Alton Glenn Miller, born on March 1st, 1904 in Clarinda, Iowa; died on December 15th, 1944 in a plane crash over the English Channel. Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer and arranger of the swing era. He was among the most successful musicians in the United States at the time of World War II. With his "Glenn Miller Orchestra", he created world-famous titles, such as Moonlight Serenade, In the Mood, American Patrol and Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Alton Glenn Miller was born on March 1st, 1904, in the rural town of Clarinda, Iowa. There, he attended the elementary school in North Platte, Nebraska. In 1915, his parents Mattie Lou (née Cavender) and Lewis Elmer Miller moved with him to Grant City, Missouri, about the time Miller bought his first trombone with money he had earned milking cows and played in the local musical club. In 1918, his family moved again, this time to Fort Morgan, where Miller attended high school and played in the high school orchestra, which helped finance two years of his studies. In the fall of 1919, he joined the school football team "Maroon", which won the 1920 "Northern Colorado Football Conference" in American football. After graduating from high school in 1921, Miller decided to become a professional musician; in the meantime, he studied the Schillinger composition system; in the process, he composed what would become his signature tune, Moonlight Serenade, with the system’s inventor, Joseph Schillinger. After a period of study at the University of Colorado, he joined the "Ben Pollack Band" in 1926, in which he played with future stars such as Benny Goodman (then 17 years old). He left again in 1928 and moved to New York at the end of the year, where he married his childhood sweetheart Helen Burger (1902-1966). From 1929 to 1937 he played as an independent trombonist with Red Nichols, Benny Goodman, Ray Noble's American Band, and the Dorsey Brothers. Miller made recordings for Columbia with his first independent band in 1937 (Solo Hop, April 1935, Miller's first hit, reaching #7), Brunswick (Doin' the Jive, which uses rap-like chanting to explain the titular dance, dated November 29, 1937), and Decca. The band broke up that same year due to huge competition. Disappointed, Miller returned to New York and worked from then on as an arranger to create his "unique sound." He recorded with various lineups until he was able to place his second hit on the national charts in the spring of 1938 “Every Day’s a Holiday”, which ushered in his breakthrough. He formed a new band that broke all attendance records, and eventually got a three-month contract at the Glen Island Casino on Long Island. The pay there was still not enough to ensure the band's long-term survival, but at least radio shows were broadcast regularly from the casino, publicizing Miller's new "sound," in which the clarinet led the saxophone movement (Glenn Miller movement). Miller was invited to play at ASCAP's anniversary concert at New York's Carnegie Hall in late 1939. There, music pieces such as Moonlight Serenade, Little Brown Jug and In the Mood were played. The original composition Moonlight Serenade became Miller's third number one hit. His authorship of Moonlight Serenade and In the Mood are widely known; the fact that the Glenn Miller Band formed a wide range of instrumental and vocal melodies and also added classical touches is less well known. The band played the Café Rouge at the Hotel Pennsylvania in 1940; gigs at the Wardham Park Hotel in Washington, and other cities followed in the summer of that year. The classics Pennsylvania 6-5000 and Tuxedo Junction were released that same year; Chattanooga Choo Choo and String of Pearls in 1941. Glenn Miller did not compose any of these hits himself, except for Moonlight Serenade. One of his greatest hits, In the Mood, was written by composer Joe Garland. His first record sold poorly because he recorded the same music on it as swing king Benny Goodman. Glenn Miller won the first Golden Record in music history on February 10, 1942 for the song Chattanooga Choo Choo, which he also performed with his orchestra in the feature film Adopted Happiness (1941), his first film. After this comedy, he participated in Orchestra Wives with his band the following year. In the meantime, the United States had entered World War II. Miller, who was an avowed opponent of Nazism, resigned from his orchestra in February 1942, despite his great success, and after overcoming some bureaucratic hurdles due to his advanced age of 38, joined the U.S. Navy and subsequently the Air Force in order to support the war effort. With the rank of captain, he led the Army Air Force Orchestra, which was clearly more jazz-oriented than his previous, more commercially oriented “big band”. This was due in no small part to outstanding arrangers such as Jerry Gray, who was able, among other things, to integrate the “Army Air Force Orchestra” string section seamlessly into the big band sound - no easy task for a jazz arranger. Jerry Gray's most spectacular arrangement was most probably American Patrol, appropriately billed as "And now, here's the biggest