Glenn Miller: A Memorial

CLASSIC JAZZ ALBUM OF THE MONTH

No swing band during the big band era had more hits than Glenn Miller’s, not Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Duke Ellington or Count Basie. In fact, the Miller Orchestra during 1939-42 had more top sellers than those five ensembles combined including no less than 16 that reached number one on the charts and 69 that made it to the top ten of the time. Miller had decided in 1938 not to try to have a swing band on the level of Count Basie’s or Benny Goodman’s. Instead, he mixed together the swing and the sweet, putting on well-paced programs that included romantic ballad vocals, novelties, first-class dance music, and occasional hot instrumentals. Miller also utilized repetitious riffs in clever ways that were memorable. The result was that he had the most popular band of the swing era

It is possible to acquire all of Glenn Miller’s studio recordings but not everything that Miller recorded during those prime years caught on and there are an excess of weary Ray Eberle vocals, dated Marian Hutton novelties, and so-so instrumentals that pale next to those recorded by the stronger jazz bands that will only be enjoyed by completists.

However the two-CD set Glenn Miller: A Memorial (a reissue of a two-LP 1969 compilation) features one classic number after another. The 40 selections are the cream of Glenn Miller’s career and every song was a hit including “Little Brown Jug,” “In The Mood,” “Tuxedo Junction,” “Pennsylvania 6-5000,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “A String Of Pearls,” “American Patrol,” and “St. Louis Blues March” (a ringer from his Army Air Force Band) along with his theme “Moonlight Serenade” and 31 other songs. All of the Glenn Miller favorites are here

Listeners who wonder why Glenn Miller was popular will learn a great deal and be thoroughly entertained by this definitive collection.

Glenn Miller: A Memorial
Bluebird 55103

Scott Yanow

Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.

Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.