Listening to "Big Band" music

I know this is a beer place I"m a little, make that two sheets to the wind drunk. Sitting in my garage, aka the mancave Nice rain coming down outside, listening to The Glen Miller Band, Count Bassie, Frand Sinatra..etc

Good.

Love The Glen Miller Band.

Awesome. I grew up on big band. I get "in the mood" for it every now and then.

You should seek out recordings with Nelson Riddle or Billy May as the arranger/bandleader. Wickit cool stuff.

Having played in a couple local big/jazz/swing bands, I always have a soft spot for that music.

Not a thing wrong with it Dan. In fact, I frequently listen when I'm sober!

I can listen to anything. I like everything from bluegrass to heavy metal. All depends what frame of mind I'm in. Nothing wrong with big band.

Big Band music is wonderful. Always reminds me of my grandma who loved to tell stories about how she would go dancing at a club called Merrie Gardens (in Chicago) back in the late 1930s

Mermaid said:

Big Band music is wonderful. Always reminds me of my grandma who loved to tell stories about how she would go dancing at a club called Merrie Gardens (in Chicago) back in the late 1930s

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That sounds wondeful. I love hearing stories from our elders. Their life seemed so much more simpler. I guess it is all relative.

I'd like to say I love Big Band music, but I had the fortune to listen to about 2 hours of it while I cooked pancakes for my kids' Band Boosters Breakfast benefit and I enjoyed it for about 5 minutes. At least some of the tunes were catchy. BWBB of Company B, etc.

I guess it beats Country...

Homercidal said:

I'd like to say I love Big Band music, but I had the fortune to listen to about 2 hours of it while I cooked pancakes for my kids' Band Boosters Breakfast benefit and I enjoyed it for about 5 minutes. At least some of the tunes were catchy. BWBB of Company B, etc.

I guess it beats Country...

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Maybe this was a marching band? That is something completely different. If it was a "standard" big band, I don't think I'd want to listen to a bunch of kids trying to swing either.

Check out the three records (two studio, one live) Sinatra made with Basie's band. There's not a drummer alive who swings harder than Sonny Payne does here. Sinatra's singing's as loose as it ever was.

This is about as good as it gets, IMO.


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I stumbled across a YouTube link for Glenn Miller. It links to 60 of his songs that play one right after the other. I'm listening to the music, page minimized and working on my kegorator redesign.

Which will just be a bigger version of my old one and have four taps, two cheapies and 2 Perlick 525SS and enough room inside for six kegs. Simple but I like it. It will still stay in the garage with the bikes. Thinking, more like dreaming of giving the garage a makeover with a Harley Davidson theme. If I had it my way the garage would be akin to an HD showroom if not for money.

Thinking about serving carbonated water from one of the cheap faucets and rootbeer out of the other, but then again that would mean another reg and more money.. Maybe I'll just dream about that one a while longer.

I haven't brewed all summer and the homebrew supply ran dry long ago. Being one to save the best things for last; tonight I cleaned the last two keg donors, QDs, beer line and disassembled the faucets (they were solidly glued closed with old beer) Cleaned the fridge and will spend the next few nights prepping it for paint and surfing the web looking for the best price on the Perlicks.

Below is a pic of my old kegerator and link to the Glenn Miller Orchestra.





Glenn Miller

I LOVE Big band music, if you like the Basie/Sinatra records, check out some of Sinatra's early stuff with Tommy Dorsey. Screaming Jay Hawkins is another favorite, although he may not be truley "big band". Louis Prima is always good too.

arturo7 said:

Maybe this was a marching band? That is something completely different. If it was a "standard" big band, I don't think I'd want to listen to a bunch of kids trying to swing either.

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No it was a CD (or iPod) with Big Band tunes and some swing stuff.

The next year the new band director has some of the kids play their solo and ensemble stuff though.

FWIW I loaded up a Glen Miller Best of playlist in Spotify and I'm checking it out again. We'll see....

I forgot to mention that both band directors played trombone in school, so they were very much into brass instrumentation.

We are very fortunate here in SoCal to have an excellent Big Band broadcast. "The Swingin' Years," airs every Sat and Sun from 6-10 AM. Chuck Cecil, the host, has a ginourmous collection of recordings and interviews from the era.


You can stream it if you are so inclined...
http://www.jazzandblues.org/programming/hosts/bios/?host=Chuck Cecil

New age Big Band - Simply Great!

Setzer has a fine band. Please do not sue the term "New Age" to describe it. That is an entirely different, and hideous, beast.


(sorry, I get hung up on semantics)

I'm not a big band fan, but it has my respect. I would listen to some if there were more time.

On Sunday mornings, tune into the online stream from the Milwaukee School of Engineering's radio station, WMSE. The host, a guy named Dewey Gill, puts on three hours of the best Big Band music you've ever heard.

Sometimes he plays from his huge record collection and comes on between songs to draw from his vast knowledge about the bands. Sometimes he plays old recordings of radio shows, like USO shows with the Jackie Gleason orchestra, etc. Sometimes he throws in old commercials. (Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble choose Winston cigarettes, build your new home for $5,000, etc.)

Anyway, WMSE.org, Sundays from 9-noon CST.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

I'm not a big band fan, but it has my respect. I would listen to some if there were more time.

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Holy snot, he's back!

arturo7 said:

Holy snot, he's back!

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I've made a life altering decision to stay away from the debate forum (Where I'm a bit of a dick) to post in the general threads, where I'm a different type of dick.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

I'm not a big band fan, but it has my respect. I would listen to some if there were more time.

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Exactly. You can't listen to it and not know that each player has an incredible talent with their instrument.

Although I got through that Glen Miller playlist without falling asleep (barely), I don't have any impulse to load up any more.

To be honest, I kinda thought that it would be a great choice of music to listen to while buzzed.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

I've made a life altering decision to stay away from the debate forum (Where I'm a bit of a dick) to post in the general threads, where I'm a different type of dick.

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What do you mean, different kind? Like Jewish dick vs Catholic dick? You know, turtleneck vs V-neck?

Homercidal said:

What do you mean, different kind? Like Jewish dick vs Catholic dick? You know, turtleneck vs V-neck?

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Haha! Well, in the sense that you are refering to, I am still very un-American.

On the debate forum, I guess i just can't get past the me me me attitude of the bulk of posters.....So here I am again.

Some of the Glenn Miller arrangements were kinda watered down for the masses...

arturo7 said:

Some of the Glenn Miller arrangements were kinda watered down for the masses...

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Agreed.

arturo7 said:

Some of the Glenn Miller arrangements were kinda watered down for the masses...

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Um, nobody got more watered down than Glenn miller. I blame the aeroplane.

Can't let this thread pass without throwing in a plug for my man Artie Shaw.

His band was top notch and Artie discovered the likes of Billie Holiday, Mel Torme, and Buddy Rich.

He was the first band leader to stand up to racist club owners and hire a black lead singer (Billie Holiday). To repeat the quote, Benny Goodman played the clarinet, Artie Shaw played music.

And then at the height of his success, he had the stones to walk away from it all to study mathematics (with a big F-U to all the folks who said he was insane). The man danced to his own beat.

To top it all off, Artie got more trim than the White House rose bushes. Any man who manages to marry both Lana Turner AND Eva Gardner has my undying respect.

Great musician and a fascinating guy.

Hold on....What the hell an I doing in a big band thread!? I'll take me, and my verbal floppy poops to a thread that actually deserves to be sullied by my nonsense.

Whenever I see a reference to Billie Holiday, I think of another great Nina Simone

Know who I completely adore? Blossom Dearie. That's her real name, too.

Not only are her recordings from the '50s and '60s wonderful, she kept performing into the 2000s.