FAMOUS MASONS
By W BRO STEPHEN DALLY
The Glenn Miller story The pages of masonic history record famous composers, musicians and band leaders from Mozart and Hayden to Sir Arthur Sullivan. The band leaders of the modern era include Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and of course many other distinguished artists but there was one band leader of the 1930s and 40s who not only changed the style of dance music but also the genre of military marching music.
B
ro Glenn Miller was born in Clarinda, Iowa USA in 1904 and attended schools in Nebraska, Missouri and Colorado. Glenn showed an interest in music from an early age but also developed an interest in a new style called Dance Band music. From his many teenage jobs, including milking cows, he bought his first musical instrument, a trombone, and played in the Grant City Missouri orchestra.
30
FREEMASON JUNE 2015
Glenn’s first dance band was when he was at high school where he played the cornet and mandolin but switched back to the trombone in 1916. In addition to his interest in music and dance bands, he was a first class athlete and football player but by the time he graduated from high school he had made up his mind to be a professional musician. He entered university in 1923 at Colorado but dropped out after five classes in the first semester, deciding to concentrate on a musical career, later studying under Joseph Schillinger, learning the Schillinger technique. Under Schillinger’s support, he wrote what was to become his signature tune of Moonlight Serenade.
During the 1920s, Glenn played with a number of bands, including the Los Angeles Studio Orchestra accompanying Judy Garland and Bing Crosby. He also wrote a number of arrangements and published Glenn Miller’s 125 Jazz Breaks for Trombone. Following some setbacks he decided to stick to writing and composing and in the early thirties he wrote arrangements for Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Joe Venturi and played trombone with their orchestras. In 1935, he assembled an orchestra for the British bandleader Ray Noble and made his first movie appearance in the Paramount Pictures release of The Big Broadcast of 1936 as a member of Ray Noble’s big band playing Why Stars Come out at Night. In 1937 he formed his first band, but in 1938, after playing at the Ritz Ballroom in Bridgeport, Connecticut, he decided to break up the band as he thought they sounded like every other dance band of the thirties. Returning to New York very disappointed, he realised that he needed a new sound completely distinctive from other bands. Combining a clarinet with a tenor saxophone and three saxophones in harmony he produced a melodic sound. Reforming his band, the new sound quickly became popular and very soon the Miller orchestra was playing on radio stations. In 1942, the band received its first Golden Record for its recording of Chattanooga Choo Choo. America entered World War II on 7 December 1941 and in 1942 even though