The Modernaires
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The Modernaires
The Modernaires was an American vocal group, best known for performing in the 1940s alongside Glenn Miller. Career The Modernaires began in 1934 as "Don Juan, Two and Three," a trio of schoolmates from Lafayette High School in Buffalo, New York. The members were Hal Dickinson, Chuck Goldstein, and Bill Conway. (Jay Warner, in his book ''American Singing Groups: A History from 1940s to Today'', wrote, "They called themselves Three Weary Willies". He added that the trio performed as Don Juan and Two and Three when they "headed for New York in the mid-'30s".) After singing on radio station WGR in Buffalo, New York, for "the enormous sum of $10 a month", the trio went to New York City and gained an engagement of 26 weeks on CBS network radio. The group's first engagement was at Buffalo's suburban Glen Falls Casino, with the Ted Fio Rito Orchestra. Fio Rito also used them on electrical transcription recordings. They then joined the Ozzie Nelson Band, and became known as "The Th ...
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Club Fifteen
''Club Fifteen'' is a radio program in the United States that featured popular music. It was broadcast weeknights (except for a two month hiatus each summer) 30 June 1947 – 21 December 1951. Then, it aired Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights until 16 January 1953.Cox, Jim. (2012). ''Musicmakers of Network Radio: 24 Entertainers, 1926–1962''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . Pp. 73-74. The name reflected the program's length—15 minutes. ''The Historical Dictionary of Old-Time Radio'' noted that the show "is sometimes listed as ''Bob Crosby's Club Fifteen'' because Bob Crosby was the original star, although Dick Haymes took over in 1949-50." The program was sponsored by Campbell Soups. Format Media historian Jim Cox commented that in ''Club Fifteen'', "Crosby followed a pattern that he had perfected a dozen years earlier, being the front man with the easygoing, laid-back technique, quick to defer to others in the cast." Musical selections formed the core of each broadcast, sup ...
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Fred Waring
Fredrick Malcolm Waring Sr. (June 9, 1900 – July 29, 1984) was an American musician, bandleader, and radio and television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing". He was also a promoter, financial backer and eponym of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric blender on the market. Biography Fredrick Malcolm Waring was born in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, on June 9, 1900, to Jesse Calderwood and Frank Waring. During his teen years, Waring, his brother Tom ''(né'' Thomas Lincoln Waring; 1902–1960), and their friend Poley McClintock founded the Waring-McClintock Snap Orchestra, which evolved into Fred Waring's Banjo Orchestra. The band often played at fraternity parties, proms, and dances, and achieved local success. Waring attended Penn State University, where he studied architectural engineering. He aspired to be in the Penn State Glee Club, but he was rejected with every audition. His Banjo Orchestra became ...
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(I've Got A Gal In) Kalamazoo
"(I've Got a Gal in) Kalamazoo" is a #1 popular song recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in 1942. It was written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren and published in 1942. It was featured in the musical film '' Orchestra Wives'' and was recorded by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, featuring Tex Beneke, Marion Hutton and The Modernaires, who released it as an A side 78 in 1942, 27934-A. The B side was " At Last". Background The song popularized the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Although originally recorded by the Glenn Miller band with Tex Beneke on lead vocals, it was recreated by the fictional Gene Morrison Orchestra performing as the Glenn Miller Band and the Nicholas Brothers (performing the song as part of a dance sequence) in the 1942 20th Century Fox movie '' Orchestra Wives''.Lyrics, Glenn Miller "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo". The song was nominated for Best Music, Original Song at the Academy Awards, Harry Warren (music), Mack Gordon (lyrics). See also Boom Shot ( ...
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Elmer's Tune
"Elmer's Tune" is a 1941 big band and jazz standard written by Elmer Albrecht, Dick Jurgens and Sammy Gallop. Glenn Miller and his Orchestra and Dick Jurgens and his Orchestra both charted with recordings of the composition. Background Elmer Albrecht originally composed the song in the early 1920s. At the time, he was a student at the Worsham College of Embalming in Chicago and worked at Louis Cohen’s funeral parlor on Clark Street. According to Albrecht, he originally worked out the tune on a piano in a back room of the funeral parlor which at the time held the corpses of twelve men killed in Chicago’s Tong Wars. Over the years, Albrecht, who continued to work as an embalmer, played the tune in honky-tonks and small night clubs around Chicago. He offered it to Ted Weems, who turned it down. Then, in February 1941, he approached Dick Jurgens, whose band had a residency at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom. Albrecht worked nearby and had an arrangement to use one of the pianos at ...
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Tex Beneke
Gordon Lee "Tex" Beneke ( ; February 12, 1914 – May 30, 2000) was an American saxophonist, singer, and bandleader. His career is a history of associations with bandleader Glenn Miller and former musicians and singers who worked with Miller. His band is also associated with the careers of Eydie Gormé, Henry Mancini and Ronnie Deauville. Beneke also solos on the recording the Glenn Miller Orchestra made of their popular song " In The Mood" and sings on another popular Glenn Miller recording, " Chattanooga Choo Choo". Jazz critic Will Friedwald considers Beneke to be one of the major blues singers who sang with the big bands of the early 1940s. Early life Beneke was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He started playing saxophone when he was nine, going from soprano to alto to tenor saxophones and staying with the latter. His first professional work was with bandleader Ben Young in 1935, but it was when he joined the Glenn Miller Orchestra three years later that his career hit its s ...
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Chattanooga Choo-Choo
"Chattanooga Choo Choo" is a 1941 song written by Mack Gordon and composed by Harry Warren. It was originally recorded as a big band/swing tune by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra and featured in the 1941 movie '' Sun Valley Serenade''. It was the first song to receive a gold record, presented by RCA Victor in 1942, for sales of 1.2 million copies. Background The song was an extended production number in the 20th Century Fox film '' Sun Valley Serenade''. The Glenn Miller recording, RCA Bluebird B-11230-B, became the No. 1 song across the United States on December 7, 1941, and remained at No. 1 for nine weeks on the ''Billboard Best Sellers'' chart. The flip side of the single was " I Know Why (And So Do You)", which was the A side. The song opens up with the band, sounding like a train rolling out of the station, complete with the trumpets and trombones imitating a train whistle, before the instrumental portion comes in playing two parts of the main melody. This is followed b ...
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Perfidia
"Perfidia" (Spanish for "perfidy", meaning ''faithlessness'', ''treachery'' or ''betrayal'') is a 1939 Spanish-language song written by Mexican composer and arranger Alberto Domínguez (1906–1975). The song is sung from the perspective of a man whose lover has left him. The song has also been recorded in English (with lyrics by Milton Leeds) and as an instrumental. Recordings *The song became a hit for Xavier Cugat on the Victor label in 1940. *In late 1960, a rock instrumental version of "Perfidia" was released by the Ventures, which rose to number 15 on the Billboard chart. The record was a Top 10 hit on a number of popular music radio stations, including KYA in San Francisco, KLIF Dallas, KOL Seattle, KDWB Minneapolis, WHK Cleveland, KIMN Denver, and KISN Portland. The record topped out at number 11 on the charts of WLS Chicago, and WIBG Philadelphia. Other recordings "Perfidia" has been recorded by many artists, including: * Anne Shelton * Laurel Aitken *D ...
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Sun Valley Serenade
''Sun Valley Serenade'' is a 1941 musical film directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and starring Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller, Milton Berle, and Lynn Bari. It features the Glenn Miller Orchestra as well as dancing by the Nicholas Brothers. It also features Dorothy Dandridge, performing "Chattanooga Choo Choo", which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1996, and was awarded the first Gold Record for sales of 1.2 million. 20th Century Fox re-released the film in 1946 and in 1954 to tie-in with the biopic ''The Glenn Miller Story''. Plot Ted Scott ( John Payne) is a band pianist whose publicity manager decides that, for good press, the band should adopt a foreign refugee. The band goes to Ellis Island to meet the girl and soon discovers that the refugee isn't a 10-year-old child, but a young woman, Karen Benson (Sonja Henie). The surprise comes right before the band is to travel to Sun Valley, Idaho, for a Christmas event. W ...
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WBBR
WBBR (1130 AM) is a Class A clear-channel radio station licensed to New York, New York. It serves as the flagship station of Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg L.P.'s radio service. The station offers general and financial news reports 24-hours a day, along with local information and interviews with corporate executives, economists, and industry analysts. WBBR broadcasts at 50,000 watts, the maximum authorized power for AM stations, from a four-tower antenna array located in Carlstadt, New Jersey. A single tower is used during the day, at night, power is fed to all four towers in a directional pattern to protect KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, the other Class A station at 1130 AM. Even with this restriction, it can be heard across much of the Eastern United States and Canada, but is strongest in the Northeast. Studios are located at 731 Lexington Avenue ("Bloomberg Tower") in Midtown Manhattan. History Early years as WNEW: 1930s–1940s WNEW was created by consolidation of two e ...
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Big Band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands. Big bands started as accompaniment for dancing. In contrast to the typical jazz emphasis on improvisation, big bands relied on written compositions and arrangements. They gave a greater role to bandleaders, arrangers, and sections of instruments rather than soloists. Instruments Big bands generally have four sections: trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and a rhythm section of guitar, piano, double bass, and drums. The division in early big bands, from the 1920s to 1930s, was typically two or three trumpets, one or two trombones, three or four sa ...
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Martin Block
Martin Block (February 3, 1903 – September 18, 1967) was an American disc jockey. It is said that Walter Winchell invented the term "disc jockey" as a means of describing Block's radio work. Career Early years A native of Los Angeles, Block began working in radio in Tijuana, Mexico; before that, he sold small household items and appliances. At the age of only 13, he became an office boy at General Electric. When his career had stalled in Los Angeles, Block moved his family to New York; he was only there for a week before he got an announcing job. Block came up with two famous advertising slogans for his sponsors: "ABC-Always Buy Chesterfield" for Liggett & Myers and "LSMFT"-Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco" for Lucky Strike. He was also an avid amateur radio operator with a large station at his home in Englewood, New Jersey. Career break: Make Believe Ballroom In 1934, Block went to work for WNEW at a salary of $20 per week. In 1935, while listeners to New York's ...
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