A Salute to the Golden Age of American Popular Music

We salute the music from Broadway, Hollywood, New Orleans, Tin Pan Alley and the "melody makers;" i.e. the bands and singers that brought the music to us via the radio, recordings and live events in the period from the 1920's to the 1960's. This is the golden period of Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Larry Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy Van Heusen, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, etc.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Charlie Spivak's band was owned by Glenn Miller?


Bandleader Charlie Spivak is remembered for playing a brilliant open horn, which press agents called the sweetest trumpet" in the world.

In reading about Charlie and his start as a bandleader, after a number of years as a sideman in Ben Pollock's band with Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, plus Ray Nobles's band (created by Glenn Miller) and others, we are once again confronted with the question of "Who actually owned many of the Big Bands?"

Tommy Dorsey, for example, "loaned" Glenn Miller the funds to start his second band. The story goes that when Glenn went to pay Dorsey back....Tommy said "pay me back!...I bought a piece of your band!" Glenn politely said "no way."

Now we find Glenn in a reverse role with Charle Spivak. Glenn was one of Charlie Spivak's close friends, whom he could turn to for advice on being a bandleader. When Spivak organized his own group in late 1939, Glenn Miller not only helped select the band members, but also financed the band according to one of Spivak's singers, Gary Stevens.(died age 93 on 12/8/2009) .

Did Miller now own a piece of the Spivak band? Anyone have more info?




Shop for big band music: Memory Lane Shop

No comments:

Post a Comment