Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.

Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.
The End of the Swing Era Several factors combine to bring the swing era to an end. The United States entrance into World War II caused many musicians to get drafted or enlist. Along with this came gas and rubber rationing. Keeping a band on the road became almost impossible. The more famous bands survived but many of the road bands died out. A recording ban enacted in 1942 ceased all recording of union musicians. This and battles over royal ties from ASCAP (The American Society of Composer, Authors and Publishers) caused the absence of any new music and many radio stations would not play any ASCAP licensed existing music . A link follows with an excellent original article from Down Beat Magazine at the time. Another factor was simply that America was ready for something new. The swing band era had a remarkable ten year run. As the troops came home from Worl d War II they were ready to get on with their lives and leave the war years behind them. It was a new day with a new cold war, atomic weapons and ever growing suburbs. Many peo ple left the cities and dance halls to raise families in the peaceful , clean new suburbs. Many jazz musicians themselves had grown weary of the big band format. Bands such as Glen Miller ’s had commercialized and sanitized the music so much that it hardly resembled the rough, improvised music that it came out of. Jazz left the ballrooms and dance halls and retreated back to the clubs.
Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.
Dance, Dance, Dance!!! On December 5, 1933, the ratification of the twenty first amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. Prohibition was over. Illegal drinking was no longer enough of an attraction to keep clubs full. Former speakeasy owners needed something new to bring in customers. Dancing was their answer. The great depression was going strong. People needed fu n and cheap entertainment. The large dance halls offered a great way for people to dance their stress and blues away at a price they could afford. Dance crazes were nothing new in the 1930s. The early 1920s had the Charleston, 1927 gave us the Lindy hop. T he Shimmy, The Big Apple, The Fox Trot, The Varsity Drag and The Jitterbug all followed. Harlem was the hot spot for dancing and the hottest spot of them all was The Savoy Ballroom. The Savoy was a huge dance hall that often featured a “Battle of the Band s”. Two competing swing bands would set up on either end of the dance floor. One would play a tune or two then the other would try to outdo them. Sometimes they would battle using the exact same arrangement so you could really see and hear which band did i t better The black bands of Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb and Duke Ellington had been playing for these dances and this style for several years before a young clarinetist named Benny Goodman showed up. Benny Goodman starts out as a young bandleader and c larinet player. He secures a good gig at the new Roseland Ballroom which leads to a 3 hour Saturday night radio show called “Let’s Dance”. Along the way a friend suggests he needs to liven up his act with some arrangements like Fletcher Henderson and Chick Webb were playing. This is around 1934 and Henderson’s band is falling apart. Henderson gladly sells his entire “book” (his group of arrangements for his band) to Goodman and signs on as an arranger for more tunes. The radio show featured three bands -a sw eet band, a Latin band and, for the last hour, a “hot” band. Goodman’s band was the “hot” band. These shows were heard across the nation and recorded. Unfortunately, the gig ended when the sponsor, Nabisco, suffered a labor strike. Goodman had to scramble to find work and ended up booking a cross country tour. Across the Midwest, this tour was generally a failure. The audiences, many of whom hadn’t been listening to the late night dance show, expected the tame, commercial, “sweet” dance music that they had become accustomed to. Whenever Goodman would call one the “hot” numbers from his book club owners and the audience would complain and generally Benny Goodman react badly. By the time the Goodman band had reached the West coast they had assumed the band would fold up an d go home defeated. But, they hadn’t counted on the young college students listening to the Let’s Dance show on their radios at night. Due to the three hour time zone differences, young high school and college students were hearing Goodman’s broadcast at e ight or nine in the evening…..before their bedtime! Goodman was huge in L.A. and didn’t even know it! When the band arrived in Los Angeles they didn’t know who the big crowd out front was waiting for. They went into their set of music, avoiding the “hot” t unes that had got them in trouble all across the continent. The crowd sat politely. Finally, legend has it, one of the band members said, “If we’re going to go out, let’s go out swinging” and they called one of their “hot” tunes. The crowd jumps to its fee t and pandemonium ensues. The Swing Era is born and Benny Goodman is crowned “The King of Swing”. Within months swing is the hottest thing in music. Hundreds of bands are forming and millions of records are being sold.
Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.