tune of the books!” Miller was in London during the German V1 and V2 rocket attacks. Numerous “Army Air Force Band” performance recordings were taped at Abbey Road Studios, some with live BBC London broadcasts called "Wehrmacht Hour" with German-speaking announcer Ilse Weinberger. The mono recordings made there are of excellent quality and reflect the orchestra’s high standard. After Paris had been liberated by the Allies, the "Army Air Force Orchestra" was to perform at the Olympia in December 1944. However, Glenn Miller unfortunately died beforehand, under circumstances that have yet to be clarified.It is believed that his plane to France on December 15, 1944, was hit in dense fog over the English Channel, when British bombers were getting rid of their bomb load. About 138 four-engine Lancasters of RAF Bomber Command’s No. 3 Bomber Group returned with a full bomb load; the attack on the German town of Siegen had been called off because the fighters assigned to protect the bombers could not take off due to of bad weather. Un-dropped bombs in enemy flight were usually dropped over the English Channel during the return flight at that time, since landing with the explosive load would have been too dangerous. Navigator Fred Shaw watched the falling bombs and saw a small, single-engine Noorduyn Norseman propeller plane directly under the hail of bombs. Since Glenn Miller's plane was on a reverse course from London to Paris at the time, it is very likely that Miller was on this plane. During large-scale raids with hundreds of bombers in close formation, accidents occurred not only because planes touched or collided with each other, but also because lower-flying - mostly their own - planes were hit by dropped bombs from the higher-flying ones or parts of the wings broke off. The wreckage of the civilian aircraft Noorduyn Norseman has never been found. During the Battle of Britain and the war years that followed, numerous aircraft crashed into the English Channel and sank to the bottom, where they remain to this day. The report that Miller was missing over the Channel was announced on Christmas Eve 1944.
(Miller's name is listed on the “Wall of the Missing” at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial).
Legend building:
Similar to other music stars who died at an early age, there are many versions and rumors about Miller's death. Each party in the war propagated his death circumstances to their own advantage. Due to the turmoil of war, the facts are scarce and partly contradictory, which promotes the creation of legends. There is little reliable material in the accessible archives, which also leads to the assertion that this had been intentional. At that time, millions of people had died in the war and the crash or disappearance of a single airplane was nothing out of the ordinary. A special public investigation according to today's standards was not initiated, because from authorities’ point of view there were more urgent tasks during the war. Contemporary, local witnesses who could have contributed substantial clarification at that time would be around 100 years old today or deceased. Therefore, reliable findings about the true circumstances of the musician's death seem almost impossible.
More theories:
Several death theories are circulating: Glenn Miller did not die in a plane crash, but of lung cancer. This is said to have been suppressed because he had been playing a radio program sponsored by a large tobacco company until 1942; however, it is unlikely. In the first place, the connection between lung cancer and cigarette smoking was not generally known at the time and - at least in the United States and the United Kingdom - had not yet been scientifically proven. Another theory is "crash due to wing icing," which is a possibility, based on the weather conditions on the day of the crash.
Incidentally, airspace over the English Channel was under the air dominion of the Allied air forces at that time. This and the fact that no German fighter pilot was in this airspace nor claimed an air victory for that area are indications that a crash due to a hostile attack is unlikely. Even the film The Glenn Miller Story, which actually takes quite a bit of biographical liberty, sticks to the official cause of death: the undocumented plane crash.
Successful musician and businessman:
Glenn Miller was a perfectionist in his arrangements, which he either wrote or co-wrote, as well as a gifted businessman. His band was organized like an enterprise: the musicians were insured and stagehands hired by the orchestra. There was also a public relations department. This was all done in a socially responsible manner; a model that many bands later followed. Miller was headstrong and often acted upon partiality. Several talented musicians left his orchestra when they could not cope with his character. Glenn Miller had been married since 1928. According to his biographer George T. Simon, the only point of contention with his wife Helen was how to hang the toilet paper rolls. The "Glenn Miller Orchestra”
Source: Glenn Miller Archive University of Colorado Boulder, Wikipedia
A Portrait of Captain Glenn Miller
