Big Band Bash

Well, with this last episode we come to the end of a series that I have really enjoyed presenting. Our local PBS station runs reruns of the Lawrence Welk show every Saturday at 6:00pm. I was watching it and the show they were doing was a salute to the swing bands of the 30's and 40's. So I thought let's run a series highlight ten of the top bands and present many of their hit songs. We've been through nine top big bands and this show is the closer. I'll be playing many of the hit songs by the great Duke Ellington. These come from many sources but I think you will recognize many of these Ellington classics. I hope you enjoy the best of Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra.

I've been listening to Gene Krupa's band since 1973. That is the year he passed away and the local jazz show had a tribute to Gene. On this Part 9 of This Is The Best Of,  I will be playing some of the hits of Gene and his band.  The band that had Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge was always my favorite but any band he was the drummer for was a very exciting band.  There is not a lot of patter on this show as I wanted to play this great music. If you are interested in the life of Gene Krupa check out one of my other podcasts on the great drummer. I hope you enjoy the music of Gene Krupa and His Orchestra and thank you for listening.

In the movie, The Nutty Professor from 1963 there is a scene towards the end with Jerry Lewis dancing to the sound of Les Brown playing Leap Frog. It is a swinging song and that is the way I feel about the music of The Band of Renown. On the show today, I am going to continue with part eight of my ten part series I call This Is The Best Of. The band in the spotlight today is Les Brown. We will be playing many hits from the Brown Orchestra and looking at his career. The puzzler is back so I hope you enjoy the music of the great Les Brown and His Band of Renown.

Today we are going to look at the best of Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra on part 7 of This Is The Best Of. Jimmie Lunceford's band differed from other great bands of the time because it was better known for its ensemble than for its solo work. Additionally, he was known for using a two-beat rhythm, called the Lunceford two-beat, as opposed to the standard four-beat rhythm. His band was also know for its showmanship. There were some great sidemen that played with the Lunceford band. Musicians such as Trummy Young, Willie Smith, Sy Oliver and Snookie Young made the band very popular. I hope you enjoy this look at the band and music of Jimmie Lunceford. Thank you all so much for listening.

This is The Best of continues this week with a focus on the music of Harry James. Harry had a great tone and an excellent technique that made him one of the leading trumpeters of the swing era. He started his band in 1938 and struggled for a while until he added strings and started playing sentimental favorites that struck a chord with many people during World War 2. He also had an ear for great vocalists and there were many that sang with his band. Some of the great ones were Frank Sinatra, Helen Forrest, Dick Haymes and Kitty Kallen. I hope you enjoy the music of Harry James on our This Is The Best Of series. Thank you all so much for listening.

This is one of my favorite Best of programs. Today on Part 5 we are going to be listening to some of the best of Artie Shaw's hits. Although they were two different players on the clarinet, I liked them equally well. I came to listen to the Shaw band after my listening stints with Goodman and Miller. I enjoyed the songs and Shaw's star sidemen such as Georgie Auld, Tony Pastor, Buddy Rich and Helen Forrest. I hope you enjoy the songs I have chosen on this episode of This Is The Best of Artie Shaw. Thank you all so much for listening.

Part Four of This is the Best Of features the great music of Count Basie. These are some of his popular recordings from the late 1930's plus a few from the 1950's. Some of the songs feature the vocals of blues singer Jimmy Rushing. Count Basie featured a style of music called Kansas City Swing. These are some great soloists in his band like Lester You, Buck Clayton, Herschel Evans and the Count himself. I hope you enjoys the music of the great Count Basie. Thank you all so much for listening.

Part Three of This is the Best Of features the hits of Tommy Dorsey. He had more hits than I could fit in one hour but this is a good representation of many of his hit recordings.  I started with his theme song and tried to find a good cross section of many of his hits. We'll be hearing the golden trombone sound of Tommy plus vocalists Edythe Wright, Jack Leonard, Frank Sinatra plus Jo Stafford and The Pied Pipers. If you are a fan of the Dorsey band then you'll want to tune in. Thank you all so much for listening.

This is Part Two of a ten part series highlighting the hits and best recordings of ten of the top bands of the swing era. I got the ides from watching the Lawrence Welk show on our local PBS station. His show that week was a salute to the swing bands. Since we just went through a series called revisited where we looked at some of the lesser known bands I thought let's play some of the hits of the top bands. These are the songs that made me fall in love with this great music. Today's Best of features the music of Glenn Miller. I became a fan of Glenn's music when I was in High School and I still enjoy those great songs and hope you do as well.

This is Part one of a ten part series highlighting the hits and best recordings of ten of the top bands of the swing era. I got the ides from watching the Lawrence Welk show on our local PBS station. His show that week was a salute to the swing bands. Since we just went through a series called revisited where we looked at some of the lesser known bands I thought let's play some of the hits of the top bands. These are the songs that made me fall in love with this great music. Today's Best of features the music of Benny Goodman.

Well with this tenth part we are bringing to a close my revisited series. Today's show features the band of the great trumpeter Charlie Spivak.  He played with some of the top bands in the late 1930's like Bob Crosby (1938), Tommy Dorsey (1938–1939), and Jack Teagarden (1939) before launching his own band. The vocalist on most of these recordings is his wife Irene Daye. I hope you enjoy these great side by the big band of Charlie Spivak.

In Part 9 of this ten part series, we are going back to a show that I did in 2019 on a very fine trumpet player by the name of Randy Brooks. He played with several big bands such as Claude Thornhill and Les Brown before starting his own band in early 1945. He married Ina Ray Hutton and moved to Los Angeles where he suffered a stroke and was unable to continue as a musician. He died at the age of 49 of smoke inhalation in a fire at his Sandford, Maine, apartment. I hope you enjoy the music by Randy Brooks and his then wife Ina Ray Hutton.

This week's Revisited episode is on the band of Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy. Andy Kirk was an American jazz saxophonist and tubist who led the Twelve Clouds of Joy, a band popular during the swing-era. Their pianist, and the band's arranger, was Mary Lou Williams, who went on to become a prominent figure in jazz. There is some great music in this programs and I hope you enjoy Andy Kirk as we revisited this popular band.

On Part 7 of my revisited series, I'm going back to a program I produced in 2012. I called it Two Kays because I highlighted Kay Kyser and Sammy Kaye. They had two very good bands and played in what is called the sweet style of swing. There is some good music in this program and I hope you enjoy the music of Kay Kyser and Sammy Kaye.

This week's show is part 6 of my revisited series. We are going to revisit the music of the late pianist and composer Claude Thornhill. His band was not as driving or swinging as some of the others but he produced some beautiful songs that are some of my favorites from that era. August 10 is also Claude's birthday so most of this show is from a birthday salute I did for Claude several years ago. I hope you enjoy hearing again those Thornhill classics on the program today.