After a great weekend of hanging
with friends, including a win by my beloved Boston Bruins and the start of
another season of Ultimate it was back to work today.
I was a little nervous about how
this next disc would fare against the Monday blues, but it put me in a
positively sunny mood on the walk both to work and then home.
Disc 617 is…. The Glenn Miller Story
Artist: Glenn
Miller’s songs, but technically arranged and played here by Joseph Gershenson
and the Universal-International Orchestra and Louis Armstrong.
Year of Release: 1954, but the music
originally dates from the thirties and forties
What’s up with the Cover? I think this is a
variation on the movie poster. Glenn Miller is played by Jimmy Stewart, and I
think that’s him on the cover pretending to play the trombone.
How I Came To Know It: This is Sheila’s album. Sheila learned about him
when she watched a 1979 made-for-TV miniseries called “The Last Convertible.”
The movie is so obscure not even IMDB has a plot, but Sheila advises it was
based on a book by Anton Myrer. I looked it up and it is about five young
Harvard men, their women and (you guessed it) the car that came to symbolize
their youth.
Anyway,
the song “Moonlight Serenade”
features prominently in the miniseries so that was Sheila’s introduction to big
band music. When her paternal grandfather died she got a record from his
collection called “The Golden Age of Dance Bands” which had “Moonlight Serenade” and other Glenn
Miller remakes, all done by less famous folks.
Although
“The Golden Age of Dance Bands” is not the subject of this review, it has an
excerpt on the back describing the music that I can’t resist sharing:
“For we ‘squares’ over thirty, these
wonderful songs are a welcome relief from the monotonous din of rock and roll.
And after all – we knew how to dance in the Golden Age of Dance Bands.
Bold
words, but for all I know every dance in the forties ended like “It’s A
Wonderful Life” with everyone falling in the pool.
How It Stacks Up: This is the only Glenn Miller album we have, so it
doesn’t really stack up. Technically it is a soundtrack as well, although I
keep it under “Glenn Miller” and never thought to add it to that list. If I
had, it would have done pretty well – top third anyway, maybe around 8th.
Rating: 4 stars
I usually prefer the
aforementioned monotonous din of rock and roll to big band, but I can’t deny
this album put a smile on my face and (yes) a swing in my step.
This is music for having a good
time and not thinking too hard about why. No lyrics to distract you as with
popular music or folk songs, and nothing too mathematically complex to muddle
your frontal lobes like you get with classical. This is just melody-driven
whimsy, where the horn section drives the bus and the other instruments are
along for the ride.
As with pop music, the ability to
consistently write a good hook should not be casually dismissed. It is hard
work, yet every song on “The Glenn Miller Story” has a hook so memorable that
these same songs are still routinely used in movies to establish a mood. These
songs have been like old friends to generation after generation for going on 75
years now. While they aren’t as popular now as they once were, when you hear “Moonlight Serenade” or “In The Mood” you instantly know it, even
if you can’t name the song off the top of your head.
Also, while not the original band,
the artists brought together for “The Glenn Miller” story do a great job with
the material. Conductor Joseph Gershenson was a Hollywood legend at the time
this came out, not to mention the appearance of the great Louis Armstrong on
two songs (“Basin Street Blues” and “Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya”).
Sheila also has some other albums
from her grandparents by “101 Strings” which are an abomination to music, so
trust me when I say that even these classics could have been ruined in the
wrong hands. Instead they get the care attention and talent they deserve.
My favourites are the upbeat
numbers like “Little Brown Jug” and “In the Mood.” When the band tries to
interpret the blues (“Basin Street Blues”)
or go off on a jazz noodle (“Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya”)
they lose me a bit. Sorry, Louis Armstrong.
I also really dig “Pennsylvania 6-5000” a song
immortalizing how you used to give someone your phone number. Some government
numbers start with a 356 prefix, and I hope one day to be lucky enough to get
the phone with this number so I can tell people to call me at “Pennsylvania
6-5000.”
“Pennsylvania 6-5000” also has an early use of sound effects in
music – where a phone rings before the band sings out the song title in joyful
unison. It reminded me of the phone ringing in “Joan Crawford”
by Blue Oyster Cult, although obviously without all the overtones of undead
film stars returning from the grave to torment their children.
Then again, maybe Blue Oyster Cult cut the next line of dialogue that would come after we hear
the hoarse whisper of “Chrissstiinaah…mother’s
home…” I imagine it would
be Christina responding with “Pardon me, but
I think you have the wrong number” and then Joan Crawford’s zombie replying with an indignant, “What! Is this
Pennsylvania 6-5000? Operator?” And cue the horn section.
But I digress…
Back to the album, which was a lot
of fun, despite Glenn Miller’s music sounding a little staid to the modern era
at times (someone suggested to me today that the music needs more ‘pelvic
thrusts’ which I think was an apt, if graphic, description). That said, when
jazz gets too out there it loses me. I like the energy and composition of
Miller’s music. He's more interested in giving you a pretty song than
impressing you with how complicated he can make it, and that swing rhythm can
give you plenty of kicks below the waistline, sunshine.
Best tracks: Tuxedo
Junction, Little Brown Jug, In the Mood, Pennsylvania 6-5000
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