3 Here is a little history on found on Jimmie at swingmusic.net:


Jimmie Lunceford’s music education included studying under Wilberforce J. Whiteman, the father of Paul Whiteman. His scholastic education included receiving a BA from Fisk University and later attending New York City College. Although Lunceford became proficient on all reed instruments he preferred the alto saxophone.

Jimmie Lunceford recruited the nucleus of his band while an athletic instructor at Manassas High School in Memphis, Tennessee. It was here, in 1927, that he organized a student jazz band called the Chicksaw Syncopators. The personnel of this band included Moses Allen (bass) and Jimmy Crawford (drums). Later, Willie Smith (alto) and Eddie Wilcox (piano) were added. The group turned professional in 1929, waxing its first recordings for RCA in 1930. After playing for several years in Cleveland and Buffalo, in 1934, the band began a high profile engagement at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem. At first the band played flashy, stiff instrumentals in the early Casa Loma orchestra manner such as two

While Wilcox and Smith both contributed early arrangements, it was the addition of ace arranger and trumpet man Sy Oliver that gave the Lunceford band its distinguished two-beat sound. Paul Webster on trumpet, Eddie Durham and later Trummy Young on trombone, and vocalist Dan Grissom were also important mid 1930s additions to the Lunceford band. By 1935 the group, then called Jimmie Lunceford's Orchestra, had achieved a national reputation as one of the top black swing bands.

The Jimmie Lunceford big band during the Swing era was widely known and other bands often imitated its showmanship and appearance. Lunceford  rehearsed his outfit endlessly. The polish of the band is evident on record by its flawless ensemble work. Further adding to the appeal of the band were the vocals by several of Lunceford's men. Jimmie's boys whispered, wheedled, cozened, rather than sang. Oliver and Smith, Joe Thomas and later Trummy Young all sang with the band often in trio unison. Unseen, is the choreography of the group's musicians in performance. Of particular delight to fans who saw the band in person was the spectacle of members of the trumpet section tossing their horns high into the air and catching them on the beat (see Miller photo below). In 1935 a long list of superb Decca two-beat recordings associated with Lunceford's name but written by Sy Oliver began; For Dancers Only, Margie, ‘Posin, Slumming On Park Avenue, My Blue Heaven, Organ Grinders Swing etc. are still great listens today. Unfortunately, based on the merits of his band's recordings, Lunceford may never receive his just due as a leader simply because his group's superb showmanship is lost on record.

Although his orchestra-leading career nowhere near paralleled in longevity that of Basie or Ellington, for a time from 1935 until Sy Oliver left his band to work for Tommy Dorsey in 1939, the Lunceford band was one of the most popular in the land. The distinctive Lunceford style, generally identified with Sy Oliver although many other arrangers contributed to the bands vast book, influenced many bandleaders and arrangers right up to the 1950’s. Glenn Miller was influenced by the Lunceford unit's showmanship (see photo below) and Tommy Dorsey, after Sy Oliver joined his band, borrowed much from the Lunceford tradition. Many albums described as tributes to Lunceford have been recorded including those by Sy Oliver, George Williams, Billy May and others.

When Sy Oliver left the band in 1939, Bill Moore Jr. showed up and left a vital impression on the band's books with his Belgium Stomp, Monotony In Four Flats, and I Got It. In 1941 the addition of trumpet man Snooky Young and some fine arrangements by Gerald Wilson further heightened the band's recorded output.

In 1942 Tadd Dameron arranged for the orchestra but the band began to have internal problems. The issues of the band were mainly monetary, precipitated by Lunceford's refusal to pay his players a wage on par with that of other successful bands. Lunceford himself wanted for nothing and was reputed to have a lavish lifestyle which was readily apparent to all of his sidemen. In May of 1942 Lunceford fired many of his key musicians (see article below) and alto man Willie Smith soon left as well, leaving a huge void in the band.

By the time the recording ban ended a mass exodus from the group had occurred. Nevertheless, Jimmie Lunceford was still a popular bandleader in 1947 when he suddenly collapsed and died while signing autographs after an engagement in Oregon. Rumors soon surfaced (including those printed in DownBeat magazine) that a racist restaurant owner, who had a strong aversion about feeding the Lunceford band, actually poisoned the bandleader.

After Lunceford's death, pianist/arranger Ed Wilcox and Joe Thomas tried to keep the orchestra together but in 1949 the band permanently broke up.

I hope you enjoy the podcast and I will try to update this blog more often.