Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Alton Glenn Miller (March 1, 1904 – December
15, 1944) was an American jazz musician and band
leader in the Swing (genre)|Swing era. One of his
most famous pieces was "In the Mood", probably the
most well-known recording of the style.

== Life and career ==

Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa in 1904.
Several years later, in North Platte, Nebraska, he
started his musical career when his father brought
home a mandolin.  As soon as possible, he traded
the instrument for an old, beat up horn which he
practiced every waking moment.

In 1923, Miller entered the University of
Colorado, but spent most of his time there away
from school, attending auditions and playing any
gigs he could get.  He dropped out of school after
flunking three out of five classes one semester
and decided to concentrate on making a career out
of being a professional musician.

He toured with several orchestras playing trombone
and landed a good spot in Ben Pollack's group in
Los Angeles.  Among the members of that band was a
guy named Benny Goodman who played the clarinet.
During his stint with Pollack, Miller had the
opportunity to write several musical arrangements
of his own. In 1928, when the band arrived in New
York City, he sent for and married his college
sweetheart, Helen Burger.  

During the 1930s, Miller earned a living working
as a Freelancer|freelance trombonist in several
bands, and compiling several musical arrangements
before forming his first band in 1936, but it
failed to distinguish itself from the many others
of the era and fell apart. Jerry Jerome, Hal
McIntyre, Charlie Spivak, Sterling Bose, and
Irving Fazola were some of the musicians in the
band. Kathleen Lane was the singer. 

Discouraged, he returned to New York after it
broke up and realised the problem: he needed a
unique sound and dedicated himself to finding it. 
After a lot of work, he decided to make the
clarinet play a melodic line with a tenor
saxophone|tenor sax on the same note, while three
saxophones harmonised. With this sound, the Miller
band was born in 1937.  This unique sound would
lift his band above other bands of the era. Tex
Beneke, Al Klink, Chummy MacGregor, Billy May,
Johnny Best, Maurice Purtill, and Wilbur Schwartz
were some of the musicians in the band. Ray
Eberle, Marion Hutton and the Modernaires were the
singers. 

His new band immediately attracted attention and
big crowds to venues and a series of recordings
followed.  Beginning in June 1938, Miller
dominated the top spot on the various popular
music charts for over a year, with "In the Mood"
holding the top spot for over fifteen weeks at the
beginning of 1940 and "Tuxedo Junction" taking
over and keeping Miller at number one into the
summer. On February 11 1942,  Miller was presented
with the first ever Gold record for "Chattanooga
Choo Choo". 

His other popular hits included "A String Of
Pearls", "Moonlight Serenade", and "Pennsylvania
6-5000" (which was, and still is, the real
telephone number of the Hotel Pennsylvania in
Manhattan).

== Military service, disappearance, and
personality ==

In 1942, Miller joined the United States Air Force
and was commissioned as a Captain. He was also
appointed Commander of the Band and devoted
himself to reorganising it. Then he formed the
Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band, that gave over
800 performances  overseas in 2 years to US
servicemen. Ray McKinley, Bobby Nichols, Hank
Freeman, Peanuts Hucko and Mel Powell were some of
the musicians in the band. Johnny Desmond and the
Crew Chiefs were the singers. 

On December 15, 1944, he was scheduled to fly from
England to Paris to play for the soldiers that had
recently liberated the city. His plane disappeared
over the English Channel and was never found.
Miller's death remains somewhat of a mystery; the
fact that neither Miller's remains nor the
wreckage of his plane (a single-engined Norseman
UC-64, USAAF Tail Number 44-70285) were ever
recovered from the Channel have led to many
conspiracy theories over the years. A popular
theory holds that, in the foggy weather that
bedeviled the Channel on that date, Glenn Miller's
plane strayed into a "safe drop" zone and was
bombed out of the air by Canadian Air Force
bombers disposing of bombs that went unused during
an aborted bombing run on German positions. 
Despite Miller's death, his band continued to play
for troops until August 1945, when the members
were discharged and returned to New York. 
 
Miller's music is familiar to many born long after
his death, especially from its use in a number of
movies.  James Stewart (actor)|James Stewart
starred as Glenn Miller in 1953's The Glenn Miller
Story, which portrayed many of his compositions.
"Moonlight Serenade" was used in Tom Hanks' Big
(film)|Big.  "In The Mood" was used in Disney's
remake of The Parent Trap, and in 1989 as the
instrumental theme for Jive Bunny & the
Mastermixers "Swing The Mood", a compilation mix
that also included many early rock and roll tunes
and was a number one single in England, Australia
and several other countries.

In April 1992, at his daughter's request, a stone
was placed in Memorial Section H, Number 464-A on
Wilson Drive in Arlington National Cemetery.

According to Leo Walker in his book The Big Band
Almanac, few people knew Glenn Miller well. Two
people who did get to know Miller well, however,
were Don Haynes, Miller’s manager, and George T.
Simon, jazz critic and author of Glenn Miller &
His Orchestra. Don Haynes told Walker that Miller
was a reserved person, but extremely warm towards
those near him. 

But other musicians who were associated with
Miller thought differently. They all respected
Miller, but they described him as all business,
generally cold, perhaps insecure and a person who
had a driving ambition to be successful. They
agreed that Miller was a musical perfectionist.

"Glenn had guts," said George T. Simon in his book
The Big Bands. "He could also spot phonies, whom
he truly detested. If you were straight with
Glenn, he'd give you at least the time of day. But
if you weren't, he wouldn't even give you the time
of night."

==Quotations==

*"A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It
ought to have a personality."
*"I haven’t (got) a great jazz band and I
don’t want one... A dozen colored bands have a
beat better than mine."
*"(The saxophone sound) was always intended to be
an all-around combination; but when we do play a
swing number, we expect and try to make it swing
as much as possible."
*"There is no rest, there must be no rest for a
fellow when he is successful. He has got to keep
right on going... And don’t think that I am the
product of luck or breaks or anything like that. I
have worked hard ever since I came out of the
University of Colorado. I have played the trombone
in so many bands, I can’t count them all."

==Samples==
*Media:Tuxedo Junction.ogg|Download sample of
"Tuxedo Junction" by Glenn Miller

== External links ==
 
*http://www.glennmillerorchestra.com Glenn Miller
Orchestra - USA
*http://www.glennmillerorchestra.co.uk/ Glenn
Miller Orchestra - UK
*http://www.glenn-miller.de/ Glenn Miller
Orchestra - Europe
*http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/historical_infor
mation/glenn_miller.html Arlington National
Cemetery's page on Glenn Miller
*http://www.check-six.com/lib/Famous_Missing/Glenn
_Miller_Flight.htm What happened to Glenn Miller?

==See also==
* Glenn Miller Orchestra