Glenn Miller - I Sustain the Wings

...In June 1943, Miller and his AAF band began a weekly radio series, "I Sustain the Wings," broadcast coast to coast on NBC..."

That's where we left off last week. Today we cover the rest of the story. Glenn Miller became Captain Glenn Miller. He had applied to the army but they weren't interested in a commissioned swing band. The air force went for it and it is their name that graces all of his acetates and the CDs now made from them.  

In December of 1942 Captain Glenn Miller served initially in the Army Air Forces Southeast Training Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery. He found time to play on air at both WAPI-AM in Birmingham and WSFA-AM in Montgomery. In March of 1943 he was transferred to Yale University in New Haven. At that base he formed a marching band. There at Woolsley hall they did six broadcasts for I sustain the wings." the first was May 29th. This band shared members with his later broadcast orchestra. He began performing weekly on the program "I sustain the wings" NBC series live at the Vanderbilt Theater in New York. Nonetheless Victor records began recording this new band and releasing V-discs. The American Federations of Musicians (AFM) were on strike, but even union musicians were allowed to record V-discs for the troops. 

 These releases were popular despite their misgivings so permission came to form his big-ass 50 piece band and go to England in the summer of 1944. In his absence other AAF orchestras filled in on the radio program. While in England he continued to broadcast from the BBC and he was promoted to major. His band recorded 20 songs the week of December 3rd 1944 then he went MIA. On December 15th he was declared officially missing in action. He was flying from an RAF base in England to Paris for a gig. Theories vary. He may have crashed. He may have been shot down by either Germans or the English. German propaganda newspapers said that he died of a heart attack in the arms of a French hooker. In 1985 divers found what they think was Miller's Norseman C-64 aircraft off the coast of France. The most accepted theory is that his plane wandered into a no-fly zone and was accidentally bombed by a British plane dropping it's payload to save fuel. Chris Valenti requested documents from the Miller files at the Air Force and posted them online here. 

After Miller's disappearance, his band continued to play for Allied personnel. They toured Germany well into the summer of 1945. In 1956 Millers estate allowed drummer Ray McKinley to reform the band with the miller name. Today that watered down dance orchestra continues to exist in tribute.

It's Chesterfield Time!

In 1939 Glenn Miller began His 'Moonlight Serenade' radio series for Chesterfield which aired on CBS three times a week. The civilian band’s final Chesterfield show aired on Sept. 24 1942. Harry James guested for a trumpet solo that night. If you do the math he did about 400 shows for Chesterfield. Glenn insisted that they record the programs to acetates, it's that material that I edit down to airchecks and present today. Glen played trombone in college and joined the red Nichols band in 1930. He played in orchestra pits on Broadway with gene Krupa and Benny Goodman. He was skilled enough to land a gig with the Dorsey brothers Orchestra, then the ray Noble Orchestra and he began composing some of his own works. In Dallas he formed his first band in 1937 and it tanked. He went back to New York to try again. 

 His second try did significantly better. By 1938 he was recording for Bluebird records. Even Time magazine noticed how many jukeboxes his records were in. Some of these 78s sole more than 100,000 copies in the first week. That's huge. 

Those numbers got him a CBS deal and a Chesterfield Cigarettes sponsorship. The program ran on Tuesday through Thursday at 10 p.m. The original program paired his orchestra with The Andrews Sisters, but they stayed with the program for only the first 13 weeks; after that Glenn was on his own. The program did very well. Regular guests included The Modernaires, Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke and Ray Erberle. Don Wilson was usually the announcer but in the early days paul Douglas also did the honors. Those first shows came from a CBS playhouse on 53rd street in New York City, but a string of shows in 1939 were live at the Cafe Rouge of The Hotel Pennsylvania. They moved the show to Chicago and the Civic theatre, then back to New York. 

In 1943 WWII broke out. Jazz became a point of American pride. Japan formally banned the genre. Miller decided to join the military as a musician. He sought and received a military commission and started his 45-piece Army Air Force Orchestra. His last Chesterfield show was held at the Central Theater in Passaic, N.J. After three years together the night was ta tad emotional. Vocalist Marion Hutton walked off stage in tears. Most of the orchestra was drunk. Chesterfield moved on and started the the Chesterfield Supper Club on NBC with the Ted Steele Orchestra and Perry Como. Miller went through basic training, and could only select other cadets for the orchestra. In June 1943, Miller and his AAF band began a weekly radio series, "I Sustain the Wings," broadcast coast to coast on NBC. I'll lay out that 2nd half of the story another day.