Big Band Bash

This week I am going to conlude the Jerry Atkins Collection series with a couple of albums each by Buddy Bregman, Stan Kenton and Gene Krupa. Jerry was the man responsible for starting my career on public radio in Texarkana, Texas. It was while I was working at KTXK that our station manager asked me if I thought I could produce a big band show to air at 10:00pm Saturday eveings. I have been producing shows since 2006. Jerry passed away in 2010 and we are fortunate to have his extensive record collection at the station. I will continue to go through the many albums as time is available and play some more of these great albums from my friend, Jerry Atkins and his wonderful record collection.

This week we continue with Part Two of a show called Artie Shaw Revisited. Since I ran out of time last week on producing segment three of the Jerry Atkins collection, I wanted to honor a request I received for some music from Artie Shaw and his orchestra. Next week, I hope to have the third show from Jerry's collection completed, but until then, I hope you enjoy some great music and interview segments from Artie himself.

Hello everyone. Since I ran out of time for part three of the Jerry Atkins Collection, I am going to play a show that I produced in 2015. I had a request to play some Artie Shaw so I hope you will enjoy this two part show I called Artie Shaw revisited. I put this show together back in 2015 and it has a lot of your Artie Shaw favorites plus a few interview excepts from Artie himself.

Hello everyone. This is part two of a series I call the Jerry Atkins Collection. Jerry had a show on Saturdays on the radio station I work at called The Enjoyment of Jazz. He played recordings from his massive record collection and entertained us with stories of his meetings and befriending many of the jazz masters. Sadly, Jerry passed away in 2010. His son, who is also a great jazz musician, donated many of the albums and cds in his father's collection to our station. Jerry collected albums by lots of jazz musicians but he liked the more modern big bands. This week I have pulled out several of the Woody Herman albums in the collection. I have digitized them and cleaned up the ticks and pops and background noise as best I could. So as I pay a small tribute to my friend I hope you enjoy this set of recordings from the Jerry Atkins Collection.

Jerry Atkins was a well known musician, jazz historian, and record collector who lived in Texarkana, Texas until his passing in 2010. His record collection was huge and was donated to the the radio station where I work and produce Big Band Bash. Since most of these albums have not been purchased by the station, I have been digitizing some of them. It is amazing how well the software cleans up ticks and pops and eliminates surface noise from the records. I have decided to present four shows from the many albums that Jerry had. Part one features several albums by Les Brown, Part two will be Woody Herman, Parts three and four will be assorted bands. I hope you enjoy the music from the many record albums in the Jerry Atkins Collection.

Hello everyone. On this week's show I am going to wrap up Songs of the 1920's. We'll conclude the alphabet and then I'll present some odds and ends. This was a fun series to research and present. The 1920's was a time for great music from some of the best composers in America. Next time I'll have some new shows that I think you'll enjoy.

This week continues our look at the songs composed in the 1920s. We start with the letter N and go down to the Letter T. The puzzler is back this week so I hope you have your thinking caps on. Next week we'll conclude our series with the last part of the alphabet along with some odds and ends. I hope you enjoy the music from the big bands as they play the Songs of the 1920s.

Welcome back to this four part series on songs of the 1920s. Today we cover songs from that decade that begin with the letter "E" and go all the way down to "M". I broke my rule for this series by playing two songs on the show recorded by Artie Shaw. I had already recorded the introductions when I discovered I did this but I am sure you won't mind because it is one of his best sides. I hope you enjoy this look back at some of the many hit songs from the 1920s. As usual the puzzle is back so get your thinking caps on.

The 1920s were a decade filled with original songs by some of the leading composers of the era. I found a list of many of the popular songs composed in the 1920s and thought it would be fun to listen to those songs as recorded by the big bands of the thirties and forties. Each show for the next four weeks is filled with all of those great songs composed in the 1920s. I did have one rule for myself. In order to make it interesting I only chose one big band per episode. That way one band would not monopolize the show. So get ready to back to the 1920's during the month of August on Big Band Bash.

This week I am going to continue with part two of the Mosaic box set, The Classic Columbia and Okeh Benny Goodman Orchestra Session 1939 -1957. These are many of the recordings that Benny made during those years and these are all instrumental recordings. Benny had some great vocalists during those years but Mosaic kept this set to just instrumentals. Some of the songs we'll be listening to include, Jersey Bounce, A String of Pearls, Birth of the Blues, I'll Get By, and many more. This set is no longer available and so I am happy to be able to present some of these great recordings. I hope you enjoy a look at some of the recordings by Benny and the orchestra.

This week we will be listening to selections from a Mosaic Record Company set that I have called the Classic Columbia and Okeh Benny Goodman Orchestra Sessions. This is part one of a show I did back in 2012 and repeated almost three years ago in 2019. These are all the instrumental recordings that Benny did for Columbia and the Okeh record label. Unfortunately the producers of this set omitted all the vocals. But there is some fantastic music by the Goodman band starting in 1939 when he switched to the Columbia label. If you are a Benny Goodman fan then I hope you enjoy these two programs.

This week wraps of the set from Time Life records set The Swing Era 1941-1942 Part 2. There is some fantastic music in this set and some of the songs we'll be hearing include Blue Flame, Benny Rides Again, Chattanooga Choo Choo, The Mole, Well Git It and many others. These were some of the most popular songs from those two years. As usual I tried to play the original version rather than the recreations. I you you enjoy these great songs from Time Life The Swing Era 1941-1942 Part 2. I hope you enjoy this program that I originally produced in 2015.

The months right before and after the beginning of World War 2 had some great music from the big bands. The Time-Life set we are playing from today features many of those songs. We'll be hearing from the bands of Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and many others. As usual I am following the playlist from this set but instead of playing the recreations I am presenting the original recordings if I have them. I hope you enjoy this program that I originally produced in 2015.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Big Band Bash. This is a rerun of a holiday show that I produced a few years ago for a Fourth of July rememberance. This was one of the first Fourth of July programs that I have done in the many years of hosting and producing Big Band Bash. I hope everyone has a safe holiday and for the listeners from other countries I hope you enjoy the music.

This week I am going to continue with Part Two of Songs of Summer. There are some different versions of songs with summer in the title.  I mistakenly picked the same song twice. Luckily it is by two different bands so I included it in the show. I hope wherever you are it is cool because for the last week it has been very hot here in Texas. I hope you enjoy part two of Songs of Summer by the big bands.