Big Band Bash

The Revisited series continues this week with part 5 featuring music from the band of Bob Crosby and the Bobcats. Bob was the younger brother of Bing Crosby and a fine vocalist in his own right. But he became a band leader when he was picked to lead members of the disbanded Ben Pollack orchestra. He was the front man and saxophonist Gil Rodin was the man who ran the band. They had quite a few hits and I hope you enjoy the great sounds of the Bob Crosby orchestra.

The Revisited series continues this week with a look back at the music and career of Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra. He is best remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" (1939) with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson. The song became a hit during World War II, rising to No. 7 nationally (version by the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra) and to No. 1 nationally (version by the Glenn Miller Orchestra).

The Revisited series continues this week with a look back at the music and career of Glenn Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra. As an orchestra they predated Benny Goodman and the start of the swing era. They had some excellent musicians and had a few big hits in the 30's and 40's. I'll be playing some of these numbers as we look back at the career of the Casa Loma Orchestra.

This week I am continuing with part two of a ten week series I call Revisited. I am going to revisit some bands from the 30's and 40's that I enjoy and that were not the Number One bands at that time. I started the series with a look at Will Bradley's band and this week we will look at the music and career of Larry Clinton. Larry had a very good band and wrote a couple of hits for other bands namely, The Dipsy Doodle, and A Study in Brown. He also had a big hit with a song called My Reverie. I hope you enjoy my revisit of the Larry Clinton Orchestra.

This show is a repeat of the show I produced last year. Here is the copy from that show and I hope you enjoy the program as we celebrate Independance Day here in America. July the 4th is an important day for us here in the United States.  We think of July 4, 1776, as a day that represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America as an independent nation. I tried to put some patriotic music together to celebrate this date. There is not that much patriotic music before World World 2 but what I could find I tried to include in this show. I hope everyone has a safe and happy July 4th holiday and enjoy the music.

In looking back over some of the programs I have done in the past, I decided to revisit about 10 of the lesser bands. Today I am going to revisit the Will Bradley-Ray Mckinley Orchestra.  They had a hit with Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar and produced several other boogie woogie numbers. We'll take a look at the career of Will Bradley on the show. The Puzzler is back too. I hope you enjoy revisiting one of the swingingest bands from that era, the Will Bradley Orchestra.

This week I am going to continue our observance on June 6th 1944 by playing the songs that were in the number one spot in the United States during the years of 1944 and 1945. These were the songs that reached number one in the jukeboxes or on the radio. There is a wide variety of artists on this program and I hope your favorites are among them. In honor of all the men and women who fought and were part of the action on June 6th, 1944 I dedicate these two shows to you. To the listeners, I hope you enjoy the music as much as I did while putting this show together.

June 6, 1944 was an important day in the history of World War 2.  It was called D-Day because it marked the invasion of Normandy, France. Since we just passed June 6th, I thought I would revisit  some of the music from 1942 - 1945. I did a little research and took note of all the songs that were in the number one spot either on the jukeboxes or the airways (radio). Today we will be listening to number one hits from 1942 and 1943 and next week I'll have the number one hits from the last two years. This is a show with a lot of your favorites as we remember the anniversary of June 6th. Thanks again for listening.

May 25, 1917 is the birthday of another big band clarinetist. His name is Jimmy Hamilton. Jimmy achieved his greatest fame as clarinetist with Duke Ellington for 25 years. I have picked out about six songs from a few cds in my collection that Jimmy plays on. They are a little longer in length but you will still get an idea of what a fantastic musician Jimmy was. Our last clarinetist is from a later generation. His name is Ken Peplowski and he was born May 23, 1959. I have two big band and two combo recordings by Ken on today's show. The Puzzler is back this week so I hope you enjoy part four of our May big band clarinetists salute. Thanks again for listening.

May 16, 1913 is the birthday of another big band clarinetist. His name is Woody Herman. I would like to celebrate Woody's birthday by presenting two radio remotes. One is from 1945 at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City New Jersey and the other is from 1940 recorded at the Famous Door on Fifty Second Street in New Your City. The 1945 remote has a few vocals by Frances Wayne and Woody has a few vocals as well. The Puzzler is back this week so I hope you enjoy part three of our May big band clarinetists salute. Thanks again for listening.

On part-two of our May clarinetists birthday celebrations, we pay a birthday salute to Artie Shaw who was born on May 23, 1910. I have done birthday shows for Artie in the past and you can find them in older podcasts, but today's show is a little different. I have a three disc set of all the numbers that Artie did while he was on the Melody and Madness show. I have picked out several of those numbers and we'll learn about the history of Melody and Madness in which Artie was on from late 1938 to the Spring of 1939.  I hope you enjoy the show as we celebrate the birthday of the great mesian, band leaser, and clarinetist Artie Shaw. Thanks again for listening.

In the month of May, several jazz and big band clarinetists were born. Here are some that I know of: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Jimmy Hamilton, Edmond Hall, and Ken Peplowski, who is still with us. So as I usually do, I will be presenting music by these great players and band leaders. Our first birthday celebration is for Benny Goodman. He was born May 30, 1909. I thought it would be fun to listen to a couple of radio remotes that I have to celebrate Benny's birthday. The first is from 1937 recorded at the Madhattan Room of the Hotel Pennsylvania and the second is from 1936 recorded at the Congress Hotel In Chicago. Happy Birthday Benny.

There were a couple of big bands in the 1940's there weren't satisfied with the typical big band sound. One was Stan Kenton and the other is the subject of our program today. Boyd Raeburn started with a dance orchestra but became dissatisfied and hired arrangers to create some non-typical big band sounds.  Now a days they sound fine but back then his band played some wild and exciting music. We'll be learning about Boyd and his band as well as listening to some of his music. Thanks again for listening.

Duke Ellington was born on April 29th, 1899. This week we celebrate Duke's birthday by playing some of his hits from a four disc set called The Essential Duke Ellington.  Also, instead of telling his biography again I elected to disclose some trivia about Duke and read from an article about Why Duke Ellington is Famous. If you are an Ellington fan as I am then you are sure to enjoy this show. Thank you again for listening.

I call this program A Salute to Doc Severinsen. It is my salute after viewing the PBS Special Never Too Late: The Doc Severinsen Story.  Doc is a first class trumpet player who has played in many big bands throughout his career in addition to leading The Tonight Show big band for 25 years. I have picked out a couple of songs from the many Severinsen albums in my collection and we'll also hear a few from the three cds he recorded with the Tonight Show Band. I hope you enjoy the music of trumpet great 93 years old Doc Severinsen.