Here is a copy of a good article on the beginnings of the swing era. The Great Depression, the rise of radio, better recording technology, jukeboxes and the rising economic power of America’s youth all combine to set the stage for the rise of swing music. Remember jazz, from its beginnings through this period, was primarily dance music. Swing band music was America’s popular music during this period. While today, jazz music represents a very small segment of music sales and popularity, during the swing era, jazz was, by far, the most popular music in America and, perhaps, the world. The symbolic date and event that marks the beginning of the Big Band Swing era is the summer of 1935 when Benny Goodman played at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles. http://www.swingmusic.net/ . The Big Band Era And The Rise In Popularity Of Big Band Music The Benny Goodman Orchestra early in the Big Band era The History Of Jazz Music – World Overview In Part I of our look at the history of jazz music leading up to the Big Band era we discussed some of the early big bands, hotel bands, and advances and evolutions in jazz music that helped set the stage for its rise in popularity. This part of the discussion will attempt to provide an overview of the many external factors outside of the music itself that not only set the stage for the Big Band era to occur but also helped increase and sustain the approbat ion of jazz in the public’s eye. The Big Band era is generally regarded as having occurred between the years 1935 and 1945. It was the only time in history that the popularity of jazz music eclipsed all other forms of music in the U.S. Rightly or wrongly t he appearance of Benny Goodman and his big band at the Palomar in Los Angeles in August of 1935 is often referred to as the official start of the Swing era. While Benny Goodman undoubtedly had a great big band, it should be clear by now that his may not ha ve been the “best” or even most original big band playing hot jazz music at the time. Just as Benny Goodman did not start, conceive, or bring to fruition the Big Band era on his own, so no one incident can be cited as its genesis. Rather many circumstances , incidents, conditions, and inventions seemed to all work together and should be taken into account when viewing its conception. On the morning of “Black T uesday ,” October 24th, 1929, a great sell off on the New York Stock Exchange occurred triggering pan ic by investors. While the market bounced back a bit that afternoon, on the ensuing Monday and Tuesday it plummeted again and soon America was in the midst of the Great Depression. On December 11th, 1931 The New York Bank of the United States collapsed. Th ese incidents helped bring to an end the prosperity, frivolity, and gaiety of the roaring 20’s. Money began to get extremely tough to come by. The public was not able to afford to go out and see live music performed or buy records. Work was hard to find fo r everyone let alone musicians. Record sales were at an all time low. Many talented players worked the studios of radio networks and stations or were hidden in the confines of the few “sweet” dance orchestras able to stay afloat. Enter the free entertainme nt world of radio. In the 1930s radio became a household appliance. It is estimated that by 1935, the number of homes with radios was nearly 23 million, the total audience around 91 million. This was the “Golden Age Of Radio” when shows like “The Shadow,” “Amos & Andy,” “Tarzan,” “Fibber McGee And Molly,” and “The Lone Ranger” were at peak popularity. Studio musicians made their money as background instrumentalists both for shows and commercials. Radio executives had learned in the 1920s that music shows we re also successful. However, as far as nationally broadcast music shows in the years preceding 1934, dance and “sweet” bands still dominated the airwaves. The general public was still only dimly aware of the great black jazz orchestras. Benny Goodman’s Let ‘s Dance broadcasts, which aired regularly in 1934, were one of the first such weekly live radio broadcasts of hot jazz music to be aired by a national network on a steady, reoccurring basis. Given the economic conditions of the time it may be surprising t hat during this period advances in recording technology, and in particular the microphone, were changing the way Americans could hear recorded music and radio broadcasts. The ribbon or “velocity” microphone was introduced by RCA in 1931, as the model 44A, and became one of the most widely used microphones in vocal recording. Many bands today hoping to achieve a more authentic “vintage” sound still use the 44A. Another advance in recording sound came in 1933 when RCA introduced the 77A, cardioid pattern, dua l ribbon microphone. These advances in sound enabled subtle nuances in both playing and singing to be amplified for the first time and made for better live broadcasts. Up until these advances vocalists were required to get up and belt out a song with many of the subtleties in inflection and voice tone being lost. Advances in the discs that music was recorded on were being worked on and experimented with during the Great Depression as well. By the late 1930s a limited use of vinyl resin to replace shellac po inted the way to quieter records. Lacquer -coated aluminum discs also came into use in the recording process. These had a quieter surface and for the first time allowed immediate playback in the studio for auditioning purposes. This enabled both engineers a nd musicians the ability to instantly make adjustments of microphone or personnel placement, further refining their recordings. These advances in disc recording, being honed during the Great Depression, had significant impact on the quality of recorded mus ic during the Big Band era. However in the early 1930s these advances were still in their infancy. Live radio broadcasts of music with the new microphones were nearly as good, quality -wise, (assuming the reception was clear) as personally owned recordings, and certainly much more affordable. In 1933 Homer Capehart sold the Simplex record changer mechanism to the Wurlitzer Company. The jukebox was to become an important tool in the popularity and accessibility of big band swing music, and by the late 1930s o ne could find them located in speakeasies, ice cream parlors, and even drugstores. The jukebox was at least part of the reason record sales began to show a tremendous increase toward the end of the decade. The disc jockey, a term not used until about 1940, was also to become a significant factor in getting music out to the public. At first the large U.S. radio networks were against the idea. In the early 1930s they sternly reiterated their policies in a memorandum discouraging the use of recordings in netwo rk broadcasts. But the records were already spinning on local programs. Los Angeles radio man Al Jarvis was playing records and talking about them on a successful program called “The World’s Largest Make Believe Ballroom.” Jarvis and his program were very popular on KFWB in the small Los Angeles radio market in the early 1930s. Originally a junior assistant at KFWB, Martin Block, who had moved to New York, borrowed the same concept during the breaks in the high profile Bruno -Hauptman trial on network radio and was met with great success in 1935. Although often controversial to the musician’s union, to jazz writers, to music fans and to musicians themselves, these record jockeys, as they were called, were soon entertaining listeners with discs all over the co untry through the medium of radio. While the youth of 30 years later could listen to thousands of stations catering to many genres of music; such was not the case nationally in the early 1930s. Hot jazz in a big band format was instead spreading in popular ity through college age kids at Ivy League colleges like Yale. The Casa Loma Orchestra was a favorite of the kids there. In New York a new dance known as the Lindy Hop (named after Charles Lindbergh’s famous Trans -Atlantic flight) was catching on with teen s in ballrooms like the Alhambra, the Renaissance, and the Savoy where some of its most significant adaptations occurred. Kids from a new generation were searching for their own identity, searching for excitement, searching for something to call their own, and searching for the opposite sex. Jazz music through its evolution into swing and these new and energetic dances offered the whole package. Although the swing phenomena spread slowly and in small pockets at first, national publicity through radio and pu blications was about to assist in propelling jazz to the pinnacle of its popularity. Benny Goodman’s Let’s Dance broadcasts first aired in December of 1934. His was the final of several music features of the night making it a late broadcast on the East Coa st. Most high school and college students, who were more apt to like hot jazz music, needed to be up early for school and did not hear these broadcasts. The subsequent U.S. tour by Goodman ending in California in which Benny Goodman was booked following hi s Let’s Dance broadcasts was largely unsuccessful until he hit the West Coast. The band was met with a tremendous amount of ambivalence and even scorn throughout the Midwest. The reason was the 3 -hour time difference of his live broadcasts, between coasts, had enabled many of the youth out West to be tuned in nightly. They were ready and eager to greet and meet the band bringing them this new hot jazz music. The tour culminated with Goodman’s performance at the Palomar in L.A. Although Oakland turnouts were said to have been good and crowds enthusiastic, the band was not expecting what they were met with in Southern California. What seemed to be the end of the road for the Benny Goodman big band suddenly became the beginning of a new era in American music hi story when the kids that night, in the summer of 1935, heard the band launch into a hot jazz number and began crowding around the bandstand cheering and encouraging the group. With the headlines talking about the success of the Benny Goodman big band in Ca lifornia, magazines like Down Beat and Metronome began to print more articles about the music. John Hammond, while known to most for his savvy in discovering artists like Count Basie and Billie Holiday, was writing about big bands in Down Beat as early as 1935. By 1936, when Benny Goodman was performing just blocks away from the magazine’s Chicago offices, articles about the band filled its issues. Jazz in the form of big band swing was now beginning to sweep the nation. Soon live radio remotes were regularly featuring this new swing music coast to coast as nearly all the major hotels in large cities had a “wire,” as it was called, meaning a line installed for broadcast transmission. Jukeboxes were blaring, kids were danci ng, record Credits All material 2003 Jeff Parker adapted from the bibliography list at right except where DB or Metronome magazines are recogn ized. We encourage you to visit your local library or book -store for a wealth of information on Jazz history. Bibliography Rust, Brian . The Dance Bands. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House 1972 Dale, Rodney. The World Of Jazz . Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books 1996 Fordham, John. JAZZ . New York, NY: Dorling Kindersley 1993 Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era . NY, NY: Oxford University Press 1989 Simon, George T., The Big Bands . New York, NY: Schirmer Books 1981 Feather, Leonard, The Encyclopedia Of Jazz . NY, NY: Horizon Press 1960 Lord, Tom, The Jazz Discography. Vancouver, Can.: Lord Music Refer. Inc 1992 jockeys were spinning discs and talking about them and the Big Band era had arrived.
Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.
Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman Benny Goodman’s Small Groups In addition to being America’s newest teen idol with its relentless touring, appearance and recording schedule, Goodman also like to record with a small group. This allowed for much more improvisation and interaction than the big band did. While at a party in the early formations of his band he met and jammed with black pianist Teddy Wilson. Their communication and interplay was a natural fit from the very begi nning. Wilson had a light yet nimble, elegant approach. Goodman immediately started using Wilson in a trio setting with just Goodman, Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa. Within in a year he added black vibraphonist, Lionel Hampton. Hampton was equally nimble an d skilled on his instrument. This group produced some of Goodman’s most memorable tunes including “Avalon” and “Moonglow”. The trio and quartet would play during band intermissions at shows thus becoming the first well known interracial band to perform live concerts. In a time when interracial shows were unthinkable Goodman insisted that a booking agent hire the whole band or get no band at all. The record industry also helped ease the way for interracial concertiz ing. People bought and loved these Goodman recordings. The label on the record didn’t specify race. People just knew it was great music. Goodman took a huge risk by bring this group on the road and playing in public and it the end great music triumphed ove r bigotry. Another groundbreaking (and African – American) musician that Benny brought to the public’s attention was Charlie Christian. Christian generally gets credit for being the first one to effectively use the electric guitar as a melody playing instr ument. Before the use of an amplifier the guitar was primarily a rhythm chording instrument. Single string melody lines were never loud enough to be heard over the whole band. The story goes that Benny absolutely did not want yet another member in his sma ll group but when impresario John Hammonds put him on stage without asking one night; Goodman went from angry to awestruck. It is said their version of “Rose Room” lasted forty minutes! Goodman was concertizing with black musicians and insisting on equal fair treatment for them more than twenty years before Jackie Robinson in baseball, and thirty years before the civil rights era of the 1960s. For many musicians race was simply not a valid criterion for evaluating talent. You were either good or you weren ’t.
Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.
Coleman Hawkins The Rise of the Saxophone Today when we think “jazz” we often think “saxophones”. In early New Orleans and Chicago jazz a lot of the heroes were trumpet/coronet players. Our first swing stars (Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw) are clarinetists. The swing era sees the rise of the saxophone. While the mid 1930s through the mid 1940s is known mostly for the big dance bands of the time, small groups were still working and popular. Benny Goodman had his quartets and quintets as did many others. In Kansas Cit y, where the music relied heavily on blues and improvisation, late night cutting contests were almost the city’s unofficial sport. These late night jam sessions would last for hours. Often, these were not friendly, supportive learning sessions. These were all out battles leaving a last man standing. When a newcomer came on stage to play with the top players those players would do everything they could to embarrass and humiliate the rookie. They call tunes in unfamiliar keys, or count them off really fast or call tunes that they figured the new guy wouldn’t know. Two saxophonists with very different sounds and approaches emerge from these battles to become jazz’s first saxophone heroes: Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Coleman Hawkins – Coleman Hawkins also known as “Hawk” or “Bean” was born in Missouri (1904). Out of high school he was playing in local dance bands when the great blues singer Mamie Smith asked him to join her. That gig took him north to an eventual ten year stint with F letcher Henderson’s band. He was in Fletcher’s band while Louis Armstrong passed through and, most likely, developed some techniques and ideas from him. He had a hard, propulsive attack with a wide vibrato. Over time, Hawkins developed a solo style that w as rooted in the harmonic progression of the song. His fluent knowledge of chord building and chord substitution allowed him to develop solos that had very little to do with the original melody of the song and much more to do with the underlying harmony. H is 1939 recording of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” is now considered a masterpiece and firmly solidified his standing as a jazz saxophone master. In the recording the actual melody of the tune is barely stated at all and “Bean” quickly goes off into ne w harmonic explorations of the tunes chord progression. Never the less the song was a big hit and caused countless young sax players to wear their records out trying to figure out what Hawkins was thinking. Lester Young Lester Young – Lester Young also known as “Prez” and “Pork Pie Hat” (for “The President of the Saxophone” and for the hat he usually wore) had a smooth melodic style. Often his improvisations were based on variations of the melody itself. Young referred to soloing as telling stories. Young didn’t accept Hawkin’s staccato, hard, chord based style of playing. The music he was hearing in his head was more linear and melodic. His early heroes were Bix Biederbecke and Frankie Trumbauer , often described as jazz’s first “cool” players. In 1934 “Prez” joined Count Basie’s band in Kansas City. Basie’s powerful yet cool sound was perfect for Young. Saxophonists of the day usually broke solidly into two camps: Lester Young’s cool, melodic style or Coleman Hawkins’ harder edged, harmonic styl e. “Bean” “Prez” in his pork pie hat
Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.
William “Count” Basi e Andy Kirk and his 12 Clouds of Joy. That is pianist and arranger, Mary Lou Williams in the center. Count Basie and the Territory Bands Many of the territory bands roaming Midwest could not afford the custom arrangements of the more commercially successful big band. Also, many of these bands contained members who could not read music or were not very go od at it. These bands relied on the improvisational skills of their key members combined with very simple “head” arrangements. Head arrangements a re basically simple versions of common tunes often worked up verbally in rehearsals or even on the bandstand in the middle of a show. Many significant improvisers in jazz received their training in these types of bands and environments. Coleman Hawkins, Be n Webster, Lester Young and Count Basie all hailed from these loose groups of intrepid road warriors. Kansas City was a town that seemed to have been immune to the effects of the Great Depression. This was due to rampant corruption , leading to virtual law lessness. Drugs, gambling, prostitution, back room deals of every kind were commonplace. This lead to a situation similar to Storyville in turn of the century New Orleans ….lots of venues in need of music to keep the party rolling. Count Basie was originally a pianist in the well established Benny Moten band. This was already perhaps the finest band in Kansas City. After Moten’s untimely death in 1935 (tonsillectomy gone bad) Count Basie took over. During the 1930s and 1940s Basi e’s book consisted primarily of blues and riff based head arrangements. The extremely long lived band (lasted until Basie’s death in 1984) grew a reputation for being able to swing harder than any other band while simultaneously sounding very relaxed. Basi e’s piano style was extremely minimalist with just a note or two here and a single chord there. His rhythm section of Water Page on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums and Freddie Green on Guitar is often referred as the best rhythm section in the history of j azz. It propelled the band through control and nuance rather than heavy Big Joe Turner Lester Young handed pounding. The band could play so quiet you could barely even hear them, yet the propulsion of the “swing” was incredibly strong and infectious. Many versions of the Basie band featured the great “blues shouters” of the Kansas City scene. Jimmie Rushing and Joe Williams, both large men with huge voices, lent their talents. But the real legacy of the Basie Band was its rhythm section and it s great soloists : Lester Young , Ben Webster and Hershel Evans on saxophones and “Hot Lips” Page and Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpets to name a few. Basie’s big break comes when John Hammonds (the man behind Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and ev en Bruce Springsteen) hears Basie on an experimental short wave radio station while sitting in his car outside of a club in New York. This fresh, exuberant, lightly arranged sound of a big band becomes his personal obsession and mission. He writes about th e band in Down Beat magazine and convinces the Music Corporation of America (MCA) to sign them and bring them to New York. Through the use of this “riff based arranging” Basie’s band contains the great attributes of a small combo with great soloists and a relaxed swing, with the power and drive of a full big band. His band will always be recognized for its great soloists and hard swinging. In our review of big band styles we now have three basic approaches to arranging for a large band: Sectional Arrang ing -The style of Fletcher Henderson and Benny Goodman arrangements where most of the music is written out with short solo areas inserted . Each section of the band usually plays together and their parts are written as harmonized single lines. Orchestral A rranging – A style associated with Duke Ellington. Most of the music is written out, as in sectional arranging, but the sectional “rules” are not followed as closely. The band is treated as thirteen to seventeen individuals rather than three sections. The a pproach to arranging and composing is similar to that of a “classical” composer. Duke even wrote “suites” and used other classical song forms for his later compositions. Riff Based Arranging – The style associated with Count Basie and other Midwestern terr itory bands. In this style much less is written out. The emphasis is on soloists and soloing. Many of the tunes are based on simple blues riffs and sometimes are created on the spot. Even as Basie’s band grew and its arrangements became more detailed, the blues and improvisation were always present.
Answer the questions below and the discussion. 1. What did Benny Goodman do after his “Let’s Dance” show was cancelled and how did this lead to his being “crowned” the “King of Swing”? 2.
Artie Shaw Tommy Dorsey Other Popular Big Bands of the Swing Era Goodman’s success gave many other bands the opportunities they needed to achieve their own popularity. Some of the more commercially successful bandleaders were: Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmie Lunceford and, the most commercially successful of them of them all, Glen n Miller. Duke Ellington enjoyed great popularity on the heels of live broadcasts from his old Cotton Club gig. The swing era created hundreds of bands travelling all throughout the country. “Territory Bands” roamed the Midwest living out of buses, putting in thousands of miles on the road and doing hundreds of gigs a year. Even the more famous and popular bands maintained grueling road schedules. One Duke Ellington band member said that when he left the Ellington band he slept for a year! Artie Shaw – Artie Shaw was also a clarinetist. He reached a level of popularity and record sales equal to Goodman’s. Shaw’s playing is considered more technically proficient but less swinging. He was as celebrated for his love life as he was for his playing. His string of wives included Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. In 1938 his recording of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” became one of the most popular records of the late 19 30s. Shaw’s distaste for the popular music industry is legendary and “Begin the Beguine” became one of the big reasons he folded up his band and left the music scene. The audiences and promoters wanted to hear that song and nothing else. He felt that the p ublic would not let him progress his art and sound beyond that one song. Tommy Dorsey – Dorsey was a trombone player with a remarkable, melodic sound. He used his trombone as a feature melody instrument. His emphasis seemed to be more towards great music rather than just a dance band. His other claim to fame would be that he gave Frank Sinat ra his first big hits. The Jimmie Lunceford Band Cab Calloway Chick Webb Jimmie Lunceford – Lunceford’s band was known for its incredible showmanship. His was one of the bands that replaced Duke Ellington’s at the Cotton Club (Ellington left in 1931). When you went to a Lunceford performance you saw a show. The band had dance moves, jokes…constant action. Every member of the band was an expert in their field and a total professional. Cab Calloway – The “Hi -De -Ho Man”, Cab Callo way’s band shared the Cotton Club gig with Lunceford after Ellington. He was also a great showman. He was very tall, lanky and usually wore a white tuxedo with tails. His 1931 “Minnie the Moocher” gained him everlasting popularity. Chick We bb – Chick Webb ran the house band at New York’s biggest and most popular dance hall, The Savoy Ballroom. The Savoy was THE place to be for incredible dancing and hard swinging dance bands. The ballroom took up the second floor of an entire city block. The club would often feature “Battle of the Bands”. Two bands would set up on either end of the dance floor and have “cutting contests” against each other. Many legendary battles took place there and Webb’s band was often the victor. He also gave Ella Fitzger ald her first gigs as a teenager and when Webb passed Ella took over the band for a short time. Glenn Miller Gle nn Miller – The Glen Miller Band eventually surpassed Benny Goodman’s in mass popularity and record sales by using very commercial arrangements with lots of vocals. His sound and records with The Andrew Sisters practically define the swing sound of t he WW II years. Saying his was a jazz band might even be pushing the definition. The was very little improvisation or cutting edge sound coming out of his band. Nevertheless, they were one of the most popular bands of the time and brought many new fans to the jazz genre. Miller disappeared over the English Channel during WW II leading to some “Elvis is still alive” kinds of speculation at the time.