Big Bands and Other Thoughts Of Interest

Yesterday in the mail I received Jack Behrens' recent book entitled America's Music Makers:  Big Bands and Ballrooms 1912-2011, and it has been an interesting read so far.   Mr. Behrens has written another book on the subject a couple of years earlier that I have in my library at home, and after reading the first book I got in touch with him.  Behrens is a very thoughtful individual, and also has been a joy to talk to, being he both has good taste in music as well as being a fellow Christian as I am too.  His books are by no means what you would call a scholarly discourse, but they are good reading and they are well-written, being that Mr. Behrens is also a professional writer.   One of my other friends, Joe Enroughty, who has an orchestra in Richmond, VA, alerted me to the new book, and I had just purchased it recently.  Reading Behrens' thoughts in the book sort of piqued my own interest in possibly making my interest in big band recordings a little more down-to-earth with a personal twist, which I have already done to some degree with some earlier articles I have written prior to this one.   It is a daunting task, because how do you integrate something that you were too young to experience in its heyday into your own life as something that is meaningful?  Not saying that it isn't or anything, because a lot of my personal identity is tied into the music I listen to, but putting into an expression by writing has proven to be more of a challenge.  However, there are some facts we have established in previous articles about how this music has impacted me, and these are a couple of those:

1. I view it as an important part of my personal testimony, because I feel God has given me a taste for this great music to protect me from some of the ills and mindsets of my generation
2. My record collection has provided me with a lot of memorable stories too, as certain items in it have proven to stimulate certain memories for me

But, despite these general things, there should be a personal element to it as well, and maybe I should spend some time talking about that.   Over the years, for instance, I have gotten to know some veteran musicians from that great musical era, and I have spent precious little time talking about them.   So, let us begin today with that.

Gene Beecher was an elderly gentleman I had the privelege of meeting back years ago when I was a security officer at Carpenter's Home in Lakeland, FL.   Gene lived in what was called Carpenter's Estates, a large retirement condo adjacent to the old Carpenter's Home Church campus, and when he lived there he was well into his 80's.   By the time Gene had moved to Carpenter's, he had more or less taken up a form of painting called "naive art," which was also the style that the late Grandma Moses painted.   Although somewhat bizarre and odd pictures, they nevertheless have a following, and this type of painting to this day still has its afficianados.   Gene gave me one of his originals a few years before he passed away, a picture of a creature vaguely resembling a cat.  I still have that too, as it may be worth something one day.   However, although Gene and I got to know each other well, and we spent evenings at the lobby desk talking about a number of topics - Gene was well-read, and although not college-degreed, he nonetheless qualified as an intellectual regardless - come to find out in his heyday (late 1930's) Gene led a dance band in the Cleveland area, and he shared a lot of that with me.  Some years later, I actually found one of his old radio programs on CD from a guy in Missouri I purchase old vintage big band radio shows from, and upon listening to it I gathered that Gene, like so many Cleveland-based orchestras (Sammy Kaye, Freddy Martin, and Kay Kyser all come to mind here) was a sweet-oriented bandleader.  Later, you wouldn't know that from talking to him, as his tastes were more preferable to Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton than they were toward Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo, but that was one of the many things that fascinated me about the man.  He later passed away, I believe, in 2001 at the age of 93, and I miss the guy as he became a dear friend.  But, his son "Inky" carries on his legacy today, as he manages his dad's artwork - some of those bizarre paintings can fetch as much as $1200 now, I found out!

In 2004, I met another famous icon of the era, more so than Mr. Beecher was.   I was working on Clearwater Beach as an administrative assistant for a title company when I found out one of the residents at the condo we were conducting closings on was none other than Connie Haines.   As some of my fellow big band afficianados will be aware, Connie Haines was the girl singer with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra back in the early 1940's, and she share vocal duties with Dorsey's then-youthful featured boy singer, one Francis Albert Sinatra of Hoboken, NJ.   Meeting this great lady in person, who then was 84 years old and in declining health but still very active, was the highlight of my week.  My boss, knowing my interest in the music, arranged for me to assist in her title closing, and we did that at her condo, which was a treat.   Her place was like a museum, with all the gold records, pictures with celebs, and other memorabilia.   It was good I got to see her then, because less than 3 years later she had passed away, but not before she blessed me with a copy of her biography, written by Richard Grudens and entitled Snooty Little Cutie.  It was a fond experience though all the way around.

I have thought about doing my own history of the big dance bands,  but to be honest it would be complicated.  Reason is, it is just overwhelming the history and information I have learned from my 30-plus years of collecting this great stuff.  I have read the "canonical" big band books, things such as George T. Simon's The Big Bands, Leo Walker's Wonderful Era of the Great Dance Bands, and Albert McCarthy's The Dance Band Era, all of which are part of my library as well as of course Brian Rust's monumental American Dance Band Discography, a valuable - albeit expensive! - but rare resource that chronicles practically every record of every big band that ever existed up to about 1942 or so.   Recording-wise, I have in my possession the "Holy Grail" of big band collections too, the Franklin Mint Greatest Recordings of the Big Band Era, a monster collection that was released in the early 1980's consisting of 100 red-vinyl LP's featuring about 250 orchestras.  Thank God for EBay with that one!  That, along with my collection of around 900 other LP's and about 1100 CD's, gives me a rare perspective on the music.  In all my listening and research, I have seen various theories as to who was the first actual dance band.  Some writers say Art Hickman deserves the title, while others say Wilbur Sweatman, and still others say James Reese Europe.   However, as it turns out, there were big dance bands long before any of these were making records, and the one person who sticks out to me is Will Marion Cook, an African-American composer/bandleader/playwright who had one of the first touring big bands back in the 1880's.  It is quite unfortunate that he was around too early for recordings (although cylinders did exist, and that would be some find to have Will Marion Cook's original music on one!), but he is the guy I personally feel from whom evolved the whole big band genre.   And, good reason for it - he groomed and developed the musicianship of both Sydney Bichet and Duke Ellington, which in itself is fascinating.  I would go as far as to say that without a Will Marion Cook, there would have been no Duke Ellington.   Cook's impact on the style that would later make Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Lawrence Welk (along with hundreds of others) household names is one of the most understated footnotes in American popular music, yet it is something that I feel is vital.  Some may disagree with my hypothesis on that, and that is OK - we all appreciate good music enough to debate the fact, so that is cool - but it just makes sense to me to trace the evolution of big dance bands back to Will Marion Cook.

Another thing that I feel has been under-documented is the ethnic contribution to the big bands.  Klezmer, polkas, etc., have contributed richly to the big band experience, and although purists on both sides of the fence differ with that somewhat, the fact cannot be denied.   Polka, in particular, has been oft-overlooked, and this despite the fact that "Whoopie John" Wilfahrt and Harold Loeffelmacher's Six Fat Dutchmen, both of New Ulm, MN, had for all intents and purposes big bands that played polkas!  Then, there is German-born Will Glahe, as well as my fellow Tucker County native Frankie Yankovic - not to mention modern "polka king" Jimmy Sturr, who has in my estimation done more to preserve big band music than many today have.  Polkas have been an integral part of big bands for a long time (Lawrence Welk come to mind?  Remember, he was a polka musician before he was a sweet bandleader!)  and being polkas are a dance, and orchestras play them for dance music, it is only logical to conclude that polka bands - especially those of the 1920's-1950's - were big bands for all intents and purposes.  And, personally, polka music is what introduced me to the big bands, and they have always been intertwined as far as I am concerned.   Again, some may respectfully disagree, and that's fine - again, people can appreciate good music from different perspectives on it. 

I honestly need to address something else too - I hate rock music, and to me anyone who has good taste and a discerning ear cannot take that crap seriously.  I know some will disagree with that too, but in that case I don't give a rat's behind - it's chaotic noise with no form, no substance to it, and also is spiritually detrimental, and a person with the sense God gave a goose would have nothing to do with it, I am sorry.   I have said many times that God gave me a love of the big bands to protect me, and seeing what rock music creates in the way of values, I feel very blessed to have been shielded from its influence.  And now, they want to bring it in churches as "worship" music - please, if I didn't listen to it before I was a Christian, then why would I want my senses subjected to that garbage as a Christian??  I have dealt with the theological aspects of that on my other page, so I won't do that here.  However, I will say this - I am too good for rock music, and am not ashamed to say it.  God gave us better creativity and sensitivity to aesthetics, and we should have the good sense to exercise that gifting and tell rock music and its creators and performers to stick it where the sun don't shines.  Just my humble opinion, so take it for what you want.

That being said, I will stop rambling for today, and hopefully will see you all again soon.  Take care and God bless.