Big Band Bash

Summer is a special time of year. It means many different things to people all over the world. Today's program is a look at the many different songs of Summer recorded by the Big Bands. I have included the word Summer in the title and also the months of June, July and August and a few with the word hot. I hope you enjoy this program of assorted songs about the Summer season.

Listening to a live big band is a thrilling experience. Back in the 1930's and 40's before the advent of television, people were often able to hear their favorite bands playing on the radio. Many of these performances were recorded and I am fortunate to have several in my collection. Our first and third remote today is from the Victory Parade of Spotllight Bands program. From that series I have performances by Gene Krupa and Charlie Spivak. To separate them I have a remote by the Glenn Miller orchestra from 1939. I hope you enjoy the sounds of the big bands performing live on the radio.

In May and Early June there are three important dates that people living in the United States observe. May 8th is VE (or Victory in Europe ) Day, The last Monday of the Month is Memorial Day and June Sixth is D-Day. I would like to play some music from the war years as I tell a little bit about each of these important dates. I know there are listeners from other countries who don't know about these dates but you can still enjoy the music. I hope you enjoy this program as I tell about three important American dates.

This is part 2 of our look at another volume in Time Life records ambitious project called "The Swing Era". It was a ten volume set with three records included in each volume. Today we turn to the years of 1940-1941. The songs were rerecorded by the bands of Billy May and Glen Gray. I have this set and thought instead of hearing the recreations that it would be interesting to hear the originals. So I'm borrowing the playlist and presenting the original recordings. There are about 30 songs so I'm going to break it up into two parts. I hope you enjoy the music as I present part 2 of the years 1940-1941.

1940 - 1941 were good years for the big bands as they were full of great music. For the next two weeks I am going to be playing another program from the Time-Life series, "The Swing Era". This was a really good series presented in two year segments. Each set came with three records and a nice book telling about the music in the set. This is a rerun of a show I produced back in 2015. Due to some family health issues time was short this week.

Hello and welcome to part two of my cover song program. I have picked out eight more popular songs of which we'll listen to the original and then we'll hear the cover version. I enjoyed listening to the comparisons. Some of them are quite different. Some of the originals are The Dipsy Doodle, My Blue Heaven, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, What's New and others. I hope you enjoy this program of cover songs.

In the music world, a cover or cover song is a recording of a popular song by another band. Usually the band rearranges the song in a different style. On this Part One of two we are going to be listening to covers of some of the popular songs from the swing era. I will play the original and then after that the cover by a different band. There are some interesting and nicely done covers on our show today and I hope you enjoy the comparisons.

April 29, 1899 is the birthday of the late Duke Ellington. Duke was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a big band from 1923 through the rest of his life. I have put together a show from recordings and remotes as we celebrate his birthday with some of the many famous songs that he composed. I hope you enjoy this salute to one of the greatest big band leaders in music history.

I hope you'll join me as I present a show about Spring Songs. I haven't produced a show about Spring songs on Big Band Bash so I thought I would try to find songs with either Spring in the title or the months of spring. It was a fun show to produce as there were lots of songs and lots of different artists. The puzzler is back so I hope you enjoy the big bands and their versions of the many songs of Spring.

Hello everyone. Today's show is part two of the Time-Life Swing Era set that we started last week. This show featured music from the years of 1939 and 1940. The book that was included in the set was called 1939: A Real Dream Of A Year.  These are recreations of all famous swing songs with the assistance of Billy May Orchestra and Glenn Gray's Casa Loma Orchestra. Vocals by Helen Forrest and Trummy Young except on this show I am playing the oringinal recordings if possible.

Hello everyone. This week's show is a rebroadcast of a two part show I did way back in 2014. Back then I did a series on the Time-Life Swing Era project which was an ambitious undertaking trying to recreate the recording of the swing era but in better sound quality. It was presented in years so today's show is on the recordings spanning 1939-1940. In my show I tried to present the original recordings instead of the rerecordings in the set. It is a great playlist full of your favorite recordings. I hope you enjoy these songs from 1939 and 1940.

Well, we wind up our special series on Glenn Miller's Army Air-Force Orchestra with two live broadcasts from the band. One is about 28 minutes and it is from 1943 while the band was still in New York City and the second is about 15 minutes. It is from 1944 and was broadcast when the orchestra was overseas during the later part of World War Two. Then to fill out the show, I have a collection known as The Secret Broadcasts of Glenn Miller's AAF Orchestra. I pulled out 4 numbers from that set. There is some great music on the show today and I hope you enjoy the final program in the AAF Band series as we celebrate Glenn's birthday of March 1st.

I am going to change up our program for Part Three of our Glenn Miller birthday celebration. As you know, for the last couple of weeks I have been taking an in depth look at Glenn's AAF Orchestra. On our show today we start with a recorded broadcast from 1944 of that orchestra. and then some assorted cuts to wind up the show. I don't do much announcing as I did plenty of talking in the last two shows. This is a great broadcast and I hope you enjoy part three of this Glenn Miller birthday celebration.

Part two of my look at the Glenn Miller AEF Orchestra has a couple of medleys, some great swinging sides and another look at the history of the AEF Band. AEF stands for Allied Expeditionary Forces. I hope you enjoy this look at the AEF band as we celebrate Glenn's birthday of March 1st. The puzzler is back and it is an easy one so get ready to listen to some of those great Glenn Miller recordings.

Glenn Miller was born on March 1st 1904. In order to do something special to observe his birthday this year, I would like to focus on his second great orchestra. Glenn built this orchestra with specially picked sidemen and performed with it for the fighting men during World War Two. This series features many of the recordings made by this great outfit. I hope you enjoy the fantastic music of Glenn Miller and His Army Air Force Orchestra